Joyful Tower

Hi everybody, it's Amy here for a tower workout, and it's a joyful tower, I'm just sayin'. Okay, it's so simple in terms of springs, you just need your leg springs. And I have mine set about halfway up. Use your discretion. But we're, yeah, halfway up.

And then one red spring from the top, we're gonna start standing up on the mat. You also could do this with your wall tower, your springboard, and a Cadillac. All the choices. Alright, have fun, let's be together, stand parallel with your legs, a little space between. Wrap your hand across your bar, your push through bar, I have my thumb up here with my fingers.

And I do want you to hold the bar, squeeze it, use your finger pads. Let's take about three preparatory breaths, you can organize your collarbone, your chest, that length in the waistline, sense of arches lifted. And we're gonna roll down, take a breath here again, and we go, rounding forward. Leading with the crown of that head, I like to think about my arm bones reaching toward those knuckles, those knuckles toward the mat. Just an easy roll down here, everybody, head between the arms, take a breath.

As we exhale, we're pulling up through the abdominals. Take your time. Get the tailbone to really round down, so you feel the length of the lumbar. Control that spring tension, you're just coming right back to the starting place, inhale again. And exhale, there's a lift of the abdominals up the front of the body, as we try to take the tail and keep it curled under.

It may move relative to what we're doing with our upper back and our mid back. Stay right there, take another breath. You might wanna unlock those knees, around your spine, the bar is trying to push me up, we're resisting that spring. Resisting with the shoulder girdle, resisting with the spine and the trunk, take a breath. And again, rounding forward.

And I kind of feel like the shin bone needs to travel forward over my ankle, for me, that helps me not lock those knees. Okay, how does that feel, so we're just gonna stand right there, take one breath cycle. Lift the stomach a little more, now, start to extend. And you can lead with the tail. Open the sitting bones, lengthen through the lumbar, lengthen through the mid back, lengthen through the sternum.

And as I'm reaching through my sternum and neck, I'm gonna just pull the bar up a little bit. And then round forward and do that again. Just go into flexion. And then go into extension. Okay, just moving through, get the the length of the hamstrings.

One more curl. And an arch. Feel that, oh, lovely stretch of the hamstrings, now everybody, we're going to roll up, in flexion, take your time. Arches of the feet lifting, shin bones over ankles. Long through the abdominals, up through the top of the head, now, a little upper back extension.

You may slightly press down on your bar to connect the back of the arms to the back. Oh, it feels so good. And then another flexion. Okay, now from here, we're gonna roll right back up just to get that leg line stretched, and walk in a little step and start to bend your knees. And as you bend your knees, you're parallel.

You don't have to squat too low to begin, but I want you to start getting more flexion in your lower back. Kinda start to incrementally go a little lower. Feel free to adjust your feet if you need to, I'm gonna step my feet in, a tad. Pull on the bar. Right, if you have this on your springboard, if you've got the push through attachment, it feels really, really nice.

Get your back round. And then we're gonna sit all the way down. All the way down. Alright, adjust your feet right up against the frame. So, we'll do a few rounds of push through, in this class, kind of an assessment in a way.

Let's see how we feel in our first forward push through. Bring your bar down, take a breath. And exhale as you round forward, so again, that same feeling. Now, there are some schools that say certain shapes of push through, I want myself to just feel like I'm getting a stretch of my body. I'm gonna hook my thumb.

So that means my arms are stretching forward. My legs are stretching, my spine is certainly stretching. I just want to feel the stretchy feel, right? Not committed to a certain form or alignment right here, just feel stretch. And then round yourself back up.

Now this next one, let's work on a little bit more alignment principle, so, well you'll see, you're just gonna stop, with your head staying above your arm line. So that's about where I'm gonna be, and I wanna focus again on my low back, reaching back as much as I can. Just feel that. You don't see a lot, but I'm working quite a bit and trying to pull my lower back back. Alright, and then restack up to sitting tall, take the bar past your eyes.

And then reach the bar up toward the top of the frame, hinge forward at your hips. If it feels better to adjust your hands now and again, play with that. I'm allowing my scapula, shoulder blade, to also kind of rotate up toward the hand. It's not my upper trapezius shrugging, it's the scapular rotating on the ribcage, to get that lift. Oh, it feels so good, get long here, so tower, for me, is a lot about articulation and length, so we're gonna be playing with that, a little bit.

