Class #475

Full-Body Mat

50 min - Class
22 likes

Description

Join Meredith for this intermediate medium-paced class that will work your body all over. Challenge yourself to work deeply with variations on Seated Roll Up, Swimming, and Spine Stretch Forward. Strengthen with Jack Knife, Front Support with Knee Stretch, and Arm Conditioning.
What You'll Need: Mat, Hand Weights

About This Video

Jul 07, 2011
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Transcript

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Let's, um, let's start sitting today down my face this way so I can see is so just lifting up tall through the spine. Let's just close our eyes for a minute and take a moment. I need a minute. I don't situate yourself so that you're sitting right over your sitting bones. Your spine is feeling light. We'll wait. Listen, take a couple of deep breaths. Breathing in the sunshine. Oh, an exhale. Allow intention to just be free or leave the body. And as we inhale we grow a little taller and as we exhale, we just support, use the muscles to support that extra inch that we've just created in our spine in hello allowing the trunk to expand three dimensionally and exhale, allowing the ribs to generally fall down the front of the body, but at the same time increasing the length of the spine.

Let's do one more like that. Breathing in and I'm ready to open my eyes. Now you can keep your eyes closed if you wish to. But here we go. We're gonna move. Breathing in, keeping the hands just where they are and use the arms pretty strongly. XL ucms for resistance as you pull backward through your lower abdominals, flexing your spine and then we inhale, lift tall and exhale, letting the pelvis talk or pull forward or going into a posterior tilt about until the arms go straight and inhale how the arms to guide us getting taller and taller every time. Annex, exhale correct and inhale, allowing the spine to move forward and then he long gate upwards last two times like so. Excelling to curve in healing to lift. I think the breath provide us a rhythm excelling to occur.

Feeling the shoulder blades heavy down the back and inhaling to elongate through the spine. Let's reach the arms forward and make it a little bit bigger. This time rounding through the lower spine, allowing the low back potentially to come into contact with the mat. We breathe in there and breathe out as we send the chest forward. Shoulders come over the hips and then we lift tall and if you want to use your hands again, that would be inappropriate. Excelling to curl backwards, deepening the scoop of the abdominals, breathing in and breathing up as we send the chest. Towards the pelvis, creating a round shape, and then in healing as we lift the body back up last time, we're reaching forward. Exhale, curve in yelling pies, exhaling, sending the shoulders over the pelvis, letting the hands come down or not, and lifting. I'm going to reach forward when I bring the knees together, excelling as we roll back email as we pause, Xcel to curl up.

And as we set the shoulders over the head, the knees open and we lengthen. And the next hill using the inner seams of the legs to close the leg. So we roll back, pausing to intensify and excellent to come up, up, up, and reach the arms overhead. Growing the spine. Exhale, curving the spine, suppressing the inner thighs into one another. In healing, we pause. Excellent. We curl forward growing the spine, lifting up and coming back again. One more time. We curl backwards. Pausing here. Let's hang onto the legs. Let this be gentle.

At this point we're going to go into a side reach. So Deb, come towards me. I, Helen, come towards me, reaching me back on that and XLO bleak spring us home and we inhale. You can be higher in space rather than lower if that's better for you. So if this is not a comfortable position for you, choose a position in which you can feel a lot of controlled work, but you're not in a place that feels like it's straining the back or the neck. And then we come back. I like to be just at my lower back. That's where I get the best work. Let's do one more opening.

It's going to be a hotline and common back and opening and coming back and reaching the arms forward to roll up. Last time we dropped the knees open, we stretch up, pursue the spine, take the hand closest to me and just reach back. Bring the opposite arm to that outside knee and just gently lift and twist the spine. Allow the back arm to lift up. Lift the top arm up as well. Turn to center, rotating through the other side. Both hands here assist you as you just gently guide your spine in a little bit more rotation. Let the back arm lift up. Keep the spine where it is as a top arm comes up, bring yourself to center, bring the legs back together and then just rolling down towards the Mat.

