Class #501

Shoulder-Focused Mat

60 min - Class
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Description

Focus on the shoulders. At the beginning of class, Niedra takes you through a series of shoulder exercises to help you become aware of how they connect to your powerhouse and how the quality of that connection affects all the exercises. Class proceeds with subtle add-ons to the beginning versions of exercises preparing you for more intermediate classes.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Aug 21, 2011
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Okay. Okay, so good evening everybody. I'm going to be doing another math class and I thought today we'll be focusing quite a bit on the shoulders. I think I was hearing revelations about non vertical people walking around. So let's just stand with the Palati stance and bring the elbows. Bring the hands in front of you as so you've got with the palms of the hands up.

And just for a moment, lift the chest. That's it. And gently broaden the shoulders. Right now. Turn. Move the hands out to the side and feel what's happening to the cuff. So you lift the chest, not shoulders are down, neck is long. Bring the hands back. Keep the elbows pressing into your own waist.

So really it's not how far the hands go, it's how much you feel the cuff rotate because you want to start to feel this whole area, how it works. So just keep doing this movement, feel what's happening with the cuff and start to feel how it connects into the back. Oh, when did this is starting to look good. Only thing is watch it. The elbows don't go back, elbows stay steady. That's it. In doing this with little weights is awesome as well. Much more [inaudible] the sternum, a little bit more the there. Yes. Yeah. It can be very tight and area that gets very locked for people.

Now take them out to the side, lift the waist, lift the power out and stretch the arms up. But don't let the shoulders go up. So get the arms out, shoulders are down. Then the arms back. Bring the hands forward, take the arms out, shoulders rotate out. They are there it is, and stretch out so you really get that sense of what it means to have the collarbones wide and the cuff on the side of the body, not the front of the body team that's looking good and open out. Really get those shoulders out wide.

Now keep the shoulders wide as the hands go out. Then the arms back. Bring the hands together and again, open nice, wide shoulders. Take the arms out, bring the arms back, bring the hands together. Now take the arms out again, open them, take them out. Now keep your shoulders down and see if you can bring the arms up. Keeping the shoulders that shoulders down, Sandy. Shoulders down.

Bring the arms back and bring them in. Bring the hands forward and again, take the arms out, take the arms, keep the shoulders down so your arms go up and the shoulders go down, down, down, down, down. Take the arms out and one more time. Take beyond that. Lifting the chest. Take the arms out. Now feel the shoulders pressing down. The last specing us sits right around the rib cage, Wendy. That's very nice.

Very good. Excellent. Bring the hands back. Bring the arms in and just shake the arms out for a minute. Yes, very good. Now, variation of what we call chest expansion. Bring the hands in front of you as you bring the arms down. Let's have the hands turn cause it's a little bit easier. In fact, turn the hands out again. Now turn them out. Feel a shoulder cuff rotating. Now bring the hands back so it has go in, but the shoulder stays out.

Take the arms back. Head's going back from the shoulder so it's not just the hand. The cuff moves you back. Turn your head to the right. Turn your head to the laugh. Look straight. Really see arms. And again, bring the arms. Now broaden the show.

Collarbones back. That's it. Take the arms back. Now the head reverses. Head the lab, head to the right. Look straight. Lift the sternum a little bit more. Oh yes, Cindy and forward. And again, bring the arms down. Broaden the collarbones hands back. Head to the right, head to the left straight. Release the arms and again the arms come down. Broad, broad, rapid. Collarbones. There we go. Okay. Head to the left, head to the right. Look straight. [inaudible] and really see arms.

Awesome. Bring their hands down. Just feel the shoulders around. Very good. Come to the front of your mats. Hold onto the elbows and bring the shoulders down. Now actually relax a minute because it's easy to kind of thinking of the shoulder all the time. Leni what you want to feel is the lats. The lats actually lift and there's a gentle pressure down.

So you're looking more at this part of the body, feeling that. So why don't you to pull the shoulders up for a minute and then as you press them down, feel the engagement. Yes, right. That is looking good. Now keep that engagement of the rib cage and hold the elbows a high. Yes. Cross your feet. See if you can sit down to the floor without the shoulders coming up.

And if you can, never mind the good. Okay. I'm do your feet. Stretch your arms in front of you. Press the shoulders down and slowly articulate down onto your back. Hi Megan. Come and join us all the way down onto your backs. I'm just, if you have a little towel, you want something under your head. Oh, I liked that so much, Tim. Now yes. Now make sure this is so good because now you can work the shoulders down and keep the neck long. Let's have you all with your knees bent. So Nice.

So take the cuff of it. Sorry. Sorry. Top of the shoulder and lengthen it down. Have the arms long. Pull the stomach muscles in. And if you write me towards your chest, just for the warmup, put the foot back down on the mat and check that the sacrum is down. Your left knee up and put the foot down and left the right knee up and put the foot down and the left knee up and put the foot down and keep the back of the neck long and the right knee up and put the foot down and the left knee up and put the foot down. If you write me up, left knee up. So both knees are in near. Type new barracks. Put the right foot down, put the left foot down and reversing. This left knee goes up right knee goes up, left foot goes down and right foot goes down and tighten the hips.

And right knee comes up and left knee comes up and right foot goes down and left foot goes down and left knee comes up. Nice tight hips right knee comes up, left foot goes down and right foot goes down. Very, very good. Squeeze your knees together. Keep your shoulders wide and bring both knees to your chest. Both knees. Come in, tighten the hips and float the feet down to the mat without letting the back rock of the stomach pop. And lift the knees up again and float the feet down and lift the knees up and float the feet down. Broad shoulders, broad shoulders. One more time. Time if the knees up and float the feet down.

