Class #5519

Powerful Aligned Reformer

40 min - Class
191 likes

Description

Join Sarah Bertucelli in a strong and dynamic Reformer workout that will leave you feeling empowered and aligned. In this effective class, you will experience a total body workout with playful challenges sprinkled throughout. Sarah's innovative and curious approach, including playful touches like eye gaze, adds an extra element of mindfulness to familiar exercises, ensuring a rewarding and engaging Pilates experience.
What You'll Need: Reformer (No Box)

About This Video

Mar 18, 2024
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Today, we're going to do a quick, powerful, and effective workout. Let's get started. Start with your arms down by your side. Open through your chest and stand tall. Take a breath or 2 or 3 or 4.

Feel your breath. Helping you grow a little taller. And as you exhale, grow a little taller yet. Since that your arms are Buy your side and a little bit behind you so your chest is open, please. Palms are gonna face the body, but they don't need to press into the body.

Inhale, grow a little taller, and exhale taller yet. Next breath, let's roll down one head Upper back, low back. And let's pause before you get to the floor. Your arms are dangled, but plug the shoulders. Hollow your belly in and feel the activity in this. Let your head relax.

We'll roll yourself back up. So I'm not going to my maximum. Open the heart. Stand tall. We're all forward ahead, upper back.

Low back. Keep the arms the shoulder plugged into your back body and then release them. And then plug them back in, haul the belly inward, and roll up. And let's just do one more of those. Please, opening the chest at the top where we're rolling down. Keep the shoulders plugged, abdominal's engaged, next neck is relaxed, and we roll ourselves up.

Beautiful. Let's get on the reformer. I'm set with, 3 reds and a blue for my footwork. I'm going to just slide myself in and roll onto the reformer. So let's begin with our feet just resting comfortably on the bar, arms down by your side. Again, let's spend a little bit of extra time today focusing on keeping the chest open.

So actively press down through the back of the shoulders and the back of the upper arm here. Heels are on the bar, pelvic bridge, exhale to curl up, using the abdominals first. We're gonna see how high we can lift into that bridge position and then exhale to curl down. Enjoying that. And, again, exhale to curl up.

Take nice inhale up there and then gently peel down. So if you find that you're breathing at a different time, then I suggest that's just fine with me. Breathe when it makes sense for you. Holding the lifted position this time, press down actively through the scapula through the back of the upper arm. Lift one leg up, let's flex the ankle, Put it down. Lift the other leg up, flex the ankle, and put it down. Now I'm bringing the leg in as far as I feel comfortable, so I'm not stopping at a tabletop position.

Instead, I'm flexing my hip just a bit more. So feel free to do that. And one more time there. Two feet are on the bar. Press the pelvis high again just in case you lost your way there and then articulate down through your back.

And let's do that one more time, please exhale to curl up. This time, float the arms up to the ceiling for me and sense your shoulder blades. So as you lift one leg, ground down through that same scapula and then change ground. So it's like a reverse walking here almost. You wanna feel that you're really aware of what's happening on your back body.

Good. Sometimes my hips will fall a little bit when I do this. Just feels like I would like them not to, but they do. That's okay. So I'm gonna put my 2 feet down, and I'm gonna press my pelvis up nice and high. Take my arms down again, and then roll down one vertebra at a time. Beautiful. So let's hold the frame with your hands or the the pegs, if that's better for you, have the middle of your foot on the foot bar and relax over to one side with your legs for a beautiful spine stretch.

Pull back to center, and then go the other way. Nice little relax, and pull back to center. Inhale to twists, Then exhale back to center and just one more time, nice little stretch. And let's make this slightly more challenging. Take your two arms up to the ceiling, ground your shoulder blades, float your legs to tabletop, and then if you're comfortable straight to them.

Have those legs long and glued together. And we're gonna twist keeping focus on the opposing shoulder blade. So again, I like to use an inhale to find my twist, see how far I can go, exhale to pull back. Inhale grounding through the opposite shoulder blade or Whichever way I'm twisting to, I'm thinking about that opposite shoulder blade. And let's go again. Twist.

And twist. Good. Just one more time, please. Hug your knees into your chest. Take a little stretch there. And let's get ready to powerfully work our abdominals, find tabletop with your legs.