You get all the way down. We're going to prepare for pelvic curl. They're just separating the feet, so their pelvis or hip bones distance apart, arms along in stray. We breathe into prepare Xcel, flattening the spine, feeling the contraction of the backsides of the legs working as we peel the body up. One bone at a a. This feels really good today. Reaching the arms along. Exhale, let the chest come through the arms without allowing the shoulders to curl forward into the chest, articulating the spine bone by bone and reaching the pelvis back into the floor so we curl again. Growing up the spine, building the spine as we lift and find that nice slant like position, gorgeous, excelling as he come down, reaching the arms energetically in the direction that the spine is traveling. Breathing in again, breathing out to first contract through the sending the spine upward, feeling the knees reach forward towards the second and first toes. Inhale and excelling to come down.

One bond following the next, following the next, and finally the pelvis comes down. Here comes our last one excelling to lift, reaching the pelvis. This time we're going to raise our arms up over the shoulders. Okay. Inhale to take the arms back over the head, pressing the hips a little higher. And XO, we stretch the arms behind us as you roll the spine into the ground all the way, bringing the arms back over the chest. Feel the shoulder blades down flat and broad as you take your arms out to your sides. I'm going to pick up one leg who are working for stability.

As we pick up the other leg. Spine twist towards the windows. We inhale and exhale and inhale. Rocking to just one side of the pelvis and excelling to pull back. Feeling that gentle rotation, warming up that lower part of the spine. Looking for the upper body, the shoulder blade area, the arms, the neck to stay really still, so just gazing straight up, keeping tension out of the shoulders, keeping the knees lined up together. You're reaching across to the opposite side.

Coming back to center last time to either side, please inhaling across to exhale income, home, and even healing across to exhale and come home. Finding Center, placing the feet down one by one ribbon the elbows. Placing the hands behind the head, coming into the chest lift, so allowing the Abos to be just in the periphery, in your periphery. Curl the head and chest forward. Pausing near India. Let go. Guide your hands behind your sides.

Look for neutral pelvis as you try to increase the flection of your spine. Letting go with the arms. We take the arms all the way back. Interlock the fingers again. Place the hands back behind the head and release the spine down with control. Excelling to curl the head and chest stuff.

Feel a little bit of tension through the backs of the legs, meaning inhale, reach forward. Let the heels pull back so you feel a little bit of hamstring activity or holding on the legs at this point. Then we let go. We try to lift higher as our arms go back. We rebuild the elbows, hands behind the head, and we come old the way back to the ground. When you do that pattern. One more time. Excelling to lift. Inhale to reach forward and use the arms to help you increase the depth of your abdominal work and then let the arms come way back there.

Rebound the elbows holding here. Yeah, so it's like I'm down. All right. Creating some changes, but we're going to start the same way. Lifting the head and chest. Hands behind the thighs. Curl a little higher, the seat together. Slide the feet a little bit closer to your hips so they're quite close to your pelvis.

We're going to let go and we're going to bring the knees towards the chest. There's our exhale. Inhale, allow the legs to reach down. Just tap. You could always support your head with your hands and release down and pull and released him and pull back and I can do about two more pulling, Huh? And one more. And pulling up. Holding here. Reach behind the FI's again. Once again, we use the power of our arms to find a stronger contraction in our abdominals. Letting go. Again. We're going to take the right arm up, the left leg down, little coordination exercise, and then change and change and change and change.

So you've got opposite arm and leg reaching away from one and holding center and stable through the or body. We're gonna go two and one. Let's bring both legs up, both arms down and allow the head and chest to come back to the ground. Exhale, we curl our chest back. Once again, wrap the hands around the thighs. Just give yourself that moment of lifting. We're going to take the leg furthest away from me and let it come to the ground. Take that outside hand. Reach it across.

So you're holding the leg closest to me pretty firmly in your hands. And then press yourself. I've got my outside hand just underneath that outside me and my underneath, hand underneath, underneath and underneath it. And then we change. I'm pushing and I'm pushing. I'm pushing myself around into that rotation, but I'm also pushing my leg a little bit into my hands.

So it's both the arms and the legs are working. Okay. [inaudible] change. Creating a deep and a big and a strong rotation through the body. We're going to do three more. Here's three, two and two coming up to one and one. Send yourself back to center both arms straight ahead and lower the head.