That [inaudible] is so nice. Now lift the arms up to the right above your shoulders and just for a moment, reach the shoulders towards the ceiling and just stretch the hands as high to the, have a slight sense of hollowing in the chest. Now take your armpit on your shoulder and press it down into the mat. Feel how you get wide. The Haddon stays up though though there sandy, and extend up reaching and then pull the shoulders down and wide. And if you can't keep the, you can let the hands go a little wider to get for position. Yes.

And lift the arms up. Lift the shoulders off the floor so you reach. And then as you press the shoulders down, if you have tight shoulders, you can have your hands wider, even more, even more there. Now just get the arms long without the shoulders moving away. And one more time, lift the arms up and then press them down and your hands will be wherever they need to be. Now keep those shoulders down and float the arms back over your head. See if you can keep the collarbones wide.

So you need to really work in the armpits. Very, very good. Bring the arms up and bring them down to your size or to the lore and bring the arms up again, keeping the shoulders wide and add now floating ribs into the mat. Yes, and as you start taking your arms back, don't let the ribs pop so you really have to isolate a lot this wide. Very nice. And bring the arms up again, keeping the shoulders wide, wide, wide, wide, and bring the hands down nice and wide in there. Good. Bring the arms up without letting that you see once this anchor down and then keep taking the arms back without letting this pop. Don't let that pop.

So you have to keep the floating ribs down. Yes, there it is. And bring the arms up and down to the mat. One more time. Lift the arms up. Keep the shoulders into the mat even more down now. Long elbows, long elbows and keep the the shoulders down. Elbows [inaudible]. Shoulders down and bring the arms up. Very good.

Now check the two shoulders are away from the ears and wide and lift your head and chest. Keeping that position so you lift up and reach the arms parallel to the mat. Shoulders down, shoulders down wide. There it is and lower back lifting the arms. And so you feel this work into the lads lifting up Tim.

That's looking so good. Broad shoulders, yes and lower back. Nice. Very good. And if top again and work the floating ribs to get you to lift rather than your shoulders. You're a little too high there Kate Carlin and lower back down. And one more time. Hand stay to the ceiling. Call just to the ceiling.

One more time. Contract only in the ribs. Lifting up, lifting up, lifting up, just their shoulders. Stay wide, yes, and lower back down and relax. So excellent work because really you want eventually be able to be lifting from the trunk, not because the shoulders are helping you pull in. So let's go for the hundreds. Colonists as your first class ever. Have you done pilates before? A class and you can fake it if you don't know, that's okay.

So lift the arms to this. It's down away from your ears and bring your knees in. Lift your head and chest up in preparation for hundreds. Now check that your shoulders are wide. Hands up, parallel to the fro, broadest. Shoulders him. Lift the legs out, up and out, and start pumping with the arms. Breathing in for five. Exhale, three, four, five. Keep the arms nice and long. Exhale. Three, four, five, three, four, five. Exhale, Tim, that's good for two, three, four, five. Exhale.

Three, four, five, five, five. Exhale, three, four, five, six, two, three, four, five. Keep the stomach pulling up. Seven, two, three, four, five. Exhale, eight, two, three, four, five. Exhale, I would keep the leg a little higher for you. Three, four, five. Exhale. Last set, three four five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Bend your knees to your chest. Tiny ways and hidden feet to the mat. Very, very good work. Now lift the arms to the ceiling. Check that you are broad collarbones and lift the arms back in.

Extend your legs out for roll ups as the arms go back. Long spy, long floating ribs. Bring the arms to the ceiling and roll up. Close the ribs as you roll up that if you can roll up, roll up, bend your knees a few. Need to stretch forward and then roll down and broaden your shoulders on the way back. That's it. But call and make sure you work into the ribs. Yes, yes, yes. Lift the arms up and extend them back without letting the sh the rib cage pop.

And again, bring the arms up and roll up [inaudible] and stretch forward and roll down broad. Shoulders ahead, stays soft, looking inwards towards your powerhouse. Broad shoulders. Take the arms back and again if the arms up close the ribs as you start to lift broad shoulders, Sandy. Oh yes. Thank you. That's so good. Stretch forward and roll back.

Rolling broad shoulders. Roll, roll, roll, roll, roll. Take your arms back. Very nice. And one more time. Lift the arms up. Close to the rips roll. Very good. Roll, roll, roll, stretch forward. And then roll back down. Robot broad shoulders. Place your hands by your sides on the Mat. Very good work.

Hands are down by your mat and bend your right knee to your chest. Lifted straight up to the ceiling for single leg circles. So the legs are straight. Take the left leg and extend it. Now think of where you right hips. Hip Bone is and length in the sit bone towards your left heel.

So the right waist gets long. That is so good there, Wendy. Long waist-high there and start. Take the leg across your body. Circle the leg up and circle the leg in. Up and circle the leg in opportunity. Nancy. Hi Nancy. Have you done plots before? Reverse it.

Okay. You're just going to fake it until you figure out what's happening here. And three and four and five. Hold a hamstring with both. Ha Lay hands and give the leg a stretch. As you do the stretch. Check the shoulders. So sanding, shoulders down towards Matt broad. Collarbones. There you go. San Diego, Cindy, Sandy, Sandy.

