Class #506

Energetic Mat

60 min - Class
4 likes

Description

Class begins with standing balance work with attention focused on energy dispersion and opposition. Play with intensity through variations on intermediate exercises along with some additional burners for fun. This class includes Scissors, Bicycle, Neck Pull, and a lot of enthusiasm.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Aug 25, 2011
(Log In to track)

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Okay, let's be on the mat. Hmm. Cool. Feet fully together. Request for intensity. Hmm. 10 space. You just got to think it.

Oh, and take it easy. Inhale, exhale, grow taller, however you can do it without strain because you know, while as I do that, the less tension you go and keep breathing, the less tension you go into class with the freer you going to move, the free you're going to move, the more intense you can make it for yourself. I'm taking no responsibility and putting it back on you. How do you like that? This time we'll do our roll down. Inhale in the front and the back of your body and start from the very top of your head. As you roll down, feel the stretch through the neck, through the upper back, all the way down, I should say. Just as far as you feel like you can go. Inhale.

Don't go anywhere to imagine you're hugging the upper arms toward something, a ball. Pull the belly did the spine. As you blow out all your air here, let tension drain right off the top of your head. Squeeze the inner thighs. Inhale, exhale, rolling up from that place a sense that you have something relatively heavy in your hands. Not because your hands are tense all the way to the top. Inhale, arms come up just halfway. Exhale. Let them drop back down. Follow them with your head as we go down a little quicker. All the way. If you can email, bend the knees, Tuck the tail just a little so you can find a stretch to the low back. Begin to straighten the legs before they're straight. Come rolling back up, blowing out your air. And when your arms float up, feel the shoulder blades drop down. There's an inhale in there somewhere.

Exhale to round down. I need the floor. Inhale, bending the knees. Keep the heels down. Squeeze the knees and innercise. Exhale towards straight legs and roll back up. Finding the glutes, the hamstrings. This time as your arms come up. So to your heels, just a little. Inhaling up. Exhale, heels down, arms down, head followed. Take it with you.

[inaudible]. Inhale, bend the knees. Exhale, straighten them and roll. Ah, arms will go up higher this time. Inhaling, taking the heels with you. Keep the heels up, but barely off the ground, so they may need to come down. Start to roll down here. Take your time, fold the shoulders, the head forward, upper back, dig deep. Those heels are up.

Come on, dig deeper, dig deeper. Go ahead. See how lightly you can touch all your head's gotta be down to. That's the hard part. Touch the floor, heels down. Bend the knees enough that you have to re lift the heels and come high on the toes. To stretch the bottoms of the feet. You can really drop the hips down. Yup. And then press the heels down and we rule ourselves up.

Taking the arms up with the heels. Go up nice and tall. Squeeze the upper inner thigh. Feel length to the back of your neck and just let the arms come down the heels. Come down and take your right foot backwards. Put the ball of the foot on the floor or the toe, and then check your alignment. And so what we're looking for to her probably can't see, right.

So feel where the gluten hamstring meets. So it's from there. Okay. The knees straight. So you're pushing into the ball of the foot a little bit. Then bias towards the Tuck of the pelvis. Find the ABS is really what I'm trying to say there. Hinge forward at the hip, lifting that foot off just a little bit. At this point, if you want to well off your mat, you feel free. Then the knee a little that you're standing on as as if someone were pulling the back foot [inaudible] and standing up.

So we don't need to go very far forward. Right? Reaching as you slightly bend the knee and the hip, I suppose the ankle to reach the foot and come back one more time. Reaching the focus. Honestly, if it's more in the middle, it's easier. You can kind of let the leg itself be soft. Come to upright, bend that knee that was in the air. Bring it right up to your chest without rounding your back.

Take it to the side, bring it back, take it to the side again, bring it back one more time to this side, bring it back. Set it down or like back. Okay. So if you push into the ball of that foot, get something like you're about to start, you get that energy, and I'm just mentioning it now. Go ahead and lift it off as you hinge forward. Little Bend. I mentioned it now and I should say I'm, I'm realizing, I said focus on the center on this stuff and it's true. You do. But let energy reach out to the foot too so you have it dispersed. Give yourself one more. Then when you get to the top, you draw the new year.

I'm trying to find your level pelvis. Nice job. You guys on the maths way up away. Take it to the side. Keep your eyes in one spot. It helps bring it back. Expect a wobbly foot. That's all right. Bring it back one more time to the side and bring it back.

Okay. Facing the center of the room, center of the room. And then we're gonna, we're gonna have a seat here in a second. So just go ahead and roll down. Bend your knees, bring it back up all the way. And then when you get to the top, if you're not already at the front of your mat, walk to the front of your mat and have a seat. Okay, start with the legs bent, something new and exciting. Just kidding.

Roll yourself down. But when you almost get there, bring the knees up. Okay. From here we're reaching the arms, so take a moment and press the top of your shoulders down so it almost forces the hands up and then continue reaching tail mounts or down. We inhale as we reach the legs on a high diagonal. He'll drag them back in. Inhale, push him out. Two, three, four, five XL. Exhale and inhale and pull.

See if you can feel that connection of the deep into the trunk where the legs attach beyond the hip, leaving the hip and pelvis absolutely. Still reaching out of is getting an easier. Hmm, you could go lower. You can also bring the knees in quite far and considered a back stretch as long as the tailbone doesn't move, giving you two more here, draw, reach, reach, find all those lines of opposition and pull. And in Ben. Just a little, set the feet on the ground, reaching your arms back. Inhale though harms head, neck and shoulders come up, straight, legs on the ground, rolling for the roll up. Let's stop at shoulders over hips with a long line of the arch and exhale, roll down and inhale to lift. Exhale, rolling, hugging, hugging. I always prefer external rotation.