Ingest down. Inhaling here ribs are on the ground. We exhale to left. Pause for an inhale. Stretch the legs out. For the a hundred it's exhale, two, three, four, five and in and XL two, three, four, five and in two three you could always bend the knees. You could always just allow your head to come down. It's hard to keep the legs up without even without even lifting the head.

[inaudible] pressing the air out of the lungs on the exhale, filling up on the inhale. Last for two, three pressing from the back and three, two, three, four, five. Big Breath in and two to three. Four, five [inaudible] and one, two, three, four, five. Finishing with five. Inhale, bending the knees, chest, coming towards the legs, reaching around the knees and just hugging the knees backwards towards the chest, placing feet back down, reaching the arms. Once again, just over the shoulders. Exhale, coming up again into trunk flection or getting a little harder. Let the hands help you. We're going to take the hands one on top of one another. Just here.

We're going to reach over that outside knee and come back and reach over the other leg and come and its intention that we're finding of trying to reach away and outside of the knee. Two more to each side, a cross and cross and let the hand separate. Let the arms come down, reaching the arms overhead. The palms turn together. Just slide the legs out straight. Glide them along them for the rollout in here. The head and chest comes Xcel to curl through the spy.

Staying around, staying long. We inhale. Exhale, allowing the shoulder blades to be heavy as we just placed bone by bone into the Madigan. The head comes down, the arms, travel it overhead. Inhale the ribs present to the mat. We use the abdominals to bring our bodies up, pausing at the top, excelling to come down. Let's take that three more times. It's lift and exhale.

Breathing into the back of the body. Exhaling to come down. I left an exhale and breathing in through the back of the body. Exhaling to come down. Hmm. Excuse me. Here's our third one, our last one for now. From here, keeping that round shape in your spine, guide the feet back in towards your body. You just slide in. It's a bit harder to do on the sticky mat.

Holding onto the Shins for rolling like a ball. Shifting just behind the pelvis. We rocked back massaging the spine, balancing right behind the hips. Inhaling on the way back and exhaling on the way up to whole in healing, we take the body back and exhale. We take the body. I'm looking to mean taking a consistent shake with the body, using the abdominals to oops, just tip ourselves off balance using the depth of the abdominals to hold ourselves up in that balance position. We're going one more time. Okay, so we're going to combine this two exercises. Then it's going to go like this, letting the toes come down. You're going to stretch your legs the way they have to stay.

Pretty light on the mat. As you roll down through your Rola the head and chest come up. As we exhale, we bend the knees and pull the knees into the body. And in here it's always stress. I'm no rolling. Sorry. I can lake you. Uh, stretching at and Ha. Well, it's kind of a combination, isn't it? All right. I'm with you.

You're right. Pulling the feet up, rocking ones, putting the feet down and rolling away. Let's do that two more times. Lift and slide the feet into the body as we come up. Shifting the legs up, rocking back, rocking up, setting the feet down and stretching the body. Last one here. Lifting, guiding the feet into the body, holding on, rocking back, rocking up. And then this time just set the feet down and make your way up towards city.

Going into some spinal rotational work. I'm gonna take the hands. Let's go. Sorry, I'm making faces. I'm just trying to get my mic back on. Okay. Okay. Arms out to the sides. Today we'll start with a little bit of a bend in the knees. Deb, if you're happier to drop your knees up and that would be totally fine. Here we go. Rotate the arms, the palms up and feel how that just that rotation of the hands helps us assist into our upper back. From there it's a double twist towards the ocean.

Xcel acts out and I lift tolerance center and turning the body, focusing on the positioning of the legs so I've got my like straight with my feet flexed. If you felt better with the knees open into a v, sometimes that lets us be a little bit more free in our hip joint so that would also be a good place to be. Feel that the spine is moving, not the arms pulley, so rotation and a lift and a rotation and a left coming back a couple more times. Growing tolerant each time we come back through center coming towards me to stay. Take the hand that's furthest away and bring it to the front leg. Guide yourself a little bit higher. Reach the back hand behind you, push the chest into a little bit of upper back extension and then return to neutral ribs and pick up the back arm. Bring that other arm out to straight and come back to center. We go the other way to turn the front hand or that hand comes around first and then the hand goes to the floor lifting the chest, returning to neutral or a straight back end comes up. Front.