Okay. Yeah, so still hold the leg. That's at nice length in the leg. Now put your hands by your sides and float the leg down. Long. Pull the stomach in. Lengthen through the spine. Long, long, long, all the way down. Lift the other leg up and lengthen the left hip to your right heel. Start crossing over your body. Circle the leg in up. Circle the leg in, up to the leg on the floor.

Should be pressing down and lengthening out and circle the reverse it and circle it up. Circle it up. Every time he opposite your nose, you're almost going to, your being too good. Circling up just to the middle of the body. Circle and uphold the leg with both hands and give the legs a stretch. But keep the shoulders down, Tim. Even more right shoulder down. Yes. Long hips, long stomach, long legs. Put your hands by your sides and slowly lower the leg down, reaching out from the hips all the way down to the mat. Excellent work. Now, arms to the ceiling.

Broaden the collarbone that is theme of the day and take the arms back over your head and see if you can roll up to a sitting position without hiking your shoulders up by your ears. So lift the arms up. Keep a very elegant upper body and roll. Use that powerhouse to bring you up. Very good, very nice. Ha. Put your hands by your side. Have a look at where your feet are and pop your bottom forward for rolling like a ball. Grab your ankles or behind the knees, whichever way you prefer. Very round shape. Now in this position, it's very common to do this. See if you can pull the shoulders down. Hands outside. Yes, I would go here today.

I would go here. Yes, that's it. A little bit easier to keep the shoulders down and look down to enable the knees should be apart. Now Roll back to your shoulders and come up, back up and balanced. Roll back to your shoulders and come up and balance and hold this position to stomach. Weigh in and up, roll back again. The head staved forward Carlin and up and roll back. Head stays forward so you're not using your head to get this movement two more times rollback and up had stays forward one more time.

Roll back and come back up and balance and put your feet down. Now does this hurting anybody's back? Because we have narrow maths, you know? Okay. Just as a note, if you do have a bony back, then you will always want to set yourselves up with two maths. But if you all, okay, let's have fun with this one. So up to now, we've always been holding on, but now you'll be being around shape. But you're going to let go and roll back and roll up without hands. So you really, on the way back, you have to use your power house to keep the shape. I don't want to see this now like three here. All power has.

So start by holding the legs and lifting them. Get the stomach muscles in. Keep the head down. Check that the shoulders are wide and down and have let go with your hands. Have them close just in case and rolled back and come up. See if you can get those hips to lift. Oh yes. And roll back.

Stay controlled with the movement and up. Nice and roll back. Nice. Tight stomach and up. And two more times. Roll back. This is good and up. One more time. Roll back and come up with your feet on the mat. Excellent work and roll down on your backs. Excellent work. Very nice.

So get your uh, if you need anything under your head, get your pillow back. You're set up for single leg stretches. Your arms are nice and long. Knees and feet are together. Stomach is tight. Bring both knees into your chest, hold your ankles with both hands and curl your head and chest stops to lift your shoulders and head off the mat. Check that your shoulders are y. Seem. Get your shoulder blades lifted off the mat and just the tips of the shoulder blades aren't a very tight up. You come up, up, up, up, up, up.

There's your position. Very good. Now hold your right leg and extend your left leg out. If you know the hand position, do so and switch your legs and squeeze it in and stretch. You want to pull this leg in and switch? It's okay. Both hands here. Switch. It's good. We only have two legs.

Switch and switch and switch. Good. Megan, you remember the handholds? That's it. Switch and switch. Nice. Quiet body. Switch and switch and switch and switch and switch and switch and switch when both knees in, had in feet to the mat and rest. Very, very good. Now remind me your name one more time. Debbie. Lots. Everybody sit up. And let's have a quick look at Debbie because there's a little detail you all need and we can all learn from each other. So Debbie, I just want you to do the exercise again. So bring your knees to your chest, curl your head in, chest up, and just do your single leg stretches. Just do it the way you did it a minute ago. So Debbie's working pretty hard, very good. But I'd like a little bit more engagement in the powerhouse.

So bring the knees in and rest for a minute, just restroom in it. So put your head down so you're not tight and feet down. So two things. When you track, I want you all to think of an invisible line running through the middle of the body that's called the midline. So when the legs are extending it, I want you to think of tracking that midline because there's a tendency to go wide and when you go, why you're working the outer extremities. But we're looking to strengthen the central line. Now let's have a look at Debbie.

Bend your knees into your chest and hold your ankles with both hand. No, both hands the ankles. Now in this position, I want you to really tighten the hips. Remember we want to anchor that powerhouse and keep the shoulders down. Yes. Now extend one leg out. And that's happened a little higher and tighten the hips. It really more really both there. You said now you have your lock, elbows are bent, so you lift your chest more. Lift. That's your position.

Now track the midline and keep the hips tight. Keep the leg a little higher up. Get the hips to work, tighten the hips, tighten the hips. Now can you see if she's locking in there now? That is so much better. And you look like you're in control. Awesome. So add, relax down. That was good because every time you extend the legs you want to narrow the hips is slight. Narrowing of the hips gives a huge amount of definition to the legs and changes the whole quality.

The wise you've just kind of flopping your legs around and you're doing good, but you can do better. So let's have a go. That was very good. You can have a break if you want or you can do it again and be a pro. So on your backs before you even lift the legs off the floor, tighten the hips. Engage the powerhouse so you feel connection. Get your feet together. Love. Remind me your name one more time. Nancy. So now really from the knees to the ribs, I want you nice and tight.