Hands will go to the ceiling because if you take them back hit the shoulder rest. So let's just do that here. In hell. Here's an exhale to lift the head and chest up nice and high. Find a spot just beyond the knees to hold on tightly, double leg stretch in how we're gonna reach away, exhale pulley. So as I reach away, I'm gonna tap those shoulder rests and allow myself to feel that I can maybe lift my chest just a little more when I tap the shoulder rest.

I'm also tapping the bar, the foot bar. Two more here. Leggs stay glued together and hold. So now we're gonna single leg stretch holding on to one leg stretch the other leg out and change and change and change. Beautiful fine breath that suits you, staying lifted with your body.

Check-in with your own pelvis and make sure that it is nice and stable. Hint of a smile across your cheeks. Feel free to look right and left and just kinda check out your eye gaze and make sure your neck is free. HUG to knees into your chest. Lift a little higher, so I didn't really wanna hug in.

I wanted to come to tabletop. So come back up if you went down, Let's go into our crisscross hands are behind your head, and you're gonna twist in the direction of the leg that's bent as we chain. And we change. Check-in with your low back and make sure that it's grounded. Also, try to feel that you're lifting your body to your leg rather than just pulling the leg in.

Beautiful. We'll do 2, 2, and 1 And one. 2 straight legs go up. Take your hands to the backs of your legs, lift a little higher. Take one leg in, cradle that leg toward you, put the other leg on the bar. Change pop pop little pulse in, in, and in, in, in. Now if I was on the mat, my leg would be grounded to the floor here.

I'm not on the mat. So my up leg can come in just a little more, but I still would like you to feel the grounding Hug the knees into your chest. Put your head down. Take a pause. Saddle your off on the reformer preparing for your footwork, just settle in for a couple moments though here. Place first the heels on the bar.

Feel your pelvis position, feel your rib cage, put a little extra attention on making sure you are shoulder blades are grounded on the mat. Here, sometimes it's useful to ground the shoulder blades and bend the elbows. Have the palms facing your face so that you can keep attention on the back of the upper arm and the shoulder blades. Now Press your legs out to straight and stay for a moment here. I find a lot of people look down toward their feet, and I'd like you to consciously pick a point that straight up or even slightly behind you with your eyes and keep your gaze there for me while you do your footwork. So gently come in and press out. So you can work at a pace that suits you.

A little slower for those of you less comfortable a little faster for those of you more comfortable. Now keeping your upward gaze, shift your eyes as far as you can to the right. And keep moving your legs. So notice if you moved your head, try not to. Shift your eyes as far as you can to the left.

So we're gonna play with that throughout our footwork today, moving our eyes around, look forward again, and come on in. If you feel comfortable, go ahead and put your arms flat, but make sure your shoulders didn't fall forward. Keep the scapula down for me, please. Put your toes on the bar. And out we go. So see if you can feel that your feet are in the right position without having to look at them. Now if you look up them once or twice, it's okay. Lift your head up and look if you need to.

But now can you feel that your eye gaze is up Toward the ceiling or even slightly behind you. And will you press with a little bit of intention into the back of your head? As you straighten and bend your legs. Again, at the pace that suits you, last one here, come all the way in. Slide your heels together for your small v position, recheck in with your scapula. Feel your head pressing a little bit into the headrest. Out we go. Look up.

Now look over to the right with your eyes. Keep the legs moving. And look over to the left with your eyes. Try to see something differently, straightening the legs completely. Look forward and up again.

And let's come all the way in and change our legs open position, please. So heels are on the bar, settle all your pieces, scapula head, abdominals are engaged, pelvis is heavy, straightening those legs and bending. So I am keeping my beautiful outward rotation. My knees are tracking over my feet. I'm looking up and behind me. And breathing.

And then I'm gonna look over to the right and breathing And look over to the left as far as you can go with your eyes without changing your head. It's good for our eyes. Back up to the ceiling and come on in. Same thing from the tow position, please. 2 toes are on the bar in this wide position, and we press out and in. So it goes without saying that you're straightening your knees fully.

