Class #559

Explore the Edges

55 min - Class
26 likes

Description

Explore the edges of your practice in this challenging mat workout with Meredith. This class has it all...yummy stretches for length, modifications to allow for depth, and advanced movements for a challenge. Exercises featured in class include Jack Knife, Control Balance, Upstretch Arabesque, Side Kick Kneeling, Swan Dive Prep, and much more. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Nov 03, 2011
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So we're going to sit with our knees in a diamond shape to begin. How's that for honoring the wishes? Request? All right. And just set the hands right at the friends of the knees and close your eyes for a minute. We're just gonna sit here for a couple of moments and explore the space in your body and explore the space around your body and feel the relationship between the two in length. And then lift the spine and feel a little longer and maybe a little taller even.

And take a big breath in, feeling the trunk, expand the abdominals, draw inwards, and exhale. Feel the support that the abdominals continue to give us. We send the ribs down and together and hilly and again, filling up the entire trunk, but drawing the abdominals inwards so the expansion is directed towards the rib cage and XL. Feel that contraction of that area, allowing you to go deeper through the abdominal area and inhaling again. Let's open our eyes now as we exhale, drawing back through the abdominals. Keep your hands where they are and pull against your hands with your abdominals, keeping the shoulders just over the pelvis.

So we're just bending the spine backwards. Inhale, push into your knees and lift the a long and tall x. How we curl the spine. Feel the tailbones slide out from underneath your the pubic bone. Reach up towards the nose and inhale, we lift pushing into the front of the knees to give ourselves a little bit of back extensions early on. So Xcel as we curve. Let's be gentle with that. Do the one thing you can focus on really challenging is the abdominals here, right from the get go. Excelling as we correct and inhaling as we live. [inaudible] let's do that one more time.

If you keep your shoulders just over your pelvis, explore how deeply you can get your abdominals to work and how that might perhaps give you a good stretch already in here we lift up. I'm just going to move a little forward. Reach your arms forward. This time we're gonna move a little further so we tuck the tailbone under. We press the knees down away from each other as we curl back, finding the lower back area in healing to hold. Exhale, curling forward. Shoulders are going to come over the hips and then we're going to press the arms to the side and lift the spine up. Exhale, the arms press together.

We curve letting the pelvis slide out from underneath us feeling the low back. Connect into the ground. Inhale, pause, exhale. Go forward energetically, not just up and inhale. Open the arms and grow tall and exhale. We reached back in healing to pause and exhale into curl forward. So in our minds, can we explore the edges, the edges of our body, the edges of our body and space, the edges of our intensity. How can we create change if we wish to create change there and lift one more time here. Xcel reaching down.

Pause there as your lower back comes into contact with the mat. Sends your arms just slightly out of the way so they're just going to come to your sides. We're going to pick up the right leg. Exhale and inhale. Let that light come down and Xcel to pick up the left side. He dinging from the hip joint. We inhale down, exhale C, feel the abdominals draw down in order to lift the leg so that engagement action happens as the breath begins before the movement of the leg occur and we change. And one more time on each lay. Oh, letting the femur be free within the hip. Joy the legs come down, press the feet together and curve through the rolling up and send the arms out to the side. Bring the arms overhead, stretch towards me, anchoring through that opposite sitting bone.

We lift up using the obliques and strikes the opposite way to lift up. Using the tube. Looks like you're swaying in the breeze. It's reaching up and up to go over and XL up and reaching up to go over and Xcel up, bringing the arms around to the sides and then forward. Taking the body back through. I'm going to bring the knees together here. We're going to inhale. We're going to roll up and open the legs and arms and XL closed.

The knees closed the arms, scooped the abdominals and find the low back. Inhale and Exhale, rolling. Finishing the exhale and then inhaling to extend the spy three more times like that. Exhale, curving back. [inaudible]. Inhale, opening out as you start the curvature and squeeze your legs together. Can you feel the relationship between the inner thighs and the abdominals? There is one for sure and we reach out and one more time reaching back.

Find your low position and stay there. If you need to hold onto your legs, you will. But if not, take the n closest to me and reach back and look at it. Xcel, we take that back to the leg or back to the front of the body and he'll reach with the other side and I felt a curl back and we reach out and come and reach out and come back. Let's inhale here. Exhale, took Rola, opening the legs, allowing them to just relax to the floor. Lift up one last time, arms to the sides, keeping the legs here. We bring the arms back forward. Once again, finding that lower spinal connection into the mat. Again, hold on to your legs. We're gonna do the same movement.