Now bring both knees to your chest without losing that course of the feeling. Lift your head in, chest up. Hold your ankles. Shoulders away from the ears. Now left-hand to right knee and extend the left leg out. Yes. And switch. Now every time tighten the hips switch. Tighten the hips switch. Pull the stomach up. Much better.

Can I keep going with that tone in the hips and in the pelvis and switch and switch and switch. Nancy, keep your shoulders up. Don't flop your body. Keep it quiet. Switch and switch. Much better. Switch both legs in a very good head to the mat, feet to the mat. Take a break. Very, very good. So whenever your body is lifted up in the air, you want it still.

You're anchoring the body and then the limbs do their work. You're not kind of adding to it. That's part of the secret to be very cool. Only do what you need to do. No more than that. So double leg stretches a same quality every time you extend the legs out. Want those hips nice and narrow. So hands by your sides for your setup, knees and feet together. Nancy, that to bring both knees to your chest, curl your head and chest up and hold your ankles and check their shoulders away from your ears. Shoulders down, powerhouse strong. Keep this shape.

Extend the arms and legs out. Legs go out, arms by your ears. Hollow position. Circle the arms. Bend the knees and hug tiny ball again. Arms and legs extend by your ears. Circle the arms and hug and reach the arms up and by your ears.

Circle the arms and hug and stretch. Very good. Circle the arms and lift the chest up. Keep the chest up as you reach out. Direct tiny hollow possession in waste. And how one more time. Pull the stomach and keep the shoulder blade up the mat. Circle any not very nice. Head down, feet down.

Take a breath of pretty good. Not Easy to do because you're holding the whole way to both the arms and the legs in the powerhouse. Next one. Same tight hips, but you will do scissors. So this is the lengthen and stretch. The hamstrings are to bring both knees to your chest. Girl, your head and chest up. Use that power house. Extend the legs to the ceiling without the body moving. Nice. Narrow those hips. Take your right leg with both hands and take the left leg away from you.

45 degrees. Narrow the hips and pull the leg towards you twice. Pull, pull. Switch your legs and knees straight. Pour, pour. Keep the leg straight like scissors. Switch Paul Poe switch. Paul Paul, Switch Paul Po Switch. Paul Poor Megan. You can hold close to your ankles and Paul, Paul and Paul Paul at Paul Paul.

Keep the body nice and quiet and Paul, Paul and Popo and Paul Paul both exact deeply. Bend the knees, pulling the power house up tight. Hips, head in, feet to the mat and rest. Pretty good hands behind your head with your elbows wide, right. Elbows wide for lower lifts so the hands are right behind the hand. You can have your fingers into locked or just touching the side of the head, whichever. Either this way or this way. Pull the shoulders away from your ears here.

See if you can feel the elbows on the floor. So just for a moment, take the opportunity to open up in the shoulders as much as you can. So this is a huge stretch for some of you into the cuff. Now bring the knees to your chest, knees and feet. Stay tight together. Tighten your hips, curl your head and chest up and rest your head very slightly into your hands. But lift the chest higher. Higher, higher, higher. Yes. Katelyn, lift the legs to the ceiling.

Look up with your gaze towards your feet and float the legs away from you and keep that chest up. Chest up, chest up. Bring the legs up and lower. Keep the chest up, sandy and lift. Yes. Keep that lift and lower. Lower, lower key and lift. Two more times, lower, lower, lower and lift. And one more time. Keep that just lifting two, three and lift.

Bend the knees had in feet to the mat. Very, very good. Oh, okay. Now to work on this shape because it takes a bit of work to get that chest up and to get the strength into the ribs. Bring both knees to your chest and place the hands behind your knees. Have the knees vary slightly apart. Let the shoulders drop to the mat. So just here again, engage your lab's.

Feel the shoulders pulling away from the years in length. Lengthen the back of the neck. Now as you curl up, stretch your legs and use your arms to help you get the shoulders off the mat. Now pull the shoulders away from the ear, so neck is long, the stomach is pulled in, and then bend the knees and lower back to the mat and lift up again. Hollow out the ribs. Make sure you're working from the ribs to the hips and lower back down and lift up again. Closing the ribs. The legs go on a diagonal away from you, Tim.

That's excellent to help you get that shape and bend your knees to come back down, lowering back, relaxing and lengthening the spine. Come up again. Yes, legs go slightly away from you and lower back down. And one more time. Lifting up, pressing the floating ribs into the mat, lengthening the stomach and lower back down. Nice work. Put your feet on the mat, stretch your arms out and roll up to a sitting position so the legs will be long and roll up. Roll up, roll up to a sitting position. And now before we do spines to chore, Let's Have You all sitting cross legged.

We're going to add in an exercise. It's really from the reformers from the rowing series and it's wonderful to open up the shoulders to take the hands and make a diamond shape. This is called shaving the back of the head and relax for a second. Tim, can you pop that pillow underneath your bottom if you find it hard to sit. In fact, I'll tell you what, Tim, come over here and sit next to me because when your have your a tight, lower back and hips, it's nice to have your bottom higher than a little bit easier to sit up here.

Huh? You see I cheat all the time. So with the bottoms higher, it's just a bit easier to get on top of the sit bone. So now take your index finger and thumb, take the hand and place it behind the scalp. And you want your thumb to be right at the base of right with the head connection with the top of the neck. And then see if you can press the fingers into the back of your head as well, even though you still keep that diamond shape.