You're playing with the eye gaze. So rather than me queuing it exactly, will you decide when you wanna look in one direction? Think about straightening your knees. Think about lengthening your spine and make sure you change to look in the other direction or somewhere new. And one more time, please.

Come all the way in. Bring your feet together on the bar. Feel that they're centered. Separate a little for your calf raises, two legs on the two feet on the bar, press out. So here we're in our maximum lift of the heels, growing through the crown of the head, feet go down, feet go up. So try to feel that all 5 of your metatarsals are actively participating in this movement.

So that means the balls of your feet are weighted equally as you go up and as you go down. Keep your eye gaze up toward the ceiling if you can or look somewhere new rather than down at your feet. Moving into prances, we change. Breathing naturally when it makes sense to you. So perhaps an inhale, inhale followed by an exhale exhale. Just make sure you're breathing though, my friends in through the nose, out through the nose if you'd like, or through the mouth if you prefer.

One more time, hold your stretch on one side. So here, I like to move my foot just a little on the bar so I can really relax into that stretch. Feel free to close your eyes. Grows still tall through the crown of the head, maybe wobble the head a little right left. Breathing in and breathing out.

Change sides, please. So, again, find the place where your foot feels comfortable. Maybe you rule your head side to side, but try to look more up toward the ceiling rather than down toward your feet. And then 2 feet comfortably on the bar to come all the way in. We're gonna hug those V's into our chest for a moment. And then just roll yourself to a sheer side and come on at to a sitting position. We're going to move into our arm and ab work.

So I'm on a red and a blue spring for that. Let's go ahead and lie back down. So red and the blue is, like, one and a half springs. So you can always work a little heavier or a little lighter if you prefer. So retrieve your straps with your hands.

And let's, again, use the feet on the bar to press out a little bit and really find the mat with your scapula. So really plug those shoulders back to the mat and stabilize here for a moment, then float the legs to tabletop. Beautiful. Inhale. Exhale. Just the arms go down and then inhale up. So if this spring feels too heavy for you, I just caught over my, lips there for a moment.

If the spring feels too heavy for you, just change it. Right? Exhaling down for me in healing up Now when you go down, don't just hit the bottom. Think of reaching. So as I go down, there's a place where I turn the corner. Halfway through where I have to reorganize my reaching. One more time here.

Now we're gonna add the abdominal curl. So exhale to lift the head and chest up nice and high, inhale lower down. Again, check it and make sure each time you lower down your scapula find their home, on the mat. This time we're gonna add on, we lift and we hold, stay lifted nice and high. One leg goes out to straight and then change. So we're in single leg stretch legs, reach, reach, stay lifted through your body, and find the breath that suits you reach. Reach. Now I'm turning my hands into external rotation, and I'm gonna take my arms out to the side and in.

So I'm doing an abdominal and a leg and an arm movement. So see if you can coordinate that 2 more. And one more. Knees in. Lower down. Beautiful. Let's put the feet and straps.

So we'll begin with our basic frog, settling in, once again, feel energetically you're putting a little more weight in the back of your head than maybe sometimes you do. See how that feels. Shoulders are anchored. Arms are down. Legs pressed to straight inhale in, exhale out. So I'm stopping at about 90 degrees hip and knee flexion.

I'm keeping my pelvis stable, but I'm putting more attention right now on where my head, my shoulders, and my eye gaze are. So rather than looking at my feet, like I tend to, I'm looking up, and I'm just trusting my feet are still there. Keep your legs straight, please. Points your feet here. Come up as high as you feel you can keep your pelvis grounded, and then let's go down.

Let's come up one more time like that and go down and make a circle. So I'm finding my range that suits me one more circle like that. And then check it out. I would like you to keep your turnout. Go down with one leg.

Come up. Go down with the other leg. Now if that spring feels too heavy for you, go ahead and lighten it. Change it. Good. Now we're going to change this. Circling. So one leg goes down around comes back to the other.

The other leg goes down around and comes back to the other. Let's repeat that. So you're doing, like, a circular walking action, quite challenging with one leg. I am endeavoring to stay in external rotation here, which for many of us, we'll feel maybe a little bit easier, maybe a little harder. It probably depends on your body.