But, let's get into some feet. So what I want you to do, everybody, is as you're seated, take one foot, the ball of your foot on the foot bar, the push through bar. Control this, you may have to use your other foot. And I do want you to start with the bar, at the frame. And lean back on your elbows, with some shoulder support, okay?

Start to do some bend and stretch of the knee. Let the bar rotate around on your foot on the bar. Why am I doing it this way? Variety, you know me. And also to watch your own alignment.

You might be able to learn a little bit about your hip-knee-ankle alignment if you can see it. Regular parakeet is coming in a moment, where we can't really see the feet completely all the way. Let's do it twice more. Whatever breath makes sense for you, on the inhale and an exhale. Use the hamstrings.

A lot about what this is, the trunk control, and hamstring. And of course your feet. Right, and that was our five, so let's change feet, doop. And bend. Now I do have my elbows pressing pretty firmly into the mat, so that I can keep my chest elevated.

If this is not working for you on your elbows, just lie on your back. Now again, make sure that you're safe with your own knees. This is a knee for me that I have to control differently than my right side. So it might look like I'm not getting it completely straight, but that, there we go. In my practice, and, by doing that, I actually get that moment to connect, where can I feel the support from my knee?

It's in my hamstring and all the way up to the back of my hip. One more time. And I tell ya my little stories, just because you might be having the same goin' on for you too. Alright, now. Set the other foot on.

And then lie on your back, okay. For a moment, we have to pretend something. That our shin bones are kind of levitating up off of the calf muscles, because, this is a place where it's really likely to just (blows raspberry) and plop the back of the knees down. Not so good for your knees. So it's like I'm levitating my shin bones, I think you can see that, versus, eh.

Yeah, okay. Let's do bend and stretch of the knees with two feet, Right, try not to look at your alignment, feel it, that we just felt before. Alright, I'm gonna breathe in as it comes toward me, I'm keeping that pelvis neutral and I exhale. Use your feet. They're connected to the seat, the whole back chain of your body.

Alright, we're gonna do that one more time and start adding to it, at the top. Ah, like I said, lots of spinal articulation here, so curl the tail, peel yourself up. Get onto those upper back shoulders, just stand there. Take a deep breath. Levitate your shins.

And roll down your spine. Feel your tail come all the way. Then bend the knees and take the legs straight, we'll do the same thing again. Yep, stay focused on those feet, they're important (laughs). And at the very top, try to float your shins a little.

Try not to lock those knees, float the shins. Inhale, and roll it down. Pull up into the stomach, up, up, up here. Tail goes that way, and we come down. Okay, we get to add a little at the top.

Now depending on how you're feeling on any given day, you can either keep your arms here, or support yourself. I'm fine with showing this, because I need it sometimes. I'm gonna take one leg lift, and I'm tapping the bar. Lift and tap. Lift and tap, set that foot down, try to float that shin bone.

And three, and tap. And two, and tap. And three, that's a lot, float the shins, lower your arms. And roll down. Once you get your pelvis level, bend the knees, and take the bar forward.

Okay, now we're gonna add a little bit of that again to the top, next time. Take it up, breathe in. Curl, articulate. Now, same thing, I'm gonna put my hands right underneath my pelvis. I'm stepping one foot off the bar.

And then doing a single-leg hip extension, kinda shoulder bridge from mat. A little early, maybe, but hey, it's a joyful class. Feel your muscles of your back working. It's so lovely, now, how are we gonna change legs at the top? Oh, there's a single leg moment, you've gotta lift yourself up.

Step the second foot down. You don't have to have your hands underneath your pelvis like I have. I'm using my hands for my own support. Because I have a tendency to hyper-extend my knees. And this is an exercise, if I'm not careful, I don't feel great afterward, I'm just saying.

But, I feel fine now, I lift my shins, and then I'm rolling down. I feel fine because I supported myself, it's amazing how that works, okay, and then take yourself forward and breathe. Good, everybody, how do you get outta there, I usually do a bend knee. I'll hook my other foot. And I'll hook, do a little sit up.