It's a reach that's a little bit of difference in the feeling of it and back. One more time in each direction, reaching wall, stretching that side of the body that you're turning towards. Exhale to come back. Brewing the legs together and rolled down onto your back. I'm going to set us up for the cry. Just scooched in towards my feet. I'll need to either do that or move your feet in a little bit closer. We inhale, prepare as we exhale, the lower back flattens into the ground. We articulate the spine up, lifting one bone at a time as though you're picking it up out of an indentation.

Inhale, pressing the arms into the mat. We start moving the chest for us. Imprinting the spine bone by bone into the mat underneath us, releasing all the way down through the tailbone and in here. Exhale to curl. Keeping that activity in the posterior tilted pelvis in here. Long strong arms. Exhale to roll down. I think a lot of times and we'll just keep moving and healing at the bottom and neutral, excelling as we move through the Tuck.

I think a lot of times we just forget about our arms, but let's remember them today and remind ourselves that if we can stay really active through the upper arm, that's going to keep us active in our upper back, which is a very good thing. We are going two more times here. Exhaling up in healing to pause and exhalation to just manipulate the spine coming from the front of the body, release all the way down to the tailbone and in here last time for the day. Exhale, lifting up or for now anyway from here, take the arms overhead. Make us small circles so they end in a t shape. Keep them just reaching off the floor through their reaching away from one another and then roll down feeling the stretch across the arms as you spiral through the spy. Once your pelvis arrives at neutral, then you can let the arms rest on the ground. We're going to pick up one leg at a time. Spine, twist supine coming up towards me in here.

And exhale from the opposite side of the waist, we drag the body through center, inhale and exhale to concenter. Feel how the legs are just acting as a weight. The work is in the way so the legs are just kind of relaxing to one side. I guess that's not really true and back there squeezing together. I don't know.

What do I want to say now I had something really good in my head and it's gone now. But anyway, we're working through the waist. That was the point and XL to come back. Let's inhale to come back towards me. Continue inhaling as you stretch the legs, exhale to come back through center and fold the knees back in. Inhale as we come across again, explore the edges there. Stretch the legs back through center and inhale the cross in my direction and these are lined up. Stretch and exhale. Bringing the legs back through center.

Fold the knees back in again to the back stretch. So like Za bring it back through center. Fold the knees in. Bring the hands behind the head. Place your feet down, one at a time in heel. Prepare for the chest lift, curling the chest up, keeping the head heavy in the hands of the work is in the abdominals. We inhale. Exhale. Feel that you're creating space in your waist or between the ribs and the pelvis as you're lengthening your body to the ground.

Coming right back up on our next exhale, we curl folding underneath the rib cage, keeping the pelvis neutral, keeping the head heavy. Look for intensity and Xcel to lengthen back down and again, exhale to the left. Drawing the abdominals deeply in words. Inhale, we look for more and exhale we come down. I'm going to take us through that one more time. Exhaling. Inhale, the hands come behind the thighs. Exhale.

Just whatever you need that gives you more in your body without necessarily coming higher because I think we're high. Find it. Let go. Keeping the body adamantly still raise your arms up. Bring them out to the T. Hold that and lift a little higher to bring the arms forward. Inhale, the arms come up. They come out to the T. Hold that. As you look for more and the arms come forward, this is a place where you could hang on if you wanted to. Arms Up, arms out to the side, reaching forward, arms up, interlock the fingers, hands back behind the head. We take it to the ground. Breathing in again, excelling to find the chest left in healing.

Hands go forward. Just maybe all you need is that arms forward position to give you more hands back behind the head. Rotate in my direction. Spiraling around through the rib cage. Inhale center without losing height. Exhale, turn in heel center. The opposite rib comes right across to the opposite side of the pelvis without the pelvis moving at all or that's the idea. Anyway. Excellent.

As we send our body across, inhale to center. Exhale. As we reach across, we're going to do three more to each side, but we're going to change it. Take the opposite arm across that thigh. Inhale hand back and Xor sh and hand back and lift higher so that hand guide you up a bit reaching just to the outside of that knee. And I believe that's the end of three. Let's come back to center both hands behind the head. Lift one leg, lift the other way, reach the arms forward, keep the legs where they are, but send the body down. Exhale to lift the head and chest again.

Inhale to stretch the legs out for the a hundred and we exhale. One, two, three, four, five and an expansion of the ribs. Exhale, two strong, long arms answer, two, three, four, five. The arms. Push the air out of the body and n and five, two, three, four, five, seven and let's bring the legs ups. Three, four or five and down and two, three, four, five and down in three, two, three, four, five and down and two, two, three, four, five and down and one, two, three, four, five and down. And then lift and hold your knees and rock just through your lower back. Rock and and rock and rock and back. Call the way up. Place the feet down and open the knees to the sides.