Good pause here. Let's reverse the circle. So we're gonna come around and together. And up. Again, pay attention to your eye gaze. Your feet are still there.

You don't need to look at them. Imagine that. Good. So now we're gonna come back up, and we're gonna do a walking circle. So one leg goes out to the side. Circles around, keep the other leg right where it was, and then the other leg out to the side circles around and comes up to meet it.

So I find this to be good for my brain. It's also nice, you know, cross patterning, really, because you're having stabilize with one leg, perhaps you feel the support from your scapula, your shoulder blade, or your upper back, on the, one side. Oh, just one more time, please. Okay. Alright. So we'll bend the two knees, take a little stretch here.

Feel that. My knees are just out to the side. My feet are together. I'm gonna hold the ropes with my hands and take a wide straight legs stretch for a moment. Again, I like to hold on to the ropes and take a little bit of the pressure off so that I can feel my pelvis position and I could have a little bit of wiggle room with my legs. So I've bent one knee to stretch one a little more, and then I might bend the other knee to stretch the other a little more.

And then the two legs are gonna come together. Bend the knees. We'll take feet out of straps, so feet are on footbar. Stow the straps back on your pegs with your arms by your side. Put the middle of your foot on the bar first here. Do a bridge. So this is a light spring.

If you are not sure if you can stabilize this light spring from the ball of your foot, you'll work with the middle of your foot. That's a good modification. If you can change to the ball of the foot here and endeavor to keep that carriage still, give it a go. Exhale to curl up, keeping those hips nice and high. We press out, and we come in.

We press out. You're endeavoring to keep those feet stable in space. So as I come in, I'm sort of dropping it feels like my heels last two hips are high, and last one come all the way in and lower yourself down. Beautiful. We're gonna hug those knees into your chest and roll up to a sitting position.

And let's change our spring to just one red spring for the knee stretch. K? So I'm on a red spring. I'm gonna put my two hands on the bar, my feet up against the shoulder rest. Now it's really important that you keep that dorcey flexion of your foot. So you wanna try to tuck those toes quite well, but you really want your foot to be up against the shoulder rest. So give that a go. K? I've sit I'm sitting back on my feet. I'm gonna plug my shoulders around my back, and then I'm gonna slide the carriage out from underneath you, me.

In order to feel that I've got this nice ground back position. Let's go inhale and exhale. So pay attention to where you're eye gazes related to where your head is. So your eyes and your head should be facing in the same direction. Be mindful of your breath. One more time.

Pause in the middle range, we're gonna flatten out back, opening the chest just a bit more than normal. So I like a little bit the rasic extension here, supporting still with the abdominals, feel both weight, both legs equally weighted as we go out and we come in. So think about it feels a little bit like if you're not familiar with this exercise, it feels like you have to aim your tail back and up a little bit as you pull in. So I am in a bit of extension. That's what I'm looking for.

If you're uncomfortable with this, flatten out your back. That's a good choice for many. One more time. Come in. So I'm gonna come all the way into the stopper a minute.

Tap my feet out a little bit and let my feet just rest in, like, a child's post position. However, I'm gonna bend the elbows, let my hands hang over the bar, let my head hang forward. So my elbows can kinda slot just inside of the, the reformer football right now. And I'm getting a really nice stretch in my shoulders. If I really let my head relax, I'm getting a deeper stretch.

Gently come out of that. If you were to take your hands to the very width of the bar and then try that same arrangement where your elbows come a little inward, the stretch might be a little bit more interesting for you. That doesn't feel good. Please do not do it. But I'm actively pulling my elbows in toward my head with my hands kinda braced by way of the foot bar. Out on the outsides of the bar here. My head can be relaxed or it can be floating.

Just let it be kind of comfortable here. And then we're gonna come on out of that. We're gonna bring our two hands on the bar and step up to a standing position. Walk your feet back for your up stretch 1. So I've got my heels up against the shoulder rest. All five toes are weighted. Arms are strong.

Try to feel nice upper back action here in house. Slide the carriage back. Exhill carriage comes in. So pay attention to where your eye gaze is in related related to your head. So ideally, we're in a straight diagonal line with our body. Your are your arms are playing a role in this, but your abdominals are fueling the movement.