Okay, more push through, let's see how this feels, how do your lower limbs feel? Probably really electrified. Take your hands here. Let's roll back with the straight arms, and a curled pelvis. Take a deep breath.

Pull down, round forward. I'm gonna go to that second version, when we are showing push through before, meaning my head is above my arms, not diving through. Because I want to now keep focusing on this back here, really reaching back. I'm gonna pulse the bar forward four times. But I'm really pulling my stomach back, and stomach back.

Roll back, can you get on your sacrum? You've gotta really rotate the pelvis around those femur heads. And then let's lift the bar. There's that shoulder blade rotation up to the hand. And we're gonna pulse the lift four times, it's lift.

The spine is lifting, not the shoulders. The spine, and the spine, one more all the way through. And push. Four pulses. Two, just moving.

Moving and breathing, feeling everything happening. Coming back. Where do you need to stabilize, where can you let go, to move a little more freely, right, it's always fun to think about. Three and four. Okay, now, I want you to straight arms.

Hold that bar down, curl your tail under. And now, stand on your legs and your feet. Use 'em. We're gonna let go with one arm, I'm gonna let go of the one that's facing you, and I'm rotating my trunk, I love to look at the hand. Gives my brain something really centralized to focus on.

This arm is working. I'm gonna breathe and feel the feet even. And then I'm just gonna take that hand back around. Use your eyes. They're a part of your body.

There are muscles in there. Use them. Look. Breathe, can you reach more, can you stand in your feet a little more? Big distance from hand to hand, isn't there, take a breath.

Curl back again, we're gonna add to that. Inhale, exhale, rotate away. Now instead of just coming back the way we did. Keep looking at that hand. I'm gonna raise that arm above my head.

And as I raise above my head, I'm now gonna turn my eyes to face the push through bar, and place my hand on the bar. Other side, rotate. I'm really allowing my ribcage to turn. And then as I look, my ribcage finds center. And then I take my hand, we're gonna do it again.

A little extra variation. Stay back in your hinge this time. Look up at the sky. And then toward the push through bar, so you're just lingering a little different place. Open.

We'll see this again. Because we have a little bit of sequencing to do now, right? From here, everybody come to sit tall, take a breath, All of it together, we pull it down, we push through. Four. Pulses three and four.

Coming back through straight arms, round your tail under. Lift the bar, four pulses up. Two, three, and four. Release one arm, same arm. I'm gonna go all the way above my head, now there's gonna be another change.

Instead of touching the bar, that hand sets itself, you set it on the other shin bone. Rotate your ribcage. Let that hand that's on the bar, the shoulder blade's rotating up, remember, this is about your spine going up, not your shoulder so much. Spine. Yes, return hand on the bar.

All the way through, and four. Two, three, and four, coming back. Through all the way up for pulses, think through your chest, spine, heart, spine, three and four. Curl back, release that arm, opposite arm. Feel your feet.

Arm comes above the head. Now, you carry the bar up. That hand bypasses the push through bar and lands on your shin. You're in a rotation. And, feel that lift.

Feel the chest, feel the rotation. Good, alright. Put your hand on the bar again, and everybody, we're gonna do one more lift here. And then, lower your hands around the bar, we're gonna turn around and lie on our back, and head this way, so just spin. (chuckles) Get your hand on the bar.

And I love a good tower. Now, if you're on a wallboard springboard, this is gonna be impossible, 'cause you'll be against a wall. But for those of us that are here. And if that's you on a springboard, you can just watch this part, or do some chest openers here. Same idea, we're gonna arch our back now.

Over the edge of the tower unit, or the mat, or Cadillac. Linger for a moment and spread the chest muscles. You are in thoracic extension, you're in neck extension, that's a little unsupported for a moment. Makin' sure you're straight. Keep a good handhold, everybody.

Now it's okay to use the neck this way. As we lift, you're using your neck. Contract into the abdominals. I'm gonna reach my arm bones toward my fist, my fists forward, go through flexion of slowing it down so you can feel that. Now, we push all the way up.

Use the mid back muscles, if someone were behind me, I say it all the time. And if they had their hand gently between my scapula, helping me go this way, boy, that would sure feel great. I've gotta use my own body to do that. Rolling back, start at the tail, pull backward. There's that lumbar flexion, there's that thoracic flexion.