Arm comes around and we come all the way back. Let's just stretch forward for a moment, holding onto wherever feels comfortable to you and then bending the elbows just a little bit to guide yourself further forward into the stretch coming up from there, rolling up. Then the knees. Hands are going to come behind us. We're going to do a bridging exercise, so knees are going to be bent, arms are going to stay straight throughout and we're just going to pick up the hip. So I want you to squeeze the backs of the legs and lifts that you've created like a table shape and then just the hips down so we come straight down. Exhale into lift using the back of the legs for support and then sitting back there as you lift. Feel that the knees stay lined up with one another.

The abdominals draw down towards the ground and we sit down and lift and sit down. Last one, lifting up, opening up through the friends that they have, such to try to lift a little higher still and then sitting all the way down. Once we get there, we're going to stretch the legs out for the spine stretch, so leg straight or bent arms straight out, spine, straight. Inhale, exhale, letting the head come forward. Pulling the abdominals in the rib cage towards the spine. We stretched this fine forward. Taking it just a little further as you inhale and then exhaling as you guide the spine at building the spine from the base or the pelvis all the way up through the top of the head. Inhale and exhale.

Finding ease in the movement, reaching forward. Feeling the shoulder blades move in the opposite direction that you're taking your spine, holding on the inhale and excelling to rolling back, and we go forward looking for a little bit deeper. Stretch each time. Each time, feel the inner thighs press towards one another. Breathe in and hold. Breathe out as we lift bone by bone. Finally lifting the head and we're going to go one more time rolling ourselves, reaching forward in here. We pause, exhale, we come up and then bringing the body forward. We're going to do this.

Find the extension just a little bit differently today. So rather than having the arms come overhead, we're going to take the arms to the side as we flatten out and we're just going to come kind of in and out of it. So let's start here. We'll go down. It's probably a good idea to keep the arms just over the feet here so you don't run into them. And then inhale, press the arms to the sides, picking up the chest, lifting into a flat up Deb. That's it. And then guide the spine forward and then any a length in it, press the arms back to the side of the Helen. That's gorgeous. And then diving back down.

So from that round position we lift and then we contract through the abdominals. Closing the shank three more times reaching out and gives us a little bit more opportunity. I think for most of us, especially those of us with tight shoulders to really find those upper back extensors. And one more here, we're going to hold it. Okay. And then like you're a bird and you're going to fly away. We're just going to press the arms away and back. And as the arms move, the spine travels upward. On a diagonal. We have dominoes. Reach back for spinal support, got five and four and three.

Keep lifting the spine forward. Here's one. All we're gonna do is sit up. It should feel easy. Sit Up from their return towards me for the saw reaching down, lengthening. Now I'm coming back home and inhale to turn. Excellent. We dive forward a list up and exhale back and turn the body to reach forward to lengthen the spine out and hoe and home and turn the body to reach forward. Lengthen out and up and come home. How about two more to each side, pulling the abdominals back as the spine stretches out and back and inhale, reach lifting at home last time.

Give it all your guys lifting and back. Here it is reaching forward, lifting up and bringing ourselves to home. [inaudible] excuse me, bend the knees and these are just going to point straight out to the sides. We're going to go into just a gentle back extension. So he's kind of start where we did a in the beginning of class that the hands on the ankles was. Find your way towards neutral spine and from that place, hmm. How do I want to say it? First? Engage your abs. Just pulling back without changing the spine and then feel the shoulder blades pressing down or the hands pressing into the Shims and we just pull the chest through the arms. It's very small. You'll feel it.

I think that you might not see a lot of movement and then feel as we come back, it's like an abdominal contraction. So we keep the abdominals on no matter what. But as we go into back extension, they've got a stretch working them east central valley and then we come back just straight. I'm gonna do that three more times. Really t use your mind to tap into the muscles that you want to work. Sometimes just making pictures isn't enough. We've got to really focus on the musculature that we want to find and back last two times we lift the body growing taller, keeping the pelvis neutral. So we're bending just above the bra and back.