You don't have to but of the shoulder, but just be mindful that the tendencies we have our two round the shoulders forward, so check it out. Make sure if your hands are down that you haven't turned the shoulders too. It doesn't mean you will. It just is possibility. And down here we go. Feel the back of the ribs, drop into the mat, you exhaling and see if you can roll down with very little to no movement of the feet as you go. How do you do it? Well, you hope for one. No, it's, it's a deeper contraction through the spine or curve really. Maybe the contraction doesn't have anything to do with it, but it's the continuation of that curve and back given ourselves one more here.

Up to come forward and all the way down. When you get there, arms come around to the t. Take your right leg up to tabletop first, hug the inner thighs toward each other. The temptation is to almost cross the legs. Then gently float the leg up. Try for straight. If you can't bend the lower leg first, flex the foot, level the foot. Here we go, cross the midline. It's an inhale around. Stop, same direction. Exhale around. Boom. So again, those lines of energy are so important and inhale. Okay, here's the cue and exhale. Stop at the top. Hang on. We're going the other way and inhale round and exhale and inhale. So a little, you want energy through the lower leg for sure to help stabilize you and finish this one.

Bend the knee and cross over the body for a stretch. Was that four and three? I said what? I just did. Bring it back. Slide the leg down. Adjust yourself so you feel level again, and then take the leg up. The other side, flexed foot, level, foot. Here we go. Inhale around and exhale and inhale and exhale.

Find Freedom. With the leg. Inhale. That looks good. And exhale. One more set. Inhale and exhale. Other side. Inhale around and exhale. I'm slow. Devin. Aaron down. Just a little inhale. You can keep the pace but just start it now. There we go. And, and inhale. That's great. Thank you. And our, go ahead for one more.

Inhale and bend that knee. Cross it over. Better. Good, good. Hmm. Funny. I um, nevermind. I can see the, the people that want the intensity and the ones that are going. Huh? You're going to stay with I pray louder than you do.

Oh, I've got my work cut out. Here we go. Reach a overhead as if you're being told by the arms. Press the ribs down. Up we go. Keep your curve at the top. Pull those shoulders back in place. Pick up the knees, elbow to knee. Just keep them there for now. Try to keep your heels still. Here we go. Inhale, roll back, exhale up. Keep the contact.

You can let the knees be apart for this one. Inhale back. Exhale. The gaze matters. This, the same idea of keeping the curve in you and exhale, keep that curve. Inhale back, exhale, and now hold on. Pulling tighter. As you pull in tighter, pop the elbows out to the side and drop the last. Drop the lads. Use the lots. Here we go. Inhale back. Exhale. Use the breath. Trusting and stopping yourself just before the tailbone and Annie two. Exhale. One last one here. Make it good. Make it work.

Hold sliding your hands up to your knees. Going into the big series. You push yourself down slowly by pressing knees into hands. Untuck your pelvis and reset your shoulders. Changing the double leg stretch on you. Just inhale, open and hold both the legs and arms up as if something's pushed into your tummy. I didn't change the spine. Keep your spine where it was. Thank you. Inhale, reopen and bring it in. On that exhale. Inhale, open.

Pause from the middle of your body. Just float the arms and the legs. There's your exhale. Inhale, reopen. It's reaching long. Exhale, pull it in. Boom. Inhale, open, hold. Exhale. Press the belly to the spine. That's why the arms and legs move. Email down. Don't change this by in gym. You're making it. I said, it's fine. It's just we don't need it. Inhale, it's enough. Exhale, press. It's just the shoulders and the hips. Inhale, reopen and regular. Now we go four. Inhale, exhale.

Inhale out and out in one more. Out and in single leg. Pick a leg. It's stretch and change and try a few where your emphasis is distill on a straight leg, but the leg itself is quite soft. Maybe not the glute. Change your emphasis to a downward pressure with the palms on the knee and Shin so you feel the lats.

You feel the shoulders connecting to your back far more and on one and two, two and three. Three. Here's four. Bring both knees in. Roll your heads down to the mat. Bring them right back up. Extending your right leg, left leg to the ground. Okay, now stretch the leg towards you. Pull it towards you. You don't need to go toward him. I don't think any of you good and it's pull, pull, change. Take a second. Hold, stretch it towards you.

Get the bottom like on the ground. Push it into the ground. Leave your hands where they are. Pull the leg out of it from above the hip. Join Paul, pull. Now we go in. Pulse, pulse, change, pulse, pulse. If you need more time, you can make it a little smaller. That'd be all right. Meaning that don't quite make the ground otherwise. Last two sets. One, one and here's to both legs. Up. Hands behind your head.

Put your head down. Press the back of your head into the mat. Chin to the chest. Roll yourself up. Upper Body. Look into your belly and redraft the shoulders. I'm going to suggest from here, lower the legs a little exhale. Pull them out, lower them. Slow enough that you can feel those zero pressure changes on your spine and three of five. Squeeze through the inner thigh and the glutes. Even now pressing the back of your head into your hands.

One more time. [inaudible] from here, bend your knees, lift your tailbone, put it down, lift it again and down. Straighten up the legs a little bit, not totally straight, but just not fully bent either. Up, down, up, and leave the tailbone down. Press the back of your head into your hands again. Redraft the shoulders. Fold under your chest a little bit more.