Bringing the arms around in front. Lifting a little tolerance. We inhale, allow the head to drop down here as a modified spine stretch. We roll the spine forward. Inhale, allow the spine to just float out in space on the diagonal arms, reaching up towards the ears. Lift the sternum, just a little dip. That's it. Exhale. Take the body forward over the legs and articulate up through your spine all the way and we roll down again as the body goes forward, the abdominals draw deeper and deeper into the spine. Inhale, we Lincoln and reach the spinal high diagonal and we XO blowing all the air out of the body and a rolling and inhale to exhale and take it forward. Hugging the space between the rib cage and the pelvis in how we lift excess spiraling downwards or allowing the spine to just cascade forward and, Huh. Then let's do that one more time. Rolling forward.

Then reach and hold here with the chest lifted and the arms now and straight pulls back through this silence and just that small movement so intense. Feel the shoulders draw down. It's like the drying down of the shoulders is what the sends the thumbs back and we'll do four and three and two and one. Take your body all the way forward. One last time. Reach a little further than you thought you could and roll and bring the knees together. Um, either scoot your feet in towards you or scoot, slide your feet back towards you. I said the same thing twice, but you know what I mean. Get a little closer to your feet. Here we go.

Rolling like a ball. We take it back and we balanced just behind the pelvis and we take it back and we balanced just behind the pelvis or you do and I try to make it that time and back. Yeah. And, and uh, I now let's open up the knees. Reach between the feet. Same thing here, just a little different. Rolling back and balance and back. Oh, I know that. What's going to happen and balance a couple more times.

[inaudible] back up and back and up from that shape. Let's just slide the hands up from in our way. Bring the hands to the knees. Start to curl from the very base of the spine. Push your knees into your hands is like a resistance, so they are trying to hold you up as you're trying to come down. Here's the double leg stretch. We reach here and we circle to bring the knees. Focus on the legs being pulled in from right underneath the ribs are from way deep within the trunk. Not a leg exercise at all as I think we all know, but how can we go deeper?

[inaudible] challenge yourself to bring your arms narrow and behind your head. That's a bit hard challenge. The curvature of the spine is the thighs come to the chest. The chest energetically reaches forward to the thighs. Last two one more. We hold sending both hands to the left knee. Stretch the right leg out.

Squeeze the backside of that leg and change and reach. Imagine someone is there in front of you, pulling your leg out of your hip joint so that you can focus on the curvature and bringing the spine up and forward to the leg. Push down on the leg with the hands. Allow the arms to be active and send that activity not only into the arms but into the upper back. One more to each side. We bring both knees in. Give yourself a little more hands behind the head.

Stretch the leg away from me for this away from me straight and Chris Cross and Chris Cross and Chris Cross. This is the last one we're going to do like this. Now we're going to turn, stretch the leg that you're turning to and bicycle. Stretch and turn and reach. Enter and reach. Enter and reach. One more and one more and I lost our spending ending.

Take the leg away from me again for this away from me. Street. Reach across the bent knee up and change. Lift and change the left and change left last two on either side. Trying to get all the way past that, a little bow and we come back to center. Both knees bent, grab your legs and just rock gently through the lower back.

Not a lot going on. Well that's not true. There's a lot going on, but not a big movement. Roll all the way up. Open up the knees shifters position should you want to bring your arms to your sides as you breathe in, turn towards me. As you breathe out, reach one arm Baca. You know which arm to go. We're going into the side, it's modified, we lengthen and we come back to center and how we turn. Push the back arm away from you and reach the front arm forward as though there is a target there that you can't quite reach. Lift up and come back to center and spiral upwards and reach over and length and to come up and center and spiral open to reach over to a length and a and center and inhale as you bow forward, drugged down and back through the abdominals or in, in back and center and turn and re lengthen and central.

Let's do one more. As you go through that rotation, can we make it easy? And what I mean by that is just feel the movement upwards like a, I think of a barbershop pole. Those red and white spirals lifting us up back to center. Take your arms up, feel the spine grow as the arms grow, kind of slow, interlock your fingers, hands behind your head for the twist to me it's twist with center and we rise up out of the pelvis. I know he'd dig deep so we feel the spinal column twisting the head is just still in the hands moving with the spine cause it is quite literally the top of the spine and she twist, twist and twist. I'm going to change it now. Come towards me. Take that back in and bring it across.

Guide yourself first up and then just maybe a little bit more cross and then without changing a thing drove back through the side of the pelvis. You twist it away from bringing the hand back behind the head. And from here we're just going to challenge it more and a little more and a little more. And last two and last one, come back through center. Go the other way. Lifting tall first the opposite hands comes to the front leg. We lift, pull in, twist from there and nothing changes as we take the hand back behind the head.