When you feel your shoulder blades meet the mat, open them. Arch, let your heart really pull through the frame, take a deep breath. Exhale. We're gonna move through this a little more fluidly. Lift, get on the tips of those sitting bones.

Lift a little bit higher, everybody stretch. And we get this twice more with a little single arm rotation, you'll see. Oh, move that spine. Unlock that thoracic area, take a breath. Curl it up.

Now, release one hand on the way up. Rotation, just like you did in saw. And I'm using the hand on the outside of this thigh, I'm pulling a little bit. This one's up and I'm turning. But I'm not thrusting the ribcage, I still wanna go up, and around.

Return to facing your legs, put the hand on the bar, roll back. We'll do that once on the other side. That's all we get, one time. Ready? Rolling up.

Contract into the shape. As you're entering the top, release the opposite hand. It goes on the outside of that thigh. And you're really letting the shoulder blade rotate up to the hand. Use this arm for support to pull you into rotation a little bit.

And then return. And now, good. We need to wiggle forward. (chuckles) And lie flat, and we want to have now more a straight line from hand to shoulder. Legs are beautifully adducted.

Ribcage down. Let's open the shoulders a little more. You can do wide elbows. Stretch, once again I'm gonna say let the shoulder blades come up. Stretching, lengthening, and then let 'em go down.

And return the bar above your chest. You could also do that with narrow elbows. It's different and it's a different challenge. Offers different things. There's no one, you know, "You have to do it this way every time" rule.

The only rule, I would say, it shouldn't hurt. Shoulders can be tricky. Some of you've got little shoulder things, right? I'm gonna do one more with wide elbows. And you get to know, that's a part of the practice of Pilates.

Learning our things (chuckles). Okay, now, we're holding the bar above our chest. I want you to take a breath. Lift your head and flex your spine forwards, we're just gonna basically be in chest lift here. Little pulses, teeny tiny.

Eight, seven. Let your chin come down, six. Now this would be a place the shoulders don't need to elevate at all, do they, no? They're just down. And seven.

And hold eight, okay. Are you lengthening your legs enough? Stretch 'em a little more. I want you to stretch the legs, start to lift the legs. Look what's happening.

You're raising yourself up into a teaser. You are ready for it, we didn't even prepare, but you did it. And now as you roll back, get on that sacrum, reach your toes to that opposite wall, and just come down to your back. We'll do it again, take a breath. If that was too much, I could say it this way too, you could always put your head back here.

It'll be just a little less intense. And you can choose that. Okay, let's go, curl it up. And I'm reaching my legs, they're gonna come up with me. And just hold that position.

Hold it, look up, take a breath. And roll onto your sacrum, lower yourself down, and all the way flat. Nicely done, everybody turn over to face me. I'll roll to face you. It's going to be a single hand.

This arm can be a pillow or a straight arm. This arm is straight above us, I'm palm down. Relatively straight arm above the shoulder, body in line with the mat. Waistline is integrated. Now you can hook your thumb around the bar or not.

It's up to you, it's safer feeling if your thumb is wrapped. And as the arm passes over the shoulder again, I want your shoulder blade to glide up, let your bottom waistline get picked up. Why am I having us do so much shoulder blade movement? Well, because it's good for us. And let that glide happen.

But then glide it back down to control and use the tension of the spring. Two more times. Just flow right through it. Just gonna go through the stretch and add a little kinda soft side bend of my spine. And glide, and left, one more.

You can clasp the hands here. Nothing too fancy, we'll do three on the other side. Let's flip around. Relatively square, straight right in the middle of your mat. Ready?

And bend, long neck here. As the arm passes through, let the scapula glide. Let the waist get picked up. Oh, and return, that would be a place to bring the scapula down. And overhead.

Take a breath into that length. And exhale, all the way up. One more time everybody, bend, and extend. You're just a really long cylinder. And return the bar above the head.

And then you'll have to do a little mini sit-up there, to get on up, shake your hands. Okay. We're coming to kneeling. And I'd like you to feel one and bring one foot forward, one leg forward. Foot right underneath the knee.

Tuck the toes of the back foot. Oh, what does this mean, yep, we'll stand up now. It's a leg movement, everybody. Take a breath. Stabilize the upper body, use your tummy for support.