Again, lift and down upper body. Still you're bringing your hips to your head. I don't want to see both ends lifting up right? Different, Huh? Woo. From here you can squeeze. Hold for three. Squeeze. Hold one. Hold to hold three really again, lift two, three and down. Slight change. It's a lift. Shift your hips to the right. Back to the center down.

Same thing. Lifts to the right center and down. You got to lift if you're going to twist. Otherwise, don't twist. Lift a little shift as tiny. Center other way to the left. Boom. Center and down. Get up, get up, lift, twist, lift and down. The last one, lift, twist, center and down from here. Put your head down. Arms down by your side.

Oh, legs are still there. Straighten them out though. From that same contraction only centered XL to roll over. Now the intensity's rising. Yeah. Let's pretend it's not. Let's not let him know. Flex your feet. Push into the imaginary wall overhead.

As you draw the middle of the spine and roll down, what are you laughing at exactly? Circle close up and over. Up and over. You can use a tricep size, a recommended flex open and then roll it down. I seriously have two classes going on. I love it. And down. All right, well yeah. Anyway, high surrender I to go over. So straighten the knees Andy, just a little. There you go.

Push the feet apart so there's no sense of collapsing. Good, good. A little straighter on the legs, Helen at the very end there. Let's reverse it just for what? Two here we go up in. Oh, nice. Windy. When you get to the closing of the feet, pushed into the bottoms of the feet and then as you roll down, it's as if you're trying to keep that opposition, not as if you are keeping it and the last one to go over, you get to the bottom. Go ahead and bend your knees and set yourself up for the shoulder bridge.

Good, good, good. Nice man. A all right. Shoulder bridge. It is. So the feet are slightly apart and by that I mean four to five inches spread out the upper back. Inhale, no legs for a moment. Exhale, roll up through the spine, then kick in hamstrings, glutes, picking up the right leg. Exhale kicking down one and two and three. So challenge your pace, right? That's kind of why I'm for me, speeding it up a little and down to come up and down to come up. Thank you Jim. Down to come up. One more down, up, return it.

Adjust. So before you pick up that other leg, feel heaviness through the sternum. Just a little bit. Draw the other leg up and it's down, up, down, up, right. If we always move exactly the same pace and not really challenging the particular movement pattern, it's just one way. Having said that, we don't want to lose form, so give yourself three more to come back up. Return it, check the alignment from here.

I'm going to suggest that we all slightly just a little more than you would naturally do. Take the heels outward, just barely. Then think about hugging the inner thigh. My f your knees are still apart as they were. Include a little bit more [inaudible] posterior tech, right? It feels like the pupil bone goes higher.

Hipbones go lower then use your butt as much as you want, as you can to press into it to lift your hips, but not the rib cage. It stays. Then focus on the right leg. Push into the right foot. Shouldn't change your pelvis. Just focus on that side and draw more energy there. Switch it. Don't let yourself see it though. Just feel it. Do it again, right side. What's your foot doing? Leave it parallel. Left side or leave it level, even it out. Keep a little glute contraction.

Inhale and soften and then we're going for intensity. Soften the front of your body, the throat and roll down. Huh? Ha. Move your feet out maybe three inches away from where they are reaching forward. Curl up, grab onto the back of your legs. Do your best to leave your feet there.

Keep coming. Oh my God, and I even knew what I was going to do. Send my to Andy Years. What can I say? Stretch your legs out. Separate him for this spine stretch. Okay, good. So I love it. Just to here for one second. If I were to have you hug here and lift your chest as much as you could really push on me here, lift your chest more. That's out. Should start right there with a little less tension in the hands. But, but that energy. Good. Same for you. You've got a good position. Just push on me here. Okay, good.

Now lift your chest a lot. Good. Push on me more. Now really pushing. Okay, now drop your shoulders way down. That's it. Now minimize the arm tension. Actually they don't have to be that close. Sorry. Palms towards each other after you go. Exhale to around down. So I'm not trying to include more arm tension, but that sense of peck work now into back extension right away in good. You can bend the knees here.

I'd rather your back be really straight and you know it. Good. Exhale from the lowest part of your spine round down and then start right away. Coming back to the top. Nice man day. Inhale. Excellent. Up and down. You Go, wow. Keep going down. Keep going down. Keep going down. See what you got. Beautiful.

Inhale into back extension. Oh he indeed. Lovely and Exhale, Richard, forward to roll up. I love the little, the modification that's happening where when you get into back extension you slightly band and then go back. Exhale going down. Inhale into your extension. Go ahead and come up. Yup, Yup, Yup. You're all right. You guys hang out a little more. Push into your low back there. Now exhale, round down to chop and a few come. Good, so start softening shoulders a little sooner and it's great. Here we go.

Two more like that. And so it feels almost like a vertical going down with the head and then press into the mat with your legs to help you come into a back extension. Exhale round the feet matter in terms of alignment, try to keep them flexed at the ankle, not just the toes were up and last one like that. Down we go. Inhale to your back extension. We will stay up here. As you probably guessed right, get longer.

Last time I got in trouble from not doing it and gently pull back with the upper arms. I would focus more on the stretch between the vertebral on that diagonal line, but can we lean forward anymore? We don't need to strain a whole lot more, but nice. All right, let's hold it. Inhale, soft shoulders and neck even there. Exhale round over. Rule ourselves up. Keep the feet apart, but slide forward onto your mat.