Here's our last one. Just see here in back extension if you can hold on and let go and let the arms reach and reach and you just get a little longer and a little longer. And then bring the arms to the side of the knees together. Holding on just to the tops of the knees. We're going to come down for our double leg, single leg stretch Chris Crops.

So here we go. [inaudible] picking up the feet, rolling down towards the Mat with the utmost control through the body. Finding our way just into that double leg stretch position. And here it is. We let go of and feel almost a lightness in the limbs by the heaviness through the trunk so that as we stretch it truly is a stretch. Stretching the LIMS away from the center of the body, the powerhouse. And then I do two more reach and back and Murray and back.

And then just reach behind the size again just for a moment, holding on. We're going to do the single leg stretch with the hands behind the head. Here we go. And just one leg and imagine that you have a wall just in front of your thighs if it doesn't come up on 90 degrees and pulls into it. Pull. So it's a pull reach and a pull reach.

We've got heavy shoulders and heavy head in the hand and we go four, three, two. Here comes our crisscross. We turned to the leg that's been coming into the body, working ourselves around through the rib cage, big rotation in the spine and turn and lifting and twisting and squeezing the legs. Tour the one another as they change from one to the other. How about two more to eat side one and one. Here comes two and two. We head back to center. We pull the knees towards the chest, let the lower limbs, lower leg, come to the hips and just place the feet down on the floor and allow the body to come to the floor. All right, separating the feet, heading into another pelvic curl coming up on the exhale, flattening through the spine, guiding the spine out away from the floor, and then imagining imprint of the spine so the neck is already down.

And then we signed the 12 bones of the upper back and then the five bones of the lower back. And finally the pelvis comes gently to contacting the ground. And we do that again. So pressing all five bones of the lower back into the ground and then they start to peel off creating space between the bones and the spine. As we lift, keep pressing the arms back into the mat using the backs of the arms for support, excelling. We curl down, reach the fingers towards the heels, big stretch through the arms, keeping the chest open. One more time like that.

We're going to hold it up at the top for a change. So once you get there, assess at the pelvis. Pubic bone is higher than the ribs. We're going to take the right leg off the ground, so just comes up into a bent knee position and then we're going to do a run, one legged pelvic curl. So we just come down looking for symmetry in the spine and then we roll up staying so steady that you would never know that one leg is in the air, so controlled, so even so fluid rolling up and rolling down and rolling up to stay. Stay there, stretch that right leg into the air and take it into the shoulder. Bridges. Exhale down and back and two supporting through the back of that left leg supporting the back of the free swinging like last five and far, reaching away out of the hip joint too. I'm the one lifting the leg up. Fold the knee in, replace the foot down on the ground, and we're going to come all the way down onto our backs. Let's try reaching, placing the sign into the mat and finally the pelvis comes down. Okay, so we go into that same series on the other leg. We curl up.

Once we arrive at the top, we just keep the right leg on the floor and float the left leg up. It's weightless coming down through the spine, mobilizing, stretching out. The Elvis comes down, we come up progressing through the back of that leg and we ruled. Yeah, and here's a place where it's real tempting to let the arms relaxed and then shoulder starts a hint, hunch up away from the ears. We're just going to use our focused energy to keep those shoulders down those arms. Nice and long. Rolling up. I think we've got one more to go here it is. Yeah.

And and here we go. We stretch the leg to the sky and it goes down and I don't reach to Paul and I'm three. So left last three lift to lift, one lift full the knee back. Police to tell them without a lot of shifting on. Here we come all the way down. Rolling the spine into the ground. Once the pelvis comes down, slide the feet a little closer to the pole. This lifting the legs to pull them into the chest.

All right, I'm going to take us through the rollover followed by the Jack Knife. If you don't want to do the jackknife stick with the rollover. If you don't want to do the rollover, just do little pelvic lifts. Okay, so we stretch the legs out at about a 60 degree angle. We lift them up so we take the body over. Inhale the abdominals, draw deeper as we flex and separate the legs. Exhale, we guide the spine into the ground.

Armstrong long supportive pointed feet. Circle the legs around. Inhale and exhale. Rollover one continuous and fluid movement. Flex separate and Pia. Mike's come together one more time. Exhale over flexing this sheet.