And we just go for a little further, little further, little further and bring it all the way back and bring the knees together and bring the left ankle into your hands. Stretch the leg up. Use your arms to pull your chest and your leg closer together. And then as you exhale, starting the journey backwards, we're going to slide the right leg out on the mat, guiding that leg back with control. Pull it back towards you. Give it a stretch. Push the opposite foot forward. Let the leg come back up.

This is where I'm going to get stuck, but I'll do my best. We're going to rural back up and left, pulling the fiber and deeper into the hip joint to lengthen up out of the low back. Let's bend that knee. Keep it bent. Take the other ankle. Yeah, that was tricky. I almost didn't make it the same and here we go. We start the flection of the lumbar spine. As that happens, the less like stretches out in space. We bring it all the way back.

We guide the leg a little closer towards us. Anchoring with the leg that's on the ground. We bring you back [inaudible]. Yup. That was me working hard and lift, pulling the sigh bone deeper into hip joint and just bring the same leg back. We're going to do the hamstring pull one followed by too closely, followed by three. So once you get all the way down, guide the leg in, anchor the bottom leg. It's a double pulse and change. Pull, pull and reach leg. That's reaching away from you, pushes into the ground. If you need to bend the leg, bend the top leg, but keep that bottom like actively reaching. How about two more gorgeous and one and one. And then just arms forward.

One and one arms a little higher. Two and two now arms overhead, three and three. Now hands behind the head, four and four. No, arms back, five and five. And we're gonna twist and reach across to the upper ankle. Reach and, and one more time like this. And then the hands are coming behind the head and we continue for three on each side and two and left.

And one on one and hold both legs up. As you come to center, let your upper body come down. Bring your arms along your sides. Press actively through the upper arms. Let's bend the knees, stretching the legs on a low diagonal, keeping the spine flat for the rollover as what's happening. Xcel, we curl the spine over in him to flex and separate the fee x. We guide the spine downwards, bone by bone, feeling the intensity or the energy through the heels, reaching the tailbone, pointing the toes. Circle the likes to touch an inhale to lift x. So we reach off. Inhale, flex and separate. Exhale to roll down town. Yeah, tailbone touches. Legs come around and together and, Huh. And okay, this is the last one and then I'm going to take us through the control balance.

So if you've never done control balanced before or you don't know it, it's probably worth, I'll come down all the way. Deb, we're not going yet and then we're going next time. If you don't, no control balance, it's a good idea to watch. If you know it, let's all go together. You roll over from that place, the feet just gently reached towards the ground. Both arms come around at the same time, reaching oh for the left foot. Send the right leg up and then push it away from you. And with that press away from you. Get a little longer through your spine. And then we change the topic pulses and pulls away.

Imagine someone up there pulling your ankle up into the sky and change as the leg lifts that carries the spine with it. And Angie and one more time on either side, rich and rich and hold. Bringing both feet down. Hold onto your toes with your fingers and then pull your feet towards you as you once again, bending your knees if you need to, but making your way down through the spine, controlling it, enjoying the stretch, finding the tailbone and letting the arms come to our sides, allowing the legs to continue to lower. Here comes a Jackknife. Inhale up, exhale to rollover. Any other legs go down.

And then, ah, the legs carry the spine in space. We inhale to hold and exhale just melting into the ground, pressing actively through the arms. Hello. Latha likes to go down. Event and inhale to lift them or go ahead. I'm just going to look excellent. Your rollover. Inhale to go down and that and Xcel to roll down slowly. Hi Jess.

I just, you don't need me. I'll come with you. Here we go. Two more times in here. Exhale. This one's got some personality. It goes down and then up. Active lifts, spinal extensors, hip extensors, roll down and shoulder extensors. All the extensors in the body working in this exercise last time for no lifting or rolling in here. We take it down. Then up, rising up through the spine, getting a little longer, pushing your legs away and exhale as you come down.

Bending your knees, placing your feet down on the ground. You're coming to the shoulder bridge. Inhaling to prepare, excelling to articulate through the spine. One bone at a time. Staying at the top. Keep the right leg on the ground. Send the left leg up. Let me take it down. Slow. Press the hip. Hop as Lilly reaches to the ground and then back and take it down.

So the hip goes up as the light goes down and up and up and up in form or a little faster goes down, up with the same integrity. Yes, three and four and lift up and little list just with that supporting to like you could touch the ceiling with your tippy toes, just five. And with that we roll the spine down, keeping the leg in the air, but trying to go through the center of the spine and land evenly on the hips. Allow the tailbone to reach down and touch. Bend the knee and put it down onto the ground. Excelling to articulate up again. Rolling [inaudible] reaching energetically forward.