Set yourself up just behind the tailbone. I'll tell you what, keep bring your feet together to feel better. Getting into it. I think find yourself just behind the table somewhere where you could easily move your legs without your body. Well, you know what I mean? I know it's part of your body, but I just took a whole class on it. In fact, okay, ready? Pick up one leg and I haven't straightened my back yet. I'll get there the other, because I want to make sure my pelvis is sort of stable. If I find myself rocking a lot there, I know I'm not quite where I want to be.

If I can hold that, then I can. Don't change the hips when you go straight. Right? That's what people do. That's what I do is I want to go like that and throw the hips forward. Huh? Keep the hips there and lengthen off that. If you need to lower your arms, you lower your arms. Here we go. Open like rocker. It's off we go. Inhale back. Exhale, hold, and it's like you're reaching the tailbone out to come up.

And this, for those of you who I had, you kind of hug your upper arms into mine on the last exercise, this union, the same thing with your inner thighs only. I'm not going to get in between them to have you do it and let's go. Inhale back. Beautiful. Beautiful. Next. Next one. After this one goes slow. As you can change your path, the pace of it, prove it to yourself. Even if it takes you, don't land it. That's all right. Excellent. All right, let's hold that.

When you get there, close up the feet. Nice. Deborah, come all the way up. Squeeze the upper inner thigh in the glute to let go. Roll down to the shoulder blades. Leave your legs. Don't lose the connection at the bottom to regain it as the hard part. Slowly up. Take your time. Don't worry. You'll make it. Soft leg, soft legs. They're up there. I know. Coming down again.

So it's the key I think is the glue. Personally, I let go of those for way too many years. Bend the knees and come on down. Happy feet closer together for one more or two pelvic curls, but use them as a stretch so we exhale to roll up so that there's a little back stretch there. If you look for it, finding your way to the top, then I'm going to take us further, so make sure you're [inaudible] know that that's the point. First of all, attempt to Tuck your pelvis more. Once you've got that and you know your glutes are engaged and we're going to send the hips higher, allowing the ribs to go just a bit, okay? If all of a sudden it shifts to your low back, something went wrong.

Rather it's a lot of glute hoping to get the front of the hip flexors a little bit. Okay? It's not, it shouldn't be a severe change from normal, but all right, let's start to release the ribs down first. Roll ourselves down. That's probably enough. Okay. Speaking of hip extension, we're going to head into scissors and bicycle. Um, just a word about elbows and wrists. It's gonna, you know, it's not great for people with elbows and wrists, uh, that hurt, that hurt. Um, so your options would be we're doing it for hip extension, so your options would be, again, just to repeat the, the shoulder bridge, I would suggest doing a slow version of shoulder bridge. Just walking it through like so. Okay. If you don't want to be on your hands and wrists or if it gets tiring.

All right. Most of you have done this with me enough that I'm going to just talk through it. Let's go. So you are going to roll over once. If you don't know, it's please sit up and watch to get into it and then go back. Once you're there and you've proven to yourself that you could move your legs around without your trunk moving, we're good. Bend your knees. Elbows are in rather close. Take your back into your hands, allowing just a little bit of hyper extension eventually, but mostly if you just head for neutral, you'll be good from here. Extend first. Let's let the right knee drop to our nose or close to her face.

Take the left leg straight up. As you reach the left leg away from you, you are also going to lift your pelvis or for some people feels like press the pelvis toward your shoulders as that legs reaching away. Keep reaching it. I want to stare. I want to see it head to the floor. Then extend the top leg. Okay, but don't let it move your bottom leg. Great, Deborah. Nice Errand, Mary. Good go way Mandy. Go Man. Do you just press your hips over your head more and you'll be, that's it and we change. Go slow for now as that right leg goes down, you're lifting your hips out of your hands almost more from your right leg, Aaron, and less from your left. There it is.

Let's go a little quicker and pulse, pulse and pulse. Pulse. You almost don't have to deal with the top leg that like closest to your face. It'll go where it needs to. If anything, you hold back, you want the split right in the middle. Hold the next one going into bicycle. You bend the leg closest to go down, press the thigh downward as you lift the hips up.

That's how you touch the floor and then change cycle through. As you press down, you're lifting that opposite hip and press. Get the full stretch first. Then it goes down. You can reverse it and down in. I really can't quite figure out why that's harder, but it is nice. Wendy, go Andy. If you let yourself do a tiny bit more back extension, I just do one more. Then you're golden. Had just lost direction.

Once you finished that, let your legs go overhead again. Free up your hands and slowly rolled down. [inaudible] bending the knees gently freeing up the arms. Maybe it had been east to the chest. Those look pretty good. Like really good. Actually.

It didn't feel so good, Huh? All right. Moving on. Something more fun. Feed down on the ground. Hands behind your head for the neck book. My enthusiasm didn't, didn't conquer the truth. Here we go. Inhale, lifting up inner thighs. Exhale all the way over. If you're a fetal art together and I'm just softly pointing. Yup. Inhale, roll up your spine. Before you lean back, squeeze your button, prove that you can lift up and like an inch, like literally feel your to, that's it. Now hinge back and then no collapsing, no sense of. Okay, now I get to draw [inaudible]. You just peel yourself back to the floor. Here we go. Inhale, exhale.