Now lift your chest and look forward. Don't look down and go lean forward on this diagonal. And now press your elbows back and lift your chest even more. So the elbows are going to the side. Keep your head looking along and then start sliding your hands up into a straight arm position and lift the waist and lift the stomach and see that.

Stretch the arms all the way, even if your shoulders have come up right now, and then bend the elbows back and keep them wide. Why, why, why, and and why. And again, lift your chest and start sliding these hands up, sliding them up up. That's a Tim. That's it. Stretch those elbows all the way, all the way, all the way, all the way. Lift the chest and bend the arms back. And imagine me grabbing your elbows and opening your chest wide. And again, lift up, lift up, lift up, lift up and stretch through that lower and middle spine. Straighten the elbows all the way. Take a chance and bend back.

So this is going to break up or loosen up and stretch a lot of area that gets very tight. Elbows wide. Lift your chest, Sandy. Look forward not down. And one more time. Lifting up, lifting up, lifting up. Now pull out of your waist, pull out of your hips and stretch the elbows and reach through the arms, up through the fingertips. Get as tall as you can be. Sandy, you're going to never stop stretching and come back down. That was super. Shake your arms out. This is not easy but very useful because it's going to open up the back and the shoulders a lot, Kim running away.

Okay, I was just thinking it's easier to sit up straight now. Next one is called hug a tree. Yeah, it's more fun up here. So take your third finger and have your hands facing the center. Your solar plexus. Yes. Now lift your chest up so the our hands are a little bit lower than the shoulder and see if you can lift your elbows and I'll pull the shoulders down.

So there's this sloping sensation in the arms and the lifted chest against it and their arms. A bit like your have a big round ball or the trunk of a tree. This is called hug a tree. Now take a breath in and open the arms to the side and keep your elbows lifted cause the elbows will want to dip and keep the palm facing forward. And this line from the wrist straight because the hands going to want to go down. Lift your elbows even more. Megan, lift your chest and Nancy, not so little more bent with the arms there. And then bring the hands back and hug that tree and squeeze the, the muscles of the arms and take the arms out. That's it, Tim.

Lift your elbow, lift the elbow, their shoulder down. Not Easy to do. And take a breath in here and breathe out in. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze and push a weight away as you live. Take your arms out and schoolies those arms together. Two more time. Press and lift your chest, lift your chest, lift your elbows, lift your ribs and squeeze. And one more time. Lift, lift, lift and squeeze and shake your arm that that was great.

Not Easy to do. Now let's have you all stretch your legs out. I would stay here if I were you. Okay, so long legs. This is called reaching from the shoulders. You want your hands close to your armpits. See if you can get the elbows back and lift the chest and the sternum and extend with the legs. Now reach the arms out in front of you with the shoulders, Dow, and their fingertips, and about the height of your own forehead. Now imagine you're pushing a big weight down, so you push with the arms and you lift your chest.

Hands come down until they touch the mat or the floor. Lift your chest, then take the arms forward again. And lift them up to the ceiling. Pull out of your lower spine and take the arms out to the side. Just reaching out, reaching out, reaching out. Total total tall and relax. Start again and stretch the arms out.

Press the arms down, lifting your chest, lift the arms up, get out of your waist, out of your hips and get wide arms pressing or getting taller. Tyler, Tyler, relax. One more time. Stretch out, brewing their hands down, lifting your chest, lift the arms up, reaching through the fingers and go wide, wide, wide and down. Very good. Now have a quick watch. What you'll do next, the feet will be flags you go into. Pull the stomach muscles in and slide the hands as far as you can forward. And you do big circle coming up and out and down. So just adding a little bit to it so the hands are right by your hips.

Your feet are flex cause it's going to stretch your legs out. To push your heels away from you. Now pull the stomach again and bend over and reach the hands as far forward as you can. Keep stretching them forward. As you come up, come up, come up big circle, big lift out of your waist, Katelyn, and all the way out in down Carlin, sorry. And again, flex your feet and slide forward and lift up. Lift up, lift up flexor. Feed Nancy all the way out and down. One more time. Slide forward and reach up.

Lift up big circle with the arms and all the way down. Awesome. That was good. Okay, open your feet. Stay here. More fun here. Open the legs a little bit wider than your mat for spine stretch forward. So take a big lift and stretch your arms straight in front of you. See if you can push your size down a little bit.

Ya'll getting stronger and then lift a little bit more. Big Breath in and drop your head down and start grounding. Upper back, middle back, lower back and lift in the ways that you read forward and then roll up again and sit up tall and other shoulders come down in the back. Lifts. Nice and elegant. Big Breath in again and breathing out. Roll down, rounding through the spine, reaching long. The head is diamond down between the arms.

Breathe in as you come back up again. Breathing within. Lift up tall. Breathe out and relax. And one more time. Big Breath in. I'm breathing out. Reaching down, reaching forward. Roll, roll, lengthening out. Roll back up. Roll back up. Sit Up. Nice and tall and relax. Very, very good. Okay.

Bring your legs together and roll down on your back. I think we're gonna say goodbye now. So have a look. We're going to add something to your corkscrew. Up Til now, corkscrew has just been a small circle and a small circle. So now what we're going to do in between every time is you'll tighten your belly and your buttocks and lift your hips just a little bit. So you'll draw, circle, tighten the hips and belly and see if you can lift your bottom up off the mat.

So bend the knees and lift the leg straight up to the ceiling. And take a moment to press your hands into the mat and draw a circle to the right down to the left and lift the hips. Off the mat a little bit. Yes, lower down. Good. Megan, reverse it. Left down around and lift the bottom just a little bit and down and right down around and straight. Bring the feet over. Now lift your bottom, lifted and lower down and left. Circle and lift up and down.