And just float the back knee. It's nice, you can really pull on this bar. Standing up. And bending down, just hovering the knee off of the mat. And stand.

And hover. Lotta quad work here. Which will be followed by some delicious hamstring and adductor work shortly with the leg springs. Three more down. And lift, if you can tap that knee to the mat, fabulous.

It's nice 'cause you've got support, from this push through bar. I'm kind of pulling on it. And up and one more to bring us all the way down. Change knees. Bring that other foot forward.

Right, take a deep breath. Pull on it. Stand hover for a moment. And then we go up. And bend.

My front heel has quite a bit of weight, pushing in to the mat. And stretch. Trying to bend those back toes as much as we can, right in the metatarsal crease. Let's take it two more times here. And the last one up and down, and then you'll set the knee down.

Oh, so good, put that knee down, step that knee back, we'll do one cat, that's all, just one cat. Round. You can arch your cat. I told you, lots of spinal articulation, it feels so good to do. And roll yourself up, okay.

Ready for feet and straps, yes we are, let's take this push through bar down. Come on to supine. And we're gonna start with a single leg crossover strap situation, so I'm using this strap that's on the left side of the frame, my right foot in it. Place the other leg down on the mat. You can have your hands holding the frame.

I do like that, I want this leg parallel, everybody. Pull down on the leg a few degrees, so that you feel the work in the back of the thigh. Remember, not the back of the knee, the thigh, lots of muscle here. Three times only, just pull the leg to the mat. Control the lift.

Using the strap from the opposite side, there's a little more control needed, to kind of GPS where your leg is going. And one more. And then I just want you to do three leg circles. They don't have to be very big. Just feel the tension.

And two. There's a nice long series that I've done before with this crossover, but we'll just keep it kinda minimal today. Because I have more for two legs in the straps at the same time. But that gave you a little wake up call on that line, so let's take the other side. Keep breathing, extend that leg, you can check your alignment if you need to here.

Right, and remember, it's not the locking of the knee, it's engaging the hamstrings. And pull it straight down in line with the hip. And raise it in line with the hip joint. And lower. And lift.

One more, and lower lift. Three small little leg circles. Stay focused on the back of that thigh. And three. Other way for three.

Back of the thigh. Back of the thigh. And three. Alright, now this strap goes on the right foot. The other strap on left foot, so ta-da, both are in.

Start in a frog position. Hands on the frame. Kind of bent elbows is fine. Get your legs in a 90 degree angle at your hip joint and your knee, with your knees a little bit apart. Pull the heels so firmly together, nothing would allow them to get pulled apart.

Right, in here, pulled in. And stretch, and pull them in. Let's do that eight times, stretch, and pull them in. Keeping your pelvis level. Hip hip and pubic bone in the same plane of gravity here.

Four more. Three. Work the legs both in the pushing out and the pulling in. I like to think of my one to chair leg presses, that my heels are pulling their way to my sitting bones, let's do that twice more with that idea. Heels towards sitting bones, you have to pull them up, once again.

Okay. Close the knees, extend the legs, leg circles. Down the midline. Open, around and up. Pull down.

Open, around and up. Pull down. Open. So when I say open, I'm rotating my femurs to turn out external rotation just a little bit. Let's take two more there.

Around and up. Last one. And then six the opposite way. Not needed to go very wide. At the top there'll be a little out.

And then they're parallel at the bottom to come up. Externally rotate, close parallel to come up. Three more. And two. And one.

And as they come all the way back up, let's lower the arms just for a moment, and the knees for just a moment, in a bend. And then I want you, too, think of the (speaks foreign language), crossover leg exercise. And you'll see we're just going to do first one leg over the other leg. We don't have a preference. Concentrate on the upper leg.

Your heels and feet might get tangled in the straps, don't worry about it. Focus on the upper leg. Right, and you're gonna go up, ideally 90 degrees at the hip, or so, and down. Both legs are producing the up and down together. I'm not just pushing with this one, I'm not just pulling with this, they're both working.

This one's kind of pushing the other one up, this one's pulling up. It's pretty nice, it's challenging. We only need three or four on each side. Alright, ready for the change, here we go, and four. Feels so different, oh boy, and three.