If you ha if you let go at the bottom, you know you're gone or it's never going to happen in how? Find your way to the top. Get a little lift before you go hinge ing and you're just going, my tailbone, sacrum. Don't really need to drop your head a lot and up. Try and leave a curve here. Good, very good. Inhale, lifting up, pressing your head back into your hands. This helps try this. Monica taught me this. Press your head backwards, hinge back and keep pressing your head, but don't look up quite so much.

Jim just, there you go. You're just pushing it back. Last one. I don't know why it helps. You have to ask Monica, but it does, and up we come and when you get there, let's stay there. Please separate your feet and flex them. Now in how? Rotate to the front. Exhale elbow reaches inside the knee or inside the Shin, but not to flatten you out. I'm actually getting a little curved today. Inhale, roll up. Exhale, center in. How rotate. Just the spine moving, not the legs. Exhale as you reach inside the Shin. Gorgeous. Inhale, roll up. Exhale, center. Let's make it a little more fluid. Amia two exit.

[inaudible] annex. Inhale and exhale to roll up. Continue rotating as you come up there. It feels nice in here. Keep rotating, but leave the feet still and center and center. That's good. From there, bringing the arms out to this, to this position and make it a little bit more. I won't let you hate each other like this from here. Growing tall.

Just get there. Extend the arms. Go flat this time so you separate your feet. Gym. You'll like it. Way Better. Hinge forward. Okay, now you are going to end up around it, but you're attempting for extension, reaching, looking at the shin. Maybe reach that back end more and then hinge up here. Center. Sorry I, I told you when lady hit. Inhale, rotate. Then extend and reach hard reach. You can even, if you want, put your hand down on the ground to help you there. Sit back up, fold the arms and come center. Inhale, spiral reach.

Inhale, come back up. So the difference between the first version, and this is really more hamstring this time. So allow yourself to get a hamstring. Stretch this time outside. Reach and up and center. All right, just close the feet. The hands are back. Fingers facing. The heels can be done on your fist, right or rolled the mat.

This is another risk thing, but that's just what happens at this level. All right? In north size, engage. We lift up, holding it here, squeeze the inner thighs. Can you feel the glutes working and probably I want you to see in front of you more than behind you. So some version there you go and hinge down. Okay this time drop more weight into your feet, aiming to get the toes on the ground at some point. Maybe not today and down. I actually have nine on the calendar and I'm not know what's happening with the other one. But next time maybe up we go right and down. This time, bend the knees, pull the feed in about, I don't know, six inches. I'm guessing. Up we go.

Probably gonna have to move your hands back. Sorry. Move your hands back a little. [inaudible] just want a little knee bend. Pick up the right knee. Put it down other side. Put it down. Okay, then sit down. Go back to straight legs or you can stay there. I'm not sure which is harder.

Straight legs is traditional. That's where we go. Here we go. Lift up. You don't have to lift the leg at all, but if you're going to, you better have the glutes and hamstrings ready. Here we go. Four on one side. XL lift one same side, two, three and four. Change, size, lift one. Keeping the hips still to get those hips back up or don't lift the leg. Three. Here you go. Four. Put it down. Inhale, get long. Exhale, sit down and stretch forward.

I'm going off those. Well, we can't just stretch here. We might as well look at alignment. Okay. Um, look at your feet for a second. As you do this, flex him. He can bend your knees. That's okay. But then try to line them up so they're in fact flat to each other and include that in your stretch. Let's back off just a little in the stretch.

Roll the pelvis forwards. I'm, it's as if I'm trying to arch my back. I won't, but I'm reaching the tailbone out, heading towards more flat and inching my way forward with a flatter back and then round over [inaudible]. Okay. When you're ready, sit yourself up. Let me give ourselves one more stretch. Here you have, let's say the right hand to the back. My feet are apart pretty wide, pretty wide, and we're just going into a stretch. It's going to happen like so where you come up, you try to keep the hips to the ceiling and you fully reach back. So there is a rotation in the spy. Okay, good. Join me. Yup. Yup.

So level out to Aaron. Pick up the right hip, a little and drop the left hip. Marcias is more s twist in the spine. Good and calm down. So to do this, we're gonna switch hands before you look back. Look straight ahead at your hips, make them level. Then you can keep pressing the hips up, but they don't change level.

Chances are you're going to have to lift the left hip more than the right and then come down. Let's do it again. Switching back to the right and lifting up. Find the level hip. Then turn. You can either take the arm overhead or just leave it up at the ceiling. That might be a better measure for you and down last time. Get a little tuck in there.

Those of you who want more hip flexor stretch and right, right. You walk in together again behind the sit bones. Pick up the feet to tabletop. Set them down. We do. Again, no moving to the spine. So it's the thigh bones moving away. I'm not trying to bend the knee. Extend the knee. Right? It's thy bones down. Thigh bones up, knee angle doesn't change by bones down. There we go. [inaudible] alright. Leading them up as you roll down to your shoulder blades, you're extending your legs slow.

We'll come back to that same spot. Slow. Squeeze your butt, squeeze your butt. Squeeze your butt as you go. And we're not going to go pass the tailbone. We get to be behind him. He the light way behind it. If you want back what happened? Hopefully this time when you come up, take your knees off to the right, your arms off to the left. Just a little. Don't get crazy.

I'm a little on the red but cheek. It's true. And down. Let's do the other way. Get over on our left butt cheek, but keep the feet up there with the knees and down. Switch back. Oh, Yay down. How you feeling? I trust you. I'm not the only one doing it right. I can see Wendy's doing it and, and, and this time we go down all the way. Set your feet down. Stretch back. Yeah. All done. And then turn to face the front of the room.