And one more set. Circle and lift. And last one circle. Okay. Oh, okay. So they bend the knees and put your feet on that. I think this needs a little bit of work, so hard to do with the legs straight. So let's just, it's a lot of work into the lower abs and into the hips. So let's break this movement down a little bit.

You were working from here like you to bend the knees a little bit. And just so let's have everybody with the knees bent, knees bent, and together. Now from here, start to tighten the stomach and bring the knees a little closer and then relax your hips and Tuck the tail under you and bring your pubic bone forward a little bit and release and Tuck the tail and deepen into the deeper stomach muscles and release. Now you're going to take the same movement and see if you can get your bottom to lift up a little bit. So start working your abs, the knees and the feet can come a little closer. That's it, Megan. Lift your bottom. Good tip. And put your leg down. That's it, Collin. Yes. Good. And again, bring the knees in and lift your bottom a bit and down.

And again, bring the knees in and lift your bottom a bit and down. Bend the knees a little more. Love hands by your sides and lift a little bit and good. Okay. Put your feet down on the mat. Stretch your legs out and roll onto your stomach.

Place your hands under your forehead for preparation for swan dive. So the legs are down, legs are together, the stomach is in the hips at tight. The hands, forehead on your fingertips so the fingertips are crossed or touching. Each other. Elbows are wide to the side. Now really press your hipbones and pubic bone into the mat to take your sacred and you bury it towards the floor and then take your cheeks and tighten them. Keep that burying of the sacrum down and lift your elbows, your fingers, and your forehead off the mat and just hover off the mat.

Long Spine, lower back down, only a little bit, only to set two inches off the mat. Lengthen your sacrum bottom tight. Pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch, lift. Again, keeping yourself long, very good and down. And if you elbows and then lift up like that. So you stay long in the spine and Dow very nice. Now you're going to do the same movement again, but lift higher. So maybe you'll even be looking slightly forward.

So three more times. Nice. Buried sacred strong legs and lift a little bit more so the chest lifts up and lower back down. Very good. So you going higher. Excellent work. Lift up again. Lift and down. And one more time and lift and down. Excellent. Okay. Come up onto the elbows for single leg kicks. So make fists with your hands. Your hands are going to be like this, Collin.

Elbows under the shoulders. Press, shoulders down your backs. Engage into the lats. Bring the hips narrow and together and lift the stomach and take your right leg in. Kick twice. Kick, kicking. Lengthen the leg out. Left leg kick, kick. Keep the hips tight and right leg and down and left leg and down and and down and left leg and down a whole the position. Your hips are tight, your stomach is long, the shoulders are away from the ears. And just take your right leg and bend it in slowly towards your bottom.

So you really contract the hamstring. Contract the buttock. See if you can squeeze the leg a little bit further in. Lift the stomach and lengthen it. Lower the leg down. That was excellent. Left leg bends in. Pull the stomach in. Tighten the buttocks. Lengthen the thigh away from you. Lower the leg down. Very nice work.

Okay, double leg kicks. So lie down. Let's have everybody with their nose to the left and Nancy, you can pick and see what everybody's doing. So the right ears on the map, both hands behind your back. So your modification if you want to. When you lift the chest up, you can have your hands coming apart. Your shoulders are more flexible. You keep your hands together. So hands in the waist, elbows pressing towards the floor.

Make sure you're holding one hand with the other there and hip Stipe. Knees tie, thighs tight, long buried, sacred and bend both knees kick three times. Kick two, three legs, go down, arms go back, squeeze and lift and lower down and other side and kick two, three and pull back and squeeze your shoulder blades and lift and first side and kick two, three and pull back and stream. Squeeze the shoulder blades and lift other side and kick two, three and pull back and stretch those arms towards the knees and back. Okay, sit back and stretch your back out. Long stretch. Pull the stomach muscles way in and just have a quick look. We're going to start adding neck stretch.

We'll do it on the instincts position right now. Later on you lift full, but in this position you want to make sure the neck is engaged, the shoulders are pulling down the back and the stomach is long. First Movement you do is turn your, your, your, your nose as far to the right as you possibly can. Roll down. Turn your nose as far as you can to Biloxi, stretching the side of the neck straight. You're reverse it. And let's have you just lower it down to here. Lift up again. And this time you take your ear to your shoulder as far over as you can.

Roll the head, ear to shoulder and reversing it ear to shoulder and then lower down. So it's a nice work to start to get. The network is so up on in sinks, position, elbows under the shoulders. You want two legs either together or hip with the part you want. That sense of bearing your sacrum and the hips narrow. So you're actually slightly gently bringing the cheeks together. Now, big lift of the stomach and turn your nose way to the right. Shoulders a down.

See how far you can turn your head to the right. Really look to the right as far as possible now that they had dropped all the way down and lifted up and look to the left. So yeah, that's it. And look straight ahead, make sure the chest is lifting. Now turn your head and reverse it to the left, right. Drop the head way down. Roll and look to the right.

Look back to the center. Lift a little bit more long. Spine lifted chest and lower down. You elbows go out and your forehead comes down just for a minute and then reverse it. Lift up again, up onto the elbows and take. Lift the chest, shoulders down. Take you right here to your right shoulder, right ear, the right shoulder roll ahead. Weighed down and left throat, left shoulder. So you're bending the head sideways. Look Straight and reverse it. Left ear towards left shoulder.