Last one here hold. We pivot down to our plank position, powerful through the body, come all the way forward to the stopper, scoop the belly up, and pivot back to your up stretch 1. So inhale down, come forward if you're able to all the way to touch the stopper, scoop up with your breath and pivot back. 2 more like that, please. Pay attention to where your eyes are, my friend. Scooping up and one more time down and forward.

And scoop it up. So place your feet flat for me. For fun, feel free to press through the shoulders and stretch I'm pressing my chest beyond. I'm a little over extended in my shoulders, but I don't have any weight there. So that feels really nice, like, a good stretch.

Now bring your head and chest up. Pull your body forward a little bit so you are organized here in a nice flat back. Inhale slide the carriage back, exhale slide the carriage in, round your back. So use your abdominals to create a round back, slide out, slide in, extend your back. So go flat and then to extension slide out and slide in. Round your back, slide out, and slide in. Extend your back, slide out, and slide in round to your back.

One more time. So just find the breath that suits you my friends and extend your back, slide out, slide in, Good. Let's come to rest by taking the hands down to the fray, the white part. So the carriage, rather. Let your head dangle. Bend your knees if you need to.

Breathing in and breathing apps. So I'm gonna shift my feet forward just a teensy bit And then I'm gonna bring some weight to my hands that are holding on to the frame. So, obviously, if you need to bend your knees, you're bending your knees. If you can have them straight, great. I'm gonna lift high up onto my tiptoes and then roll over my feet, tap the knees to the mat, and shoot right back to where I came from. High up, tap the knees to the mat, and shoot back up.

High up, tap the knees to the mat, shoot back up, This time, we're gonna tap the knees to the mat, and we're gonna try to stay there. Rolling a little bit side to side. If your feet allow and your knees allow, you can sit up on the heels and roll side to side. We are looking for the feeling of a nice foot and ankle stretch here, so go for it a little bit. Good. Come forward one more time and tap those toes out.

So we're gonna go into the down stretch. Put the feet all the way up against the shoulder rest again, get a good connection to those feet. Hands are on the bar. We're gonna come forward into our back extension. And we inhale to slide back and exhale to slide in, or maybe exhale to slide back.

And inhale to slide in, you choose the breath that suits you. So keep your eye gaze. Stay aware of it. So we call it the down stretch, but I don't really want you to think of going down. I want you to think of going up the entire time. Last one here. Beautiful.

Untuck the toes and sit in the child's pose for just a brief moment. And let's get ready to move on. So this is kind of fun and fancy. Actually not yet. We're gonna do a little bit of arm work before we get fun and fancy.

Have a seat for me sitting right up against the edge of the reformer. K. Reach forward and grab your straps. Place your arms in your chest expansion position and just, settle in for a couple moments and make sure that you feel that you're sitting equally on both sides of your, pelvis and that your chest begins open, please. Exhale, pull your arms back in health forward. So I'm doing just a basic chest expansion first. So often when people do chest expansion, I see their shoulder balls going forward too much.

Will you really try to feel the openness through your chest rather than letting that shoulder roll forward. So rolling the shoulders together, maybe for some of you, Really straightening the arms. Let's add back extension. Pull back. Open your heart. Look up.

Look forward. Again, pull back. Open your heart. Look up. Look forward. We'll do 2 more like that. Please, back.

Open. Look. And one more time, please. Back. Open. And look. Beautiful bicep curls. So we're gonna bend the elbows and straighten the elbows.

Now I find that my biceps are not very well challenged with this classic position. So let's challenge them. Okay? Put one strap away. I'm taking my weaker arm and taking my left arm just straight out in front of me, helping plug my shoulder back with my other hand, and put it right on top of the bicep. Now you're gonna bend that elbow, and you're gonna straighten. So I'm pushing up into my hand to manage this spring.

I'm on 1 red spring if I didn't say that. We didn't change it from our other exercises trying to sit up straight. And really challenging that bicep. Let's do the other side, please. Okay. So gotta straight arm.