On your side, lying on your upper arm, doing your best to have the arms straight up overhead if necessary. It can come forward a little or you can bend the elbow. That's alright. But set your head on your bicep and look straight out in front of you. Feet maybe slightly in front of you. Long waist, bottom hand down or up, down for support up from more challenge to the balance. Exhale, reach and lift both legs, ankle bones together. Nice Heron. Inhale down, barely touch. Exhale, lift again. So making this hopefully more of the a oblique exercise and, and, and lift down. Reach through that bottom like some, make that inner thigh help to last one here. I think I might've said that, but anyway, here we are. Flex the feet. Check them out.

Keep the big toe joints together as best you can. If your knees hit first, that's not gonna work for you, but go parallels as much as you can. I pointed now and then flex again. The point is is how much connection can you keep from toe to head? [inaudible] one more time and reach. Set the feet down. Come up to your forearm, bend the lower knee, take this leg and hip and reach it a little bit longer.

You could almost lift up on the side on this elbow. It's not that weighted from here. Flex the foot. We're going to come forward with the like lifted up. Don't move the hips though. Take it as far behind you as you can. Hips don't move night or two. The body will hardly. Okay, so it's gonna.

It's a little less satisfying when we're up on the elbow because you feel like you're hitting a wall probably sooner than you normally would if you did this line fully down, but you're just there sooner. Right? Proud. I'm going the other way, so make sure you get to the back. Get A, don't turn the foot either. I'm kind of staying parallel here, not just to frustrate you, but that's right. Give yourself two more reach and then from here, either stay here and I'm, I think I will, or take it to your elbow and stretch out the bottom leg. Oh look, I may or now, so I'll stay here. One of the two. This one's a little more balanced challenge and kick, kick, reach back and flex and back and flex and back. Awesome too.

We're here reach, try and feel the sense that the five bones going to the back. Hold it. Hold it. I'll explain that in a second when, let's do it slow because I want to explain that when you reached the like forward, it should feel like the top of the head. The leg bone is pointing out the back. It doesn't go with you, right? You reached the tail but not separate those two. And then to the back of the top of the five one's going to the front.

Take hold of it. Either stay up on your or come all the way to your forum or go all the way to your, uh, to the ground. If you prefer stretching, pressing the hips forward as you draw the knee. Good. [inaudible] and then just cross it in front instead of, I am going for more risk stuff here, so it'll be side bend if you want to be on your forearm, cause I'll do the twist too. So if I'm, if you know that you're going to get three and three, you might do three on the elbow to save your wrist. If you want. Alright, we're lifted. You're already confident here, right? Is Everything. Competence is everything on this stuff. Hold it. Check your head, feel for it. A Gym just switched across your feet.

Oh, he just gave me an idea. Let's pick that leg up and put it behind. Sorry, and front and behind and front. Okay, leave it in front. Now lift the waist to reach over. If, if you turn anything, it's just your face, your head, your neck. Come back to the long line. Bend and come down and my inspiration, the squeeze the glutes.

Push that bottom hip into the top to help you lift up. Come back to the long line and I'll make that three. That could, we just did three. Now we go into the twist. Lift up pike, reach across your chest, going for a pretty flat back in this version. Head is down, the back foot ends up hardly having anything on it. Inhale, reopen and either bend the knees to come down or challenge yourself by hinging at the waist and up again. Pike can reach across the chest, get that spiral in the spine reopened and Andrew or bend last one up Pike and reached her on arms. Got To work them to get them strong. Reopen will come down, bend that needs to come down or when you get there slide than you.

Then to pick them up. Hold onto the Shin or ankle. You can, you can sit feet apart too. That's all fine. Just get the arm close to your head as much as you can without bringing your head to it. And I'm going to ask, if you see me do that, will you tell me? Say it in the night. He immediately do it and you can lift the shoulder. Enjoy. Enjoy it. Yeah.

And you should be the model for this. Yeah. All right. Bring it around and let's just change that. We started a long time ago. All the way down. Hmm.

Use this as sort of your sensor, right? Your way of tapping in or I'm up or down. It's up to you. Inhale, exhale. As you reached to lift both legs and inhale as you lower and and down and left. So things you air on or air on the side of, um, of what? Of your abs facing the ceiling. Let's see. Keep going. Give yourself about two more loudly. I thought I was going to catch them.

Set it. Next one up. Stay up. If you're there, great. You flex the feet. Keep the toes together and point. Flex them. Point as if you're, if coming from your butt, like pushing something away. Three more. Okay. Comp. Informative. Huh? Like a raccoon. Is that what they do? I was thinking more like platypus. I don't know what they do either. Okay.

This must be enough. Go ahead and set it down and come up to whatever's next, right. Bottom knee forward up on the forearm. Reaching Long. Pick it up and here we go. We came forward, we lifted, we circled behind. And actually even on this one, you don't have to go quite as far forward as say sidekick. We will in a minute. But emphasize getting to the back. I'm giving you one more and just I find it interesting. The differences.

Change sides. Take it to the back. Find that wall of resistance and I sh I'm going to say one more thing. Go to the back and hold it for one second. There's a tendency I see where at once you're tightening your butt, things get drawn in like that. Let it go and then tighten. Do you know what I mean? It's different.