Two and one, we'll do two more. And then the regular (speaks foreign language) as we walk up and down. You'll know what I mean, and we'll count to eight, here we go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight to come backward toward the frame. Five, six.

Two more sets. How long can you get in your mid body, your spine? Last one. Ooh, stretch those springs, Amy. Six, seven, eight, and up.

You could bicycle, you could scissor, or you can just frog with me here, (chuckles) it feels fine. Hug the knees a little bit. And then step outta the loops. Hey everybody, we need a one more time, we're gonna add that top push through spring, the red spring. Not for any more push through, but I want a little prone.

I'm gonna do a little mini swan. So bring your bar down. I'd love for you to start with the push through bar right at the frame. Arms long, and start with your head above the mat. It's like an ear check, right, so your ears are right between those arms.

Glide the scapula up, let's inhale. And glide your scapula down and exhale. Without moving the neck, without moving the back yet, just feel the scapula glide on your ribs, and glide down. Now, hold that position. Look toward the top of your mat with your eyes.

Look toward the wall in front of you with your eyes. Point your nose forward, your chin forward, and then the chest. Like a big illuminated flashlight on it, pointing straight ahead, and maybe up the wall an inch or two. That's the swan today. Okay?

Which is perfect, right, you don't always have to do the big one. I think this upper thoracic area is quite important, so, eyes look. That's the top of that cervical spine extending. Moving through the mid, lower, cervical upper back. You can come up, I'm not coming any higher than my ribs on the mat.

I'm gonna pull my stomach up the front. And then coming down, we'll do it two more times. If you're feeling the need for the big swan with the elbow bending, go for it. Or just keep it simple. It's right there between the shoulder blades, widen your breath, widen your ribs at the top.

And exhale. We'll do one more. And. How's that feel to do that now? It's never just a swan, hold on a minute.

Single leg kick, we've gotta add a little bit to it and kick, kick. And a kick, kick. And a kick, kick, one more each side. And kick, kick, one more breath. And exhale, oh, so good.

Hey, we're almost done. We're going to come up to standing, using this bar, I'm gonna face the window first so you can see this, everybody. And I want you to stand, one hand on the bar, cross the outside leg over the inside leg. The outside hand can do one of many places, you can have it on the side of your hip, the back of your waistband. Or shoulder, fingertips on shoulder.

I'm going to hand behind my head. Both feet are on the mat. Pull on the bar. Open your side ribs, and point your elbow toward the ceiling. And both feet matter.

But the one that's crossed in front, in my world, I'm trying to almost accentuate that, that the stretch is actually coming from right here in my ribcage, down to that foot. Although I still have weight evenly on both, that's the one that has some emphasis. Okay? Now, take a breath. As you exhale, rotate your ribcage toward the bar.

Doesn't that feel delicious? We'll do three on each. And then just go back to the side bend. Inhale. So it's the ribs that mobilize kinda through the wide shoulder blades.

Ideally the pelvis stays relatively facing the wall that you're facing. Pelvis likes to come along sometimes. That's okay. Stay right here, and round your back, now bend your knees a titch. And if you'd like to put the other hand on that bar, move the other hand.

Turn, turn, turn to the other side, okay? Crossing, outside foot over. Hand on your bar. Let's sneak the hand behind the head. You're gonna lean out.

Let those ribs open, remember, you've got weight distributed through that front foot. Take a breath. And exhale as you rotate. And facing your side. Can you stretch a little further, open the ribs.

And exhale, stand into that front foot. And to the side, maybe you can bend your body a little farther to the side bend. Last one, everybody. Same as we did, we're gonna bend the knees. Take this hand to the bar.

Remember how we started class? We're gonna wind around and kind of do the same thing, one standing roll down. I'd like you to feel more even through your back right here. You can go into extension if you'd like to, I'm going to. I'm gonna roll up.

I am going to do one kind of squatty low back stretch. I'm gonna come down. I'm gonna come back up. Lastly, step a little closer. Pull the bar down, and I want to leave feeling this lifted and open and strong.

So you can lift up into that heart space, my tail is under, the chest is lifted. And then we'll all recover with a nice head over shoulders. Lift the bar. And we made it, we got through a beautiful tower class. Let me know how you feel, I feel fabulous right now, this feels so good.

And I will see you again soon, thanks everybody.