My shoulder is plugged. My other hand is gonna go up into my bicep so I can feel the tone as I bend and as I straighten. Now this is useful because I find that many people myself included overbend the elbows and actually lose the bicep engagement. So you can feel the bicep underneath your hand, and you can create a little more intention to use it like this. So give it a go. Let's go ahead and rest that. So two straps are gonna go on your elbows.

We're going to do our robo So here, plug the shoulders back, palms are facing your face. Open. Step 1. Keeping the elbows bent at about 90 degrees, we open and we think of spreading. Step 2, we're gonna open spread and then adduct meaning squeeze. And undo that.

Go again. Open. Adduct. Now externally rotate and look up. Undo that. So a few steps, right, open, draw the shoulders together, externally rotate, and look up. So external rotation means I'm leading with my thumbs back.

So shoulders together, thumbs go back as I look up. One more time. My back is nice and warm, friends. I hope yours is too. Let's be done with that.

So let's go ahead and put the straps away. And now I'm going to ask you to do something a little bit creative and kind of fun here. So We're working into a side plank, and I have a variation for those of you that are not comfortable with the full, scope of it. So I've got my hands on the bar. I'm gonna step up. So I'm standing close to the edge of the white part, the the reformer bed.

I'm gonna turn my toes to face you. So my inside hand, which is my left hand, is gonna be in the middle of the bar. My forward foot, which is my right foot, is going to sort of support as I slide the other leg back up against the shoulder rest. Now I'm really using my forward leg to find my way here. So once I've got my my body, I really wanna open through the chest.

So I'm gonna take my hand behind me. So my other hand, my top hand is behind me. So now We're gonna see where we can go. We're gonna feel comfortable with the the hand on the foot bar. You're gonna see how low you can take your hit. And lift up. So I'm using that for forward leg as much as I need to to support and lift up. And one more time, how low can I take those hips and lift up? Now are you ready? Are you sure? I'm powerful here.

Are you? Put your foot up against the other shoulder rest. Take your arm up. Now we go down with the pelvis, and we lift up. Now as you go down with the pelvis, stay open through your chest and lift up, And the carriage is endeavoring to stay still, and we lift up. Step forward with your forward foot.

Feel free to put your hand on your thigh. Take it in. And let's change sides. So take your hand to the center. Turn your feet. Forward foot takes the majority of the spring or the weight of your body, I should say.

And then find your way here. So the top arm, I'd like the arm to go behind you just so your chest stays open. Much as much weight as needed goes into that front leg. Right? Find the place where you feel that you're stable and take your hips as low as you can. And up.

Try to stay open through your chest active in your back body too. Now are you ready? Are you sure? We take that forward foot up against the shoulder rest we're supporting. Take the arm up toward the ceiling on the diagonal, Carriage stays still as the hips come down, and we lift up. The chest is endeavoring to stay nice and open the whole way and lift up. And one more time down and lift up forward foot, steps, carriage comes in, and we carefully step off of the reformer. Now let's do our single legs. So you're gonna stand just looking at your reformer, And let's step forward with one foot.

I'm gonna choose my right. My chest is open. My arms are a little behind me and stand tall. Wonderful. So look forward and up, please. Good. If this is too much for you, use your sitting box. So forward and up, Sometimes we lose our balance, it's okay.

Look to the left now and notice where your body goes when you look to the left. You might feel that you just change a little bit your lunge here. So look up into the left. Good. Now look up into the right with your eyes. And your head and notice that your body will change a little bit.

Woah. Trying to keep your shoulders open, your chest open, last one. Beautiful. So you're seeing all kinds of wiggles and wobbles with me. That's what this is about. It's a balanced game.

And I'm going kinda quickly not asking you to correct to do it perfectly. So I've got my other foot forward. My chest is open. Yeah. And we're gonna stand, look forward, and up. So just use your eyes to change things and then let your nervous system deal with the imbalances here. Nice. My arms are not clean on purpose because I wanna be able to use them.

I'm telling you talking and doing this is that much harder. Look to your right. Or away, if you will, from the leg that you're standing on and up. Good. If you happen to be doing the same leg as me, so it doesn't really matter which way you look first as long as you look in both directions. Good. And then look the other way. Woah. That one's the hardest for me.