It's like we tighten and everything comes here on it's way back there. You'll get further back and you'll work. What we really are trying to work. I'm a hot, I'm trying for five here, so or six maybe I'm doing one more. Then we head into that sidekick. Okay. Either walk out to the tip of the elbow, the way we did it before, you could stay on the forearm or you can come down more traditionally on that whole upper arms up to you. Here we go, and kick forward, forward, forward and reach. So same thing. Let that leg be free in the hip joint. You don't have to grip around the hip joint at all.

[inaudible] if you take the range as far as you can [inaudible] and control the powerhouse, you'll work what you need to last one coming at Ya. And then let's just do one slow freedom in the hip joint. It's going to hopefully feel like you are sticking your butt out a little bit. Stretch in the hamstring. Then as you go to the back, keeping the pelvis still, the front of the leg bone feels like it's going forward. Grab on for a stretch. I like to come up to my forearm where you could go all the way down and just every so often, um, look down your body and, and check for [inaudible] [inaudible] that you're not piking to get the stretch, but that open up the knee angle.

Press the hip forward first then see what you could get. Might be less in terms of range, but probably more stretch. Okay. Onto your abdominals for, um, I didn't forget, I was just gonna say that. Yeah, right. I said I was going to do, let's go sideband. Okay. So Helen, do you want to this what? Okay, good. She's got, she's ready. Ready? Here we go. Lift up. Just feel the innercise. Almost like your legs are one, right?

So that you can pick up the one you don't need and put it behind him and the left didn't put it in right. Bye. Imagine someone pulling you up here. It helps. All right, next time you get in the front, leave it there and [inaudible] take a quick peak that you haven't rotated your hip so much are in a complete rotation. Come to the straight line and bend or hinge and lift again. If your hands are slippery, let me know.

I'll get you a sticky mat and then over. Try for a long arms reopen. I need one. Did you add down? Okay, it's time for this twist. So hang on Jen. When inhale lifting up. Exhale, spiral.

If you need it and feel that stretch to the hamstring a little there, maybe open and hinge and lift. Straighten out your hips. Forward a little landing next time. That was the last one though, wasn't it? So when you come back, take a second to finish it and then down you go. Good. Probably a protective risk thing. But so sitting up, make it relatively comfortable.

So if you've got to spread the feet out, do okay and then allow the lot to stretch. Go ahead. See how close you get. Yeah, there you go. And then if you want more sober. Lovely. Okay. Right.

Thank you. Down to your abdominals for the devil. Devil a kick. So hands are behind your back. Look to the front. Thank you. Does anyone want something to hold on to so you feel less crowded as you go? We're good. All right, so let's take the hands and exaggerate where we put them today.

Don't let me do too much here. We're just going to slide them up and now carefully drop the shoulder. Okay. Shoulders are of course down the elbows. Try to relax to the floor. Okay, so you're relaxed, right Aaron? Okay. I, you know, I do usually lace them if you can lace them all the way. If that's too difficult, then you can grab a couple of fingers, that'd be fine too. Great. Alright, from there, reached the, like so far away the kneecaps hover. Okay.

You feel all bones or the front of your body flat on the Mat. Don't, don't Tuck. Just leave it flat. Alright, here you go. Kicking, bending the knees. Three times one, two, three. Stretch the arms and the legs. Hover the chest looking down or slightly forward. Bend the knees and elbows turn the other way and kick a one, two, three and stir ash head. Vote a little errand. Boom. Good.

And that's what I meant. Sorry. Look forward to three and stretch. Open up those shoulders. Good and hold one and two and three. We're going to go twice more if you can. Try not to bounce the hip so it's small, controlled three and stretch. Good last time. So you maintain that tight contraction in the glutes. Very Good Helen, and relax yourself down. Hands by your shoulders.

Press yourself up and back, taking it into the combination, which essentially is almost from rest position here. You'll lift up and there's very little weight in your hands. You'll lift up from the ABS and the curl so that your glutes engage right away. You transition forward. If you don't like to passing over the knees, pick them up by curling the toes under and then reset. But basically the glutes and hamstrings never let go even in the rounded position. So from here it's as if someone took you by, I don't know, just below the Chester at the sternum pulls you back.

Your head responds your light on the needs for the moment and down you go. So only put weight into the hands when you have to, which you will. But here we go. Inhale as you come through, rounding through, find the gluten, hamstrings, and now think up. I'm lifting up. I'm looking for that hip flexor stretch again too. And or to go back. And again, inhale, coming all the way through.

There should be no sense that the low back is doing a lot of work. It's a long line. Look for your upper back. In fact, when you get here, stay here and try and lift out of the hands more. So it's as if someone's pulling your head just up, not backwards, and now come away and round two more. Inhale. Good. You should most certainly feel the glute hamstring. Good. Some of you are liking to lift the knees. That's cool. And back last one, round, round, round and look for the curve and back.

All right, for the next one, curl the toes under. Bring your hands close to you. You can do this on the fist if in fact let's, well fist or wrist. Either way I'm going regular from here you scoop the belly, you press the upper arms towards your hips. That's great. Hover by exhaling the knees off the ground and then re round. I mean sorry, put the knees back down. Sorry.

I was thinking of the next cue I wanted to give you which is this. Check this out for one second cause it's something that we don't know we're doing. Sometimes if we started out all good and rounded like so and then go to lift. Sometimes we do that and it just feels like another arm thing. Why would she do that in another one I did was released my pelvis, so if you keep that, the only way to get off the ground is from the ABS.