Roll the head down now, right there towards right shoulder. So you're bending it sideways and straight and lower back down onto your fingertips. Very good. Sit back into your heels again to stretch your lower back out. Pull the stomach muscles in. Child's pose. Engaging your powerhouses. You Go, very nice. Let's have all of you lying out the sidekicks on your right side, so this side you'll be facing. This way, you'll be facing that way. On your right side. Support your head with your hand and bring the left arm in front of you.

You want to be lined up at the back part of your own mat. Say lie out on the back part of the mat and then links in the legs. Narrow hips, tight stomach, long lifted body. Get a sense of the upper body being very elegant unless it's laying down. Then you want to be relaxed. Lift both legs up and bring them to the front of your mat. Put the feet down, flex your feet strongly.

Your bottom foot should be the little toe into the floor as though you're standing on it. Take your top like lifted a little higher than your hip and lower down and lift the leg and down in the feeling is that you're pressing the leg away from you and down and lift your leg and on this leg stays on the floor and lift the leg flexes foot and down and lift your leg and press into the heel and lift your leg and down. Very nice and lift your leg and down. Now lift the laptop like hip height, only. Pull, extending, reaching through the toes. And you're going to do the pendulum swinging to the front. Double Pulse and back. Pulse and forward.

Pulse and back. Pulse and forward. Pulse and back. Paul and forward. Pulse, or keep the body quiet as you do this and back and forward. Pulse and back. Paul. Very good. Leg to leg. Turn the top like out a little bit and kick it high to the ceiling. Sidekicks to the city up with the leg.

Flex-A-Lite down and point it up and flex it down and point it up and flex it down and point it up and flex it down and pointed up and flex it down and point it up and flex it down. Turn it out. Love turn there, it goes and down. And one more time. So if you turn it out, you'll be able to go a lot further and down. Now engage your powerhouse and little circles with the top like circle and circle and make sure the circle is half in front, half behind your bottom. Lay Circle. Now reverse and use the bottom like the precedent of the floor. Remember, you have that nice flex that's it's a Wendy. You want to be sure it's right and top of the bottom like very good.

Put your leg legs down. Lift both legs up in the air. Lift down and down and lift them and down. Try to keep the hips stack. Then lift them and down Nancy straight legs over there. Lift them. Structure Legs and down.

Two more times and lift the very nice here and down. One more time and lift them and I'm very good little beats. Roll onto your stomach. Forehead on your fingertips. Heels together. Knees tight. Buttocks like bury the sacred meant to the mat and engage your powerhouse.

Lift the legs up and little beats and sideways. Then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, lift a little higher. Not like that. Stretch your knees. That's a stretch the knees as much as you can. Five, six, seven and eight. Lower the legs down. Now in this position, everybody stretch your legs. The feet are still on the floor. The sacred moves down. The buttocks are tight. See if you can stretch the knees. If you stretch the needs of knees, sometimes the lift off the floor, stretch them a lot so the legs are strong. Now lift the legs off the floor without bending the knees and just eight of these open and close again. Keep the knees straight. Q three four, five, six, seven, eight and lower there. Much better hands under the shoulders.

Sit back towards your heels. Stretch your back out. Pull the stomach muscles in length and into the lower spine and lie out on the other side, working the other side. So on your left side, make sure you're lined up with the back part of the mat. It's as though you're lined up against the wall if possible. It literally use your imagination to think of your shoulder, your hips, your feet, and your elbow against the wall.

So now take your ribs and bring them a little bit back. Pull the stomach muscles in, Wendy. Very good. Lift the legs up and bring the feet forward. Put them down, flex your feet, flex them a lot. Imagine the feet go down, Nancy. Yes, you're probably wondering what is going to happen now and take your top like lifted a little bit and I'll keep your belly tight and lift the leg. Flex your foot and down and lift the leg. Very good and no. And lift your leg and, and lift your leg.

Flex all the way and down and lift and down and lift the leg and down. One more time. Lift the leg and down. Long foot. Lift the leg, hip height. Make sure your stack one hip on top of the other. Swing the leg forward. Double Pals and back. Keep the knee straight, both legs, straight. Pulse, Paltz, back, back. Keep the stomach type bottom tight and back. Back and forward. Very good. Back, back and forward.

Forward and and forward. Forward and back, back one leg on top of the other. Check that the hips us steady. Take your top like extended. Turn it out a little bit for sidekicks to the ceiling swing. You're like up flex and bring it down and swing it up. Flex and bring it down, up and down, and swing the like and down and swing your leg. And down.

Every time you bring the leg down, tighten the hips, swing the leg and down. Very good. Swing the leg and then point the foot in little circles, one and two and three and four. Make sure the circle is half in front half, but behind the bottom leg, reverse it. One and two. Very good here. Three and four and five and six and seven and eight. When they go on top of the other narrow hips, lift both legs up in the air. Lower down both legs, lift and down.

Both legs lift very good and down. You're almost too far lower and lift. That's better and down and lift and down. Very nice. Roll onto your bags for preparation for teaser. Then the knees, knees together, feet together, arms by your sides. So you're with the knees bent and you want maybe a 90 degree angle between the size and the calves, so not too close to you about them. So Sandy, move your feet out just a little bit. Now hands by your side. Shoulders broad.

Take your right leg up in the air, but keep the knees glued together. These. Stay tied together. The hole. There we go. Now lift your head and chest so you can track it in the ribs and see if you can roll up and reach towards your toes. So roll up and roll down. Hands to the mat and again if your head and chest and roll up and roll down. Very good.