[inaudible] reaching energetically through the heels as we bring our body into the ground. Point the feet. Here comes the Jack Knife again, stick with the rollover shoe. It's exhale over, and then it's in Hilton. Go down and up. So you're pressing your legs away. You using the backs of the legs, the spine, the ABS, and then we peel down finding one bone at a time to work through the arms to support the shoulders. Inhale down and exhale Elf in the other legs. Go down. Up in excel. We peeled. Yeah.

Again, this [inaudible] try to find a way to f feel a little bit of movement in your body, reaching lynching, using the backs of the legs to pull the body into that vertical line and then rolling down. Oh, the way I'm gonna take it down at the bottom. Bend the knees, stretch the right leg out onto the ground. Take a hold of the left leg and we're just going to twist to our right. This is a little gentle spinal twist. Well, let me come back to center opposite leg and twist the other way.

Okay. And coming back through center from here, I'm just going to have us roll over onto our sides. Just turning and facing me. I'm going to do the side kick today on our elbow. Um, if you don't wish to be on the elbow, the forum's a great option. So if he are going into the elbow, I don't know if I want to end a little slippery. I'll go over here. Okay. It's a hot day to day for those of you who are not. Anyway, I'm just chatting with nothing to say and back. It's a double kick forward and a single reach back, keeping the body stuff, keeping the lift up out of the rib cage. Lovely.

And back and back online. It's five stretch the leg rather than just move it right. It pulls out of the head and three and two and when and then holding the leg back. We're going to put that top arm down and come up onto the forearm and I do a leg circle here, a half leg circle anyway, instead of big leg arc, I'm going to take the leg back. No roll through the hip joint. Bring the leg up in four times and then up half a leg circle. Yeah, I did too. I just said that you were listening. You heard me? Okay. Lifting up out of the way.

So we're going to be really supported, almost working the waist just as much as the head in fact as much and up and up and back in. Here comes two more. Up and around and back. Here's our last one to front up to back. Keep the leg back there. Turn your body towards that bottom for them. Just stretch the arm and the leg off position. Lead to one another.

Play with it. Find a really good stretch there. And then we're just going little contractions up with the glue in the back up and uh, and, and uh, and last five, four, three, two, one. Let's reach back and hold onto that foot. Press the pelvis forward as you try to take the knee behind the pelvis and then just slide yourself down all the way. Little side lifting unit. We've got the abdominals working the legs stretched out and to take the legs out. Maybe lifting the arm.

If you have good intention to reaching out, you could always support yourself. If necessary. We reach the legs long and they come down and they can get them and change. It's just a little bit. We're gonna take the arm overhead as the legs lift. We're going to lift the arm as the legs lower a little, take the arm over, head as the legs lifted that reach to the entire side of the waist. Donnel you know, there's three mile, uh, uh, uh, and, and to, and uh, one way and, and then just bending the knees, using your hand to help him don sliding your legs around to the other side and we'll start there again. So on the tip of the elbow, he can on the forearm if you wish, fingertips just touching the head, allowing the head to be supported.

We can now heck of a lot through that bottom shoulder and waist. And here we go. It's kick, kick and stretch and pull from the front of the body. That's what we're focusing on. Flection of the hip from the deep abdominal muscles, keeping the body as still as you can do for reaching back three, stretching away to what? And let we just keep that leg back. We help ourselves onto our forearm.

Take the hand that just helped you lift up out of that bottom [inaudible] stretch diagonally from fingers to toes and engage that upper top glute and we just take it back and working the abdominals to support the lower back. But reaching long to find that. I don't know. For me it's a really gorgeous stretch. Last four and three and two and one and then we come around and I take the foot. What? Well yeah, those things stem the half circles.

So we started the back, we all left feeling the rotation inside of the head join and we, come on, let me take away back then you could always do these, just lying down on your side. They would be easier there. So if it's hard to hold yourself up or if it's too hard on the hip, just come straight down onto the ground. Keeping me honest today. Last two in both directions. Long reach back one and a long reach back.