Once you find your position, check for a little bit of a pick up the right way. Hold it straight, take it down slow, pressing that right hip up and flex back and down. Slow is being pulled away from you. It goes almost to the ground if you can without arching the lower back. Here's our last one at that pace and and then four quick down, back, down and back.

Don't allow that change in pace to change the integrity that was for, wasn't it? Okay, here we go. Little lifts up. Oh I had my foot pointed last time. Let's tip the toes on the sky and now we roll the spine down right to the center, finding the center of the spine, releasing the tailbone down. Bend the knee, put the foot down and now walk your feet way out to the outsides of your mat. But the feet are going to stay in. These are going to say that he say bed bent. Drop both knees towards me. Take the hip of that, the furthest away glute and push forward into the hip and then come through center and change. Push into that. You can center and across and center and across and center.

And lets walk the feedback together all the way. Open the knees, raise the arms up over the shoulders. This is a leap of faith. I'm not sure if I can make any, I really am not, but let's try. Let's try. So we reached forward and fussing and we come up pushing the feet together and lifting tall. Let's go back down another way. Now let me go all the way down and let the head come down. The arms go overhead. Let's come up one more time.

Lifting the head and chest, curling the spine forward. Oh yeah, of course we can do it. Bring your hands behind you. Fingers facing forward. I like to scoop my, hmm. Nah, I'm going to stop saying that. Okay, so we're instilling the diamond shape. I want you to think of this exercise as a hip opener. So as I lift my pelvis, I'm actually trying to engage deeply in my external rotators. So it goes like this. We have strong arms, we've got a straight back. We inhale, exhale to press the knees down, externally, rotating in the headset.

It'll lift the pelvis up. Now reach the hips down towards the feet, opening up through the insides of the legs. Come away from your feet and sit down and draw you like that. Draw the abdominals down and pick up the hips. We press the knees out to do it. And then we just shift and you can play with what you know, whatever your body feels like it needs your make it big or tiny. And then we down all the while the spine stays long.

So it's a similar exercise to the um, what is that called back support. When you stretch out, come back and we sit down. I'm gonna do one more. Lifting up first, stretching forward, pushing the knees down, down, down, opening back and sitting down. And then bring the knees in and reach for your ankles. And maybe before you straighten your legs, sit just behind the pelvis. Listen, it's not my forte button. You guys will do a good job. Here we go.

One leg straight, pull that leg deep into the hip joint, either like straight, deep into the hip joint and we rock. Inhaling back and excelling to come up. Lifting the spine. There's another one and curving the low back where you can explore the periphery of your movement of your limbs. What does that mean? I don't know. To me.

It means I'm trying to go deeper and my joints stabilize better and then be more mobile in my spine. And last, let's do two more reaching back and a last time reaching back and okay. The engineers take the like furthest away for me. Cross it over the other one. Turn towards me and drop the knees down. It worked. All right, we're going to do the twist. Check my shirt and look a little Dorky, but that's okay. Here we go. So we've got our knees bent.

We all know how to stabilize our shoulders and we're often running, lifting the body as you lift your pelvis, start where? Right away, lifting up off the ground. Press the chest down and flat towards the knee so you're in a low, um, a twisted downdog or a twisted up stretch. Bring your body back out and let's play around with just lowering the pelvis today. Just be careful with your shoulders. You can always bend your knees if you need to. N Lift and reach, reaching out of the arm and back and just hovering. Nice laugh. How do we take it through?

It may come back. We're going to have her one more time. We're gonna lift one more time. Then we're going to drop the bottom knee, so got that straight leg. Double check the pelvis or make sure you're not arching your back. And here we go. The lake comes up, the hand comes behind the head. We're pressing the head into the hands for this side kick Neely and we stretch back and we're bringing the leg forward and imagine that there is a crocodile infested pit underneath your leg and you can't drop it or you'll get bit just one more. And then we take it down to the back and lift it up, reaching up and over the crocodile's mouth and up and over and up in forward.

And I've been over and up in forward. I'm going to take us through that two more times and I've been forward and up and back. One more time and then just from there, when I take the leg back, just a small less, it's not coming quite as high. It's more of a push up and back getting into the glutes. Think about where the shoulder is in space. Continue to press the head into the hands, all the pieces of the puzzle here.