One more time and roll up to amazing, Huh? And roll down. Change legs. Squeeze the hips together. Other leg comes up, narrow into the hips as you roll up and use that powerhouse to bring you up up. You can roll up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, and everybody's waiting and, and roll up again. Power Up. You need to attack it a little bit more. And belly in, belly and belly and yes, and down. One more time.

Row Up, up, up, up, up and roll down. All right then both knees into your chest. Stretch both arms over your head. Nice long arms. Lift the legs to the ceiling and take the legs to a 45 degree Ang angle and up. You can fast roll up and roll down and row up and roll down and roll up above us, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and roll down. Bend the knees into your chest.

Just give yourselves a hug. Very nice work and feet on the mat. Stretch your arms over your head and roll up to a sitting position. [inaudible] wrong. Come up now. Seal elbows inside the knees.

Lift your feet up and wrap your hands around your eye inside of the ankles. Now in this position, that's it. Keep the shoulders down and very slightly. Feel the innercise pressing into your elbows or upper arms. If you can, clap your feet three times, clap, clap, clap, roll back on your shoulders. Come up and balance and again clap, clap, clap and roll back and come up and balance and again clap, clap, clap, roll back and come back up and balance and put your feet down pretty good.

Now I think I've done it with some of you. The full exercise. We clap at the top and we clap at the bottom. And that's the hard part. So yet we'll have another go. So you're doing, y'all doing fine. Clap, clap, clap. Now you go back and you have to get your bottom up high enough that you can stay there long enough to get the three claps and come back up. So remember that exercise we were doing, getting that lift.

You need to really make sure you, you're anchored into your powerhouse so you can get the claps happening for yourself. So three at the top, three at the bottom. Lift your feet up again, anchoring to that powerhouse. Really feel that connection and clap three times. Clap, clap, Cup back. You Go. Ah, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap and back. Clap, clap, clap and up. Clap, clap, clap and back. Clap, clap, clap. And back up. Pretty good. I'm up to a set. It's much different, isn't it? When you're not just dealing with momentum. [inaudible] come up to a standing position. Okay.

Bring your arms in front of you for one more set of the chest expansion, just like we did at the beginning. Get that lift in the sternum and bring the arms down and broaden the collarbones and take the arms back and get the waist small. So really pull up the waist and length and your back. Now turn your head, float your head to the right. Float your head to the left. Keep the waist lifted as your arms come up in front of you. So the waist is lifted. Bring the arms down. Broad shoulders, lift away, Sandy. Even more. Yes. And pull the arms back. Head to the left, head to the right. This, there we go.

And bring the head forward and bring the hands in front of you. That's it. And again, bring the arms down and get tall, tall, tall, tall. From the navel. Yes. Take the hands back, head to the right, to the left. Look straight. Release the arms. And again, so there's this feeling of the chest coming forward and the tail going long and down. Head to the left, head to the right, much better and straight and release the arms and bring the arms up. Float them up and feel the shoulders down. Lift the waist.

That's it. Now start going down, rolling towards the floor with the waist, lifting up, opening up your back ribs, opening up the waist. Hale is going down. Roll down. Three nice loose circles here. Circle one and two. Let the head De Angle at that drop. Reverse a circle. Circle one, two, three. Now Roll Up. Bring your hips over your heels, roll up, roll up, roll up and lift the arms up. Float them up.

Keep the weight forward and lift in the waist. One more time. Drop your head, round your spine and roll down. Roll down, lifting that stomach up, opening up your back ribs. The head drops ahead. Drop the head is a dead way and three circles. So all the work is in the powerhouse. None of it is in your neck. Reverses circles. One, two, three that they had dropped.

Now shift your weight forward as you're dangling here. Get the hips over your heels. That had been the knees. If you need to now keep the hips forward and start to come up. Keep the hips forward. Tail under you, Megan. Tail under, yes, tail under. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it.

Lift the arms up now as the arms come up, check that you can take your weight off your heels. So that's it. Bring their weight back down and lengthen the waist and float the arms out. Keeping the hips right over the center of the feet and just take a moment to feel as long pelvis lift in the waist, lift in the powerhouse. Very easy. Openness in the chest, broad shoulders, long neck, long neck. So you feel the shoulders open. Very elegant. Just take a moment to look straight in front of you. Remember, most people look down. It's very unusual, but it's wonderful.

You can see the horizon and we all want to move forward. Take a deep breath in and breathing out. Let it go. So thank you very much everybody. Yay.

Comments

Great focus. I think I will use it in class this week.
Kirsty H
Super class - thank you.
Elaine its working here. Please try again and let us know.
Thank you Niedre for an amazing class! I loved the shoulder focus...I felt a huge lightbulb go on for my own practice. I will sharing this with my clients!
Kristi,
Thanks for your concern. The video worked today when I put it on HD quality.
Niedre, thank you! I thoroughly enjoyed this class on so many levels and will definitely revisit.
CJ
fantastic class. my shoulders are tight. I loved it . thanks. blanche,
CJ
fantastic class. my shoulders are tight. I loved it . thanks. blanche,
CAS
Excellent class! All of Niedra's mat classes are great. Her instruction is so good, I often only need to listen, rather than watch, as I do the class.
Hi again Niedra,
Thx again for a great class! It was fun to see my workout "buddies" - Tim, Wendy, and Sandy - from the beginning workshops. Wendy
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