Now we get to stretch. Yes, yes. And then we slide the legs together. Just send that supporting arm down towards the Mat, lacing the head on, raising that upper arm or keeping it on the mat. I'm just gonna raise the legs up and beautiful and working from the waist. And three more like this.

And two more gorgeous. Good work, Helen. Good work done. Here comes the arm movement so the legs go up in the arm, stretches like you've got a lever on your arm that's pulling your legs up excellently to reach over and inhaling to just gently release down excellently to reach over. And let's just do two more reaching over and last time reaching over and then you come all the way down. And from here we'll just roll over onto our abdominals. I'm going to put my head over here as I didn't see, we're going to do a prep, a preparatory exercise for this swimming.

So you want your arms to be out in front of you and what's going to happen here is they're going to slide back. So one arm at a time. It's gonna slide the opposite arm lift. So let's see. Um, can you see I'm lifting one, I'm in sliding when I'm, and then I slide away. Okay, so let's start with the right arm. Less like we lift the right arm, we slide the left arm into increase our upper back support and then we slide back and as you lift the, the, the lens that are lifting or stretching away from, from one another. And then we slide down and it's an oppositional action through the body and supporting yourself from the front, reaching out and I'm reaching you and just go through that a couple more times. Creating that sense of the mobilization of the shoulder blade happening on that arm that's on the ground as we left. Here's our last one.

If Tina and stretching down last one on the other side and stretching down. Now you could stick with that one if you wish to or you could just hover the legs and just hover the eyes and start to slowly swing. Feeling that same sense of elongation through the body. Speeding it up if you wish you staying slow, if you wish you were going to do this with three more breasts. Yes.

Two more breaths. [inaudible] oh, one more breath and exhale. Let the legs come down. Reach the arms around to the side just like we did when we were sitting. We're going to take the arms back like you're going to take flight and back and legs are on the ground. The chest is not very far off the ground. You don't know they're trying to get off the ground.

And last three and last two I one more and then just bend the elbows and lower the body down. Taking as much time as you need to settle your back. I'm gonna, we're just gonna press up with our hands and come back into rest position. So rounding through the spine, I mean all the way back down into our feet. Taking a moment here and then coming forward onto our hands and knees. We're going to do the leg pull front.

If you don't want to be fully supported on your hands, what you would do is just take one leg straight out and do the lift from there. Or you have your shoulders just under your hands. You slide both legs back. You take a moment there creating stability in the spine. And then we're going to go to the left leg first it just switches and uh, and uh, and uh, replace that foot change sides and it's just out and out and same strong through the center of the body. Last two and last one. Let the foot come in, bend the knees and once again sit back towards the hips.

Okay, so another single leg arm supported exercise you could to modify this one, start with a straight leg and just pull in and reach out. If you want to be in front support, we're going to go up from there. Okay, so either one knee on the ground or both legs straight. And then we lift the right leg and we round the spine and pull the knee in towards the chest. And then he helps us stretch the back and exhale to pull the knee deeply contracting through our aps and stretch and pull and stretch. Last two. Good job and stretch.

Here it is and stretch fine front, find straight, change legs, got five weight contract round and then the length in the body and contract around. Reach the body long and three two length and two and one to stretch back. Place the foot down, bend the knees and sit back on your feet. Coming down onto the forearms, legs long and together behind us in the class the hands together. If you wanted to, you could you move your arms forward more, which would be easier, more available anyway and then pull up on the ads, pull up on the ribs, draw the shoulder blades down and however the legs off the ground and then it's a double kick and a stretch and a double kick.

And we're going to make that happen. Simultaneously. Says one legs going, one like kinky retreats. You change focusing on the contraction through the hamstrings, the lifting up through the spine, like you're trying to shine your chest forward. And Paul and a couple more times here. Last one to each side. Stretching both legs out, lowering the legs, stretching the body down onto the ground and then helping yourself up. Once you get into rest position. Just had a thought. We're going to end with you. So with that, a little bit of arm work. So I'm going to get us some dead. If you were to choose weights, would you choose threes or twos?

You're welcome. We're going to do this standing. Okay. Okay, one last little series. Here you go. Okay. Alright, so we just stand on heater in the pilates first position or a small v position.