So when I'm standing on the leg, when I'm looking in that same direction because it's promote promoting rotation, I find that to be the harder one personally. Go ahead and come down from there. Okay. So all my faults and everything were a little wobbly. That's what it's about, letting your body respond to it. So I'm going to just add a spring for this final piece.

So I've got a red and a blue spring on, and this should feel delicious, my friends. It's a passive back extension. Okay? I'm sitting on the ba on the the reformer with my feet on the headrest And I'm just gonna find the place where my back can rest on the foot bar. Yep. I get to rest. Okay? So I'm moving my pelvis forward a little bit because I would like to be able to allow my back to go into extensions supported by the foot bar. Almost like you would do on the foam roll, but just using the foot bar to kind of explore.

Now we're gonna reach the arms straight behind us We're gonna bear a little bit of weight into that foot bar and round the body reaching forward. You can point your feet keep your shoulders plugged, use your abs. Now I added a spring just because I wanted a little more support, but the goal here is that you can do movement without moving the carriage. So I'm gonna ground into the foot bar. I'm using my abs to keep the carriage in as I reach forward, so I'm doing kind of a modified roll up. You could roll all the way up if you want to, and we're gonna roll back again.

Over the foot bar. Beautiful back extension. And then round and roll. Forward. And just one more time here.

This time, I'd like your arms to be long, but connected in some way. So you can clasp or not clasp. And then just see if you can go a little bit over to one side. So I'm doing a little bit of a side bend, and I'm looking in the direction that I'm going. I'm not keeping my shoulders organized. I'm letting my body respond here.

It should feel really nice. So, yeah, I shifted side to side, right? So if you're not already shifting, please do. And come back through to center And one last time, let's roll ourselves up. Beautiful. Let's swivel around and come to standing position, please with your feet red underneath your hips.

Open your chest once again and roll down together. So as you roll down, just assess notice how it feels different than maybe it did when we first started. Allow your head to relax. You can let your shoulders relax, or you can keep them plugged. It's up to you. And then round and roll yourself up to a standing position.

And let's do that again. Curling down. You do you here. Let it be relaxed. Let it be organized. It doesn't matter to me.

It should feel good. I like to nod my head down there, especially at the end, and then hoist the belly back into action and roll up. And one more just for good measure together, please inhale. The exhale curling down, feeling your abdominals, feeling your neck, feeling your arms, feeling your hamstring, scents. Remember, my friends, we are simply breathing and moving together.

Thank you so very much for playing. Have a wonderful day.

Comments

Jo
Jo
2 people like this.
Love this class. Just what I needed on a Monday morning. Would you mind explaining what you mean by ‘plug’ the shoulders? It’s not a term I’ve heard before. Many thanks.
Elena S
1 person likes this.
Sarah great class thank you! X
1 person likes this.
I really appreciate the gaze shifts and balance challenges in this class. As I inch closer to 50, I’m more inclined to want to work on these things for prevention purposes. Thanks for incorporating these into your more recent classes, Sarah.
1 person likes this.
Great class thanks for the reminders to keep your shoulders down on the mat.  And thanks for the balance challenges!
2 people like this.
This initially  isn’t a “challenge” for the muscles, it’s brain. And somehow that brain confusion, engages the muscles.   LOVED THIS so much.  Fastest 40 mins in awhile. Thank you!. 
Hi Jo, plug the shoulders is a funny cue!  Simply, I am asking one to be mindful of keeping the shoulders on the back body  with head of the humerus(arm bone) feeling as though it is sitting in the joint. One can explore this idea when lying on back by reaching hands  and arms  as high up as possible.  Let the chest round froward and shoulder blades lift away from mat with energy through hands. Then, allow shoulders to settle to mat and arm bones settle in joint.  It is this feeling I am hoping to inspire with the cue plug the shoulders!  Hopefully this helps :)  Thank you. 

Elena S thank you! 
Stacey S YES! Having recently crossed over 50, I am continuously exploring how to keep my brain and body connected.  Eye gaze related to continuation of fascial chain is pretty amazing.  thank you so very much for playing!!
Mary Ann P you are welcome.  And Thank you for playing!!
Kim F mission accomplished!  thank you for taking the time to write. take care:) 
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