I mean your arms too, but more apps. Okay, so let's go. You're looking down. Look at your belly button. Shoulders, of course. Here we go. Inhale, start the exhale and it's like you're pressing the knees forward towards your hands as they hug up and down. Good. Inhale. Exhale. Shoulders to hips, hips toward shoulders and down. This time will stay up. Inhale, exhale, lift up, pick up the right foot, keep the shape. Inhale, reach back. Exhale, pull it to your nose. One, there's three cheap, nothing changes, but they'll ne a was that already it and changed sides. Sorry. And so if we did four, tell me and we'll do four here and two, I changed rights and three, if we did three and here's four. If we did four, put it down.

Arrest your feet, go all the way down to your abdominals again, arm stretched out in front of you. [inaudible] probably in a little bit of a V, right? You might be. I'm just doing it to show the range. Yep. Okay. From here you start to lift your head. I'm not doing anything with the arms and my legs are reaching and doing back extension. Starting to lift the chest.

You might feel now that you have to think about sliding your hands downward towards you, but then stop wherever you want. Just good. Aaron, I'd love your height and I'm going to ask for something kind of weird. Try to press your ribs into the floor. Like so the middle of your yep. But keep the height of the back of your head. Yep. Come down a little more to this journey. Yeah, I like it.

I don't know if you can feel it differently, but it looks fantastic. Love it Jim. And it was all a good. Anyone. I'll feel it. Happy. Helen. Have to. Okay, down we go. So yeah, let's, let's just aim to come up. Not very high. Here we go. Uh, reaching the legs, that's probably all that's going on. Yes, you are.

To squeeze the glutes a little bit. Only because your back is lifting. It's not like you're trying to, here we go. We left, we lifted in. And when the help us starts to come toward you, meaning it starts to go into your low back, that's when you focus on reaching the legs a little bit more. Can keep the ribs on. I love it. All right, wherever you are, start to lift the right arm. I'm going to encourage you to reach the left leg. It's still on the ground, but and changing side, you've got to anticipate this one a little so you don't rock side to side.

Just leave the foot on the ground. That's the hard part. Feet don't change there. You may have to emphasize one reaching more so you don't rock, but they're still on the mat. Last one slides should be effortless. We can lift a little higher. Now you can slide the hands in, right? Cause you're just lifting those back muscles. That's it.

And then start to come up a little more. And now I really thinking of reaching the lights are still on the ground. Come up a little more. Good. And then drag or pull or reach yourself back down. [inaudible] so the, everything's on the ground at the moment. You can keep the, um, you can grip, bend the elbows and bring them right by your side if they're not already there, shoulders are down, you're reaching the legs. Start to lift your head again.

So for the moment, we're not doing anything with the arms. You're just using pure back muscles to lift your spine. When you reached your limit, which will probably happen relatively soon, you start to focus on, okay, are my shoulder blades down. I can press the forearms in to the ground for assistance on height, but I'm still trying to lift myself with the back muscles. Okay? If it starts to go into your low back, you think I'm going to reach my legs.

And if that doesn't work, make sure glutes are engaged. If that doesn't work, then you're done. Get to your range. And then as if you were trying to pull yourself front of your hands, go back down. Excellent. All right. Hands by your side enough to help you. Push up to round back, freeing up the arm, set in wherever you want. [inaudible] and then about that time, find your way to be able to curl the toes under. Lift your hips, depressed the heels down, folding yourself in half.

It's not a bad idea to leave the knees bent. I have the feet apart a little bit here. Let the hands be easy. What's your neck? Be Easy. Let the shoulders be easy, and then we're going to bend the knees a lot again. Let's leave the heels down and then if your arms did slide forward, are off your back as I call it. Put them back in place and straighten your legs. [inaudible] slight Ben Maybe, or you could leave them straight.

If you can pull up into the belly, he can feel a connection to the hamstring and gluten. It's slight, but it's there. Start to roll yourself up. Arms. You're just sort of dead weight when you get about halfway, almost the past halfway. Bend the knees a little, Tuck your pelvis a little and then just let the arms circle. It doesn't matter which way. Just get a little circle going. The arms are dead weight, but still on your back. And then reverse the circle. So you really feel the arms are just weightless.

You feel the space around your arms, which is Kinda cool. And then when it, they kind of settle, maybe notice the bottoms of your feet grounded and you start to elongate first through the leg, through the pelvis and spine, eventually through your neck, lifting yourself off of your feet in a way. Float the arms up when you get there, just however high it feels right and X. Yeah, bringing some energy back. So I think it was relatively intensive for no other reason than just different energies in the room. And that's cool. Okay, let's go one more time. So make it what you need it right now.

Big deep breath and let yourself go or break yourself up, whatever you need. Thanks you guys very much for being here.

Comments

PA never disappoints...loved the detail on OLR - lengthening off the hips & the slow pace! Thank you!
Spot-on cueing, as always. Glad to have a bit of variety in the work. Thank you!
great workout. I really like the variations like Colleen mentioned before! I love working out with PA every morning!
WOW! Kicked my butt! Great job Kristi. Remind me not to hike the mountain 2 days in a row and then take this class. My buttocks are on fire.:)
Thanks guys! I'm hiking tomorrow Elizabeth, maybe I'll take the class too.... No, that would just be weird.
LOL!
1 person likes this.
Holy Moly!Another fantastic class!:0) LOVED IT!!
Great challenge and so good for the deep core muscles and hip flexors!!!! Feel taller now, thank you so much :)

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.

Footer Pilates Anytime Logo

Move With Us

Experience Pilates. Experience life.

Let's Begin