We're just going to do some arm circles here, but before we do that, I want you to zip from the heels all the way up through the backsides of the legs, like you're wrapping your legs around to the back. And let me just the arms out and forward and down and out, feeling the stretch of the arms. And what I mean by that is don't just think about lifting, but a think about pulling the weights as far away from each other as they can go. Keep the spine sta free from wavering back and forth and uh, it's right and down last three and down to [inaudible], keeping those legs strong and supportive. Here's our last one here. I'm going to go the other way.

It's just up open stretch and press in and open. Stretch and push the arms down, lifting ribs down just a bit down, a little bit forward. That's it. And press down. And don't forget about those legs and pressed down focusing on the squeeze inwards, not just the inward squeeze of the arms with the inward squeeze of the entire way. Sign last too and yeah, and one more and down. [inaudible] and then just bring the weights in front of you so that the ends of them touch. We're going to imagine that we're zipping up a zipper.

So from here we just pull the elbows up, the weights come up the front of the body, and then we push them back down and we pull them up. Elbows pulling to the sides. It's like you're trying to pull the weights apart and we push him back down and the whole way apart, Q is more of a back thing. Then the weights actually coming apart and lefting focusing on the downward pull of the shoulder blades as the way zip up the front of the body and down. We're going to do that one more time as up and down, and then allow the arms to just come down by the sides of the body.

Just take the left weight or the weight in your left hand and reach down towards the knee. Just go where you go. And then feel the muscles, those writeup leaks stretching there. Those are gonna pull us back off as they come to the top. And to take the right weight down, keep the left shoulder down. We just slide the weight where it goes, and then we lift from the center of the body. And we'll do that two more times to each side.

Just taking a nice big rotation through the waist or a lateral flection of the waist anyway. And oh right. And uh, last one. [inaudible] opening up the body. Freeing it at any tension. Last one. Yeah. Yeah. Do One last thing here. Little chest expansion. Action. I'm just going to turn this way so you can see me. I've got my heels together. I'm going to press back on my weights and load up onto my toes.

I'm going to bring my heels down, but I'm going to try and keep my head where it is in space so I feel the length my spine press back to left lower down to bring the arms forward, the downward pull. There's no extension really of the spine. It's mostly neutral. Lifting up tall. We're going to do three more here. Reach and I'm pressing through the middle back. Reach and down. Last, growing longer and longer with every movement. Hold it up, hold it up, take the arms out to the sides, see if you can stay lifted and bring the arms over. Head holding the weight of the world and our hands.

Lifting a little higher onto the toes, bringing the arms down, bringing the heels down, bringing the weights. [inaudible] just bend our knees here and then we'll curl down. Keep the knees bent, let the weights go to the floor, and then just keeping the knees bent again. We guide spine back up and then to let our eyes go forward. I don't know, maybe I didn't say it.

I'm roll back down and set the weights down on the ground if you didn't already, just down and then up and then we're just going to just bend our knees. Let the arms float up like you're moving through water. The arms press down the spine, lengthens the legs straight in bed and [inaudible] feeling house calm and energize the body can be and reach up overhead EMEA and pressed the on Stan. Maybe cross him in front and then reached up, taken into a slight back extension here and then all the way down and we're all done for the day. I think he's coming. Oh Man. His hot one with nick.

Comments

1 person likes this.
I enjoyed your class! Love the weights at the end of it..Thanks!
Thanks for watching Paula. I appreciate you!
1 person likes this.
I'm just recovering from a back problem and I appreciate a lot your choice of movement and the rythm of this class. I feel energise and more mobile. Thank you !
1 person likes this.
Nice class, smooth transitions, great flow!
Loving the comments! Keep practicing :)
1 person likes this.
Meredith, love your classes, especially this one! The weights at the end are great. The core work is fantastic. Quite a workout.
1 person likes this.
Thank you for a lovely class.
1 person likes this.
After a bad day at work, this was a fantastic class ! I will be adding it to my favorites :)
Theresa L
1 person likes this.
Love the way you teach! Awesome class, thank you
Thank you for commenting Teresa! This is an old class and if you had not reached out I would have missed out on all this lovely feedback! Thank you everyone!!
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