Last three and two, taking weight out of the arm. One, let the leg come to the ground. Take the arm that goes behind your head and stretch it overhead and then bring that arm up. Bringing the leg back out to the side. We're going to find our balance here. We reach out, we reach out, the light comes down, the body comes up, up, up. Take the opposite arm of straight leg and bend. Bringing that inside arm down towards the ocean, reaching over the top and now lifting up. I'm going to drop that knee down and here we got a little oblique work in here.

Let's go to the ocean and let's take it back and let's go across to the not the ocean. I don't know what's out there is not quite as romantic, right? Your across the top. Feel the body getting longer, getting more supple. Yeah, let's do that one more time, but this time with the arms overhead, we stretch out and we come on and we stretch out and he come up and then come all the way to down to the other side. I think I'm on my other side. You guys are okay. Here we go. So we're stable. We're ready. We're going to work our obliques to lift up and here we go.

Here's our Mel. Nice strong, straight line. Exhale, start to press the chest right away, down towards the knees, getting as straight as you can in your back and then bring it back and just allow that arm to be soft, that upper arm as you drop down into the stretch and then lift up and exhale. As we press the chest forward, the shoulder blade reaches down and we bring it back. Can we lower down and we all lift up and take it one more time through. Just cut myself, bending my arm, trying not to do that anymore. And uh, and Danna and back up and drop the knee.

Impressive the pelvis a little forward. Finding good alignment like comes into the air. And behind the head and we take the leg forward and stretch. Pull the leg from the abdominals as it comes to the front and think back and up. This is our last one here and then we're going to come forward again and we're going to tip the toe and we're going to go up and around and back.

Just make sure that as you're going around in back, you're not compensating by arching the back. The leg only goes as far back as you can. Keep the pelvis stolen space. He goes, I last too. I'm back. Maybe take a little weight off that bottom. Arm One and hold there. Getting into the glue, we take the leg up and back. We did a few more extra these because it's worth it. Good.

Really squeeze, energizing that glue. We're going to do four more here, three, two and when now let the legs slide to the ground. Take the arm overhead, reach reaching the toes and the fingertips energetically away from one another. Start to lift the leg, start to lithium. Here it comes. Coming up onto the fingertips first. Finding our balance. Softly placing the leg down and then we stretch again, that top arm up and over, sliding the hand down the leg and then coming all the way and just folding the knee back in and reaching the arms at our sides. And you do a little chest expansion action here with some back extension.

So what I'm after is for the pelvis to stay where it is, we're gonna reach the arms down like you are. They were got 10 pound weights on them and as they reached out, just that they pushed the, Chester was a gentle, gentle extension. And then let's go a little bit back with the arms and then let's go into a little bit of external rotation of the shoulders. Ah Yeah. And then all the way home. And then we send the arms down, they're like say on bags and our bodies like a helium filled balloon rising, rising defying gravity. And then the arms go back and then we're going to spiral the hands forward and then we're going to return and we'll go one more time.

Arms down first, sliding the fingertips down along the floor, allowing that chest to rise and rise, not at the expense of working the lower back. We open up the shoulders and this time start to bring the arms up, up. Careful with your backs. Hold your abdominals and taking the arms back overhead, and then the arms come out to the side as we bring our bodies back up, right and turn so that we're on our hands and knees. Okay. Sliding the legs back, finding a plank position from here. Round the spine. Bend the knees, stretching over the tops of the feet.

We drop the knees to the mat and then we stretch the spine and come along. Come a little lower with your pelvis. Step around curving the spine and left and around. And Lincoln. One more time around and linkedin and whole. Pick up the right leg now around the spine and bring the knee in. It comes right up into the body. Okay. And stretch it out at around and bring it in and stretch it up and around and stretcher.

Last too, and stretch out here comes out last one. Deep abdominal contraction. Stretch out. Place the foot down. Got the other leg to go. Make it up. Curl and stretch. Keeping the body low. We looked for flection in the lumbar spine and selection and last too, and that one one and back. Placing the foot down. Let's lift the hips up, finding our up stretch position. Pressing the heels down into the ground.

Walk the feet in just an inch. Start to slide you guys okay on your wrists. Yeah. Good slide. Your right leg back lifted into the air. So now we've got up stretch, arabesque happening. We're going to take it into a front support.

We're going to tip the right toes on the mat and we're going to pull back with those hips senses lifting us back. So I said hip extensors, but I met him. Dominoes too. We tip and we press back and tip and press back. Let's do one more and press back. Now hold here, take that leg and turn that hip open. The leg lifts a little higher as the hip opens, but the shoulders are trying to stay squared. And then we bend that knee, reaching it around towards the opposite arm, opening up through the hips. And then we're going to stretch like even higher. Still spiral the pelvis around and in and step the right leg back to the left.

Let's walk up or walk back to your feet. Just for a moment enroller. I'm just going to get us off of our wrist for a second. Taking the arms up. I got really hot. I will send it around to the sides. And how about one more? Yeah. And red says signs and just take your body back forward. Rolling yourself down into your feet, finding your way down towards your feet.

Find your way out into a plank position. That's lift the left leg straight up and back. No best. Just a up stretch. A Sarina. So Deb, come back to play position. I'm not kidding. Well, so we're just doing bell, whatever this is called balance control. That's it. Is it not? It's not bounced control friend either. Okay.

So what we're doing is holding a plank position and extending one hip, and I don't remember the name of the exercise at the moment, but forgive me, I have jet lag late pool, front lake, pull friend. It's like pull front and my life lifted. Thank you. Windy. When he saves the day and here we are, we walked the feed in one step and then we took the left leg and we just slid it back. Now we're in Arabesque, now we are and now we come back forward into plank. We took the toes, allow the leg to start to lift in. It pulls you back and you push back into your heel and then we come forward and we lift up and we come forward. Hinge inaction is occurring from the hips and the shoulders. One more.

Here's where we come to the top and hold. We allow that hip to open the left hip. We lift the left like even I or we open up the hip by bending the knee. Shoulders are attempting to be squared towards the floor. Enjoy that stretch. It's one of my favorites. Lifts to like back. Rotate the pelvis back forward.

Step the foot in. Walk back to your feet, see how little walks you can do. And you're on your way. Rolling. Did we leave out? No, we did it on both sides. I just changed it. I just changed the actions I think. Damn. Alright. It's [inaudible] push up time. Are you ready? Here we go.

Rolling. Ready or not. Here we go. Roll it down all the way. Find the mat. We're going to take one big step. We're gonna take two small steps. Hold. Bring your elbows right into your waist as they bend and red sand and right into your waist and say Ben and Pressa. One more to go. Ooh, let's the hips up like there's absolutely nothing holding you back.

Walk one step in and then all the way up. Remember which hand you did that with? Cause we're going to do it on the MSI and inhale and exhale. We're bringing the body forward. Feel as though the head is a weight that's carrying the entire spine forward. They abdominals are our support system. We take one big step, two small steps and we go again. We've got three push ups here, one lifting up through the waist, two and three we lift the hips up the opposite arm.

Hopefully if you can remember comes in, pushes us up. Oh, I got two hands that time if that's okay. Alright, one more side. Rounding forward. Last three pushups. If you're saving them for something else, saving your energy for something else. Don't bother. I could always do these on your knees. Works just as well. And here we go. One, two, and three. Now if you not bend your knees, sit back all the way when I'm in the shoulders to open and get a little bit of a stretch.

[inaudible] and then allowing the pelvis to leave the feet rolling forward over the hands. Scooch the knees out and bend the elbows to lower the body to the ground. Okay, stretch the arms forward. I wasn't sure I was going, but now I am. Okay. So actively press your hands into the ground and then slide the shoulder blades down the back. And with that action, just pick up the sternum so your breasts are still, or your chest is still on the ground.

But your sternum is trying to go between the arms. And with that we take the left arm in the right leg and we stretch out and we go down and we stretch out and we go down. And it's a sense of elongation and Dan and I'm striking out and I'm gonna go one more time here. Slow and my last one and down. Yup. Both lakes get to come up now. Both arms get to come up now. Now arms. And we swim in your two, three, four, five.

Can you still find that sense of elongation? Can you focus on the abdominals you feel balanced within your body? And one more breath cycle and XR two, three, five. And we take it all the way to the ground. Can I bring the hands to sit underneath the head? And he'd go into a hip extensor exercise.

So I want us to go into external rotation of our hips. Then check the shoulders. They should be down in the back. We're going to lift the legs on. Let's go. Legs that flex the feet, hold the heels together and now open and close the heels. Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, kind of fast and it's not the feet we're thinking of connecting. It's the inside legs, the inner thighs, checking in with your shoulders. If you would care to challenge this exercise, you could lift your chest food care to challenge it more so you could bring your arms to your sides if you care to challenge it more so still can bring your arms over your head. These are options, options, not orders.

Let's go out to the side and Ben neons. If you're not and lower the head and lower the body, then just one stretch back. Let's push up reaching the spine back into the heels. Taking a moment there to just breathe. [inaudible] let's come back forward. One last time. Rolling through the spine, your walk, your arms forward. He can scoot your knees back.

I'm going like a pushup to bring my body to the ground. Shoulder blades down and I'm going to just take us through this one prep. So what I want you to be careful of in this one is that you're only really, we're going to be asking the spine to be go into quite a lot of extension, but only do so to the extent that you can keep your shoulder stable. So here we go. The exercise goes like this. The farms are on the ground, the forehead is on the ground. We're going to start gently dragging the elbows backwards towards the hips.

Then the top of the head reaches oppositionally to that and we start to articulate, reverse, articulate through the spine, continue to lift on your forms until you can't, and then start your reach with the arms. Now here's where you've got to be careful. You just go where you can control. Okay? And then we bend the arms back and as we undulate through the spine, the legs lift and there's our rocking action. And then we lower the legs and the top of the head reaches away from the toes and the spine extends and the abdominals are drawing upwards and backwards.

Oh Dad, that's gorgeous. And we drop the elbows down first. And then as the spine, Angela, it's we begin to pick up the legs and we rock forward. And one more time with the legs come down. That head starts to lift, striving for more and more each time. And then the Elvis come down on one last time and we lift our legs and let the lakes rest and take a moment and let the spine rest. [inaudible] well then just gently arms right up underneath the shoulders.

We're going to just press into the forms, shift backwards. As you start to sit on your heels, your arms are going to slide a little and you're going to shift forward placing the elbows down. Try Not to change anything mine, it's not gonna work anyway, was a good idea. But instead we'll just stretch over the heels with this spine. You could open up your knees here if you wanted to.

It's kind of been the theme for the day and then we're just gonna roll ourselves upwards all the way right up onto the knees. And then I'm going to need to scoot forward. But let the hands come back to the mat, slide the toes under. And before we put weight on, I'm look back at them and see that they're neutral so they're not pulled out to the side. You're just gonna push with your arms and roll over the tops of your feet and press down into the heel. Yes. And then arc the foot. So you're pressing weight into the toes.

And then rounding down over the legs, bowing forward, letting the heels drop down. And then arking that spine comes a little bit back and dropping down. We're going to come up from here, so as we continue to drop the heels into the ground, the legs stretch, the spine stretches a little bit longer over the legs. Inhale, exhale, start to make your way up. Can you feel that? The abdominal [inaudible] but everything else is heavy, easiness to it. And then as the spine comes up, we start to lift the arms and bring the arms around and back and to take the arms down and follow the with the spine, holding the body forward, keeping weight on the insides and the outsides of the feet. On the front and backs of the feet. Take the leg for this away from me and bend it so the that hip drops down, the opposite hip pulls out that same side hand. So my right Deb, your left Wendy, your right reach open through the left arm or the right down spiral.

And maybe let's come on to our fingertips and try to get a longer back and then we're going to fold back down. That leg will straighten the opposite leg. We'll bend exchanging sides. So he start to spiral open. Maybe even we want to lift onto the fingertips and lengthen outwards even more so. And then we come back, dropping the arm down a lot of the leg to stretch for a moment and then bend both knees and see if by drawing the abdominal so deeply and you can get a sensation of the femurs pulling deeper or coming up into the hip joints more and that we just let the lower back let go. Get to stretch forward over the legs.

I'm going to keep my knees bent if you need to use your hands to help you up. That's a good idea. If not, just allow the knees to say soft rolling. Once you get past your pelvis, the legs start to straighten coming all the way. Yeah. And then let's bring the arms out to the sides and bend the knees and press the arms down and stretch the legs out. Nice and light. Nice and easy.

If anything at all is heavy in the body at stuff, shoulder blades and, and then let's take the arms out again and now let's stretch and bringing the arms overhead and open the arms and bend the knees and stretch and bring the arms overhead and stretch towards me. And then bend at the waist and reach around to the other side and kind of center and stretch away from me. Forgot. I have to let go hair a little without really letting go. Let's do one more well, I echo without letting go. Yeah, I know.

And just allow the arms to flow into the ground. It's fine to reach into the sky. And with that, thank you for cutting it fun.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Amazing class as always Meredith. Thank you.
Such a happy surprise each time I find a new class waiting for me in the morning. I'm with Deb...really enjoy the bent legs coordinated with the stretched arms.
Outstanding class!
enjoyed this class!
Great class!
Pele
As usual, you're the queen of flow! :) perfect amount of wording and movement making good use of time for viewers.
What a wonderful class, thank you, Meredith!!
And thank you Pilatesanytime...
Lovely....especially enjoyed the diamond leg pattern throughout and the reaching oppositional arm and the flow from side twist to side kick kneeling to oblique work on knees. Lots of nice stuff here. Thank you
Thank you EVERYONE!! You guys make me smile.
1 person likes this.
Everytime I do this class I love it more and more. Wow!!! you are so AWESOME!!!!
THANKS!!
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