Reform and Restore

I'm Misty Lynn Cotton, and in this movement series, we're going to reform and restore. This is a great one for the morning or the evening. Whenever you feel like it's time to rebalance, lengthen, and maybe strengthen a little as well. So let's get started. We're going to start by sitting down and taking off all of the springs.

It's important you do this while you're sitting for safety. We'll bring our footbars down and out of the way, and then we'll push the carriage back stepping in, and aligning yourself toward the forward edge of the carriage. Think of it as about sits bones, about a hand's width or so from the forward edge, and you wanna be able to sit up nice and tall. If you're a tall person, sit on top of blocks or, moon box to make yourself more comfortable. We'll bring the arms here to genie position. Again, reminding you there's no springs on, and the heels are in line with the knees.

So as I begin, I'm going to scoot my pelvis under me setting my sits bones toward the backs of my calves. And then I inhale to roll back up. Challenge yourself to keep your feet flat here. All 10 toes spread and connected to the floor. And as you scoop, resist the urge to drop the breastbone.

Let's take two more here, exhaling and curling, and inhaling and sitting tall. And last one, blow. And roll up to sit, tall, taller, tallest, maintain your plumb line, and we're going to rotate. Just one each way just to prepare for what's next? Now we'll rotate and scoop.

The challenge here is to keep the hips square rather than letting one side dominate. So as I'm scooping, I'm really thinking about my left side doing a little extra to keep me balanced. Rotate and scoop. And in my rotation, I'm working hard to not over rotate I'm keeping my wrists in line with my sternum the whole time. One more each way, rotate, scoop, roll back up, rotate to the center, and then last one.

Scoop, rotate, and center. Hands can either come down here or they can open out to a tee, find your plumb line, and press back. Now as if you've got suction cups on the soles of your feet, pull in. Feel as if both legs are working evenly because they should be, and resist the urge to add tension where we don't need it. Two more here.

And here's your last one, back. And then coming in. So now we'll bring the hands to the hips really working on the posture. Find the rotation of your armpits forward and bring your feet into a soft turnout. Think of the inner heels pressing together, and the toes being at eleven and one on a clock. Now I'm sitting up tall, And as I press back, I'm keeping all 10 toes on the floor.

My knees may not straighten, and that's okay because I'm working foot and ankle mobility here. And I'm really getting a lot of work through the tops of my feet. Exhale pulling in two more here, and we'll do one more. And for our last in this series, you'll lift your heels. Keep the inner heels together.

Same idea. Keep all 10 toes on the floor and maintain your alignment, shoulders over ribs, over hips. Three more. Woo hoo. That last one almost got away from me. Two more. Stretch At exhale dragging yourself in, all 10 toes active, last one, and we're pulling all the way in and hold here.

Now position change, you'll swing your legs out and close your carriage you have options. You can either go to one light Spring or you can go to No Springs, which is where I'm going to go here. I'm stepping on one leg. Putting one hand down, the other hand down, the knees are on. And you'll note that my knees are underneath my hips and my shoulders are over my wrists.

My spine is long and neutral, and I'm gonna start with my arms. So I'm pressing out with my arms, keeping my armpits forward, I'm gonna pull in with my armpits maintaining my long line from the crown of my head through my tailbone. Three more here, and really over exaggerate the breath because it feels good, but it also gives you a chance to stretch your upper back. One more, inhaling out. And exhale pulling in now we'll go legs only. The legs go away.

And they pull in maintaining the body alignment once again. Four. As you come in, try to keep the tail lifted. As you go out, try to keep the tail lifted. Two more, and last one. Now we'll combine the actions.

If you wanted to make a spring change now's the time. So we'll go arms, then legs, then the legs come under the hips and the arms pull forward. Four more, blow, and pull in and three more, keeping the neck on spine gaze days forward. And here's your last one. The moment I've been waiting for is here.

I close to the bumpers. I'm going to sit back in a child's pose, allowing my arms to drape over the foot bar. Give yourself a moment to circle the wrists in both directions. Find the rotation of the armpits forward. As you start to come up, and we're just going to step your hands back to the foot bar, keeping the armpits rotated forward.

And pressing out and coming back in again, remember we have no springs here and our faces are over the springs. So You want to really be mindful that you're supporting yourself from your back, not just slapping about. One more here, as you pull in, keep the armpits rotating forward, keep the elbows in parallel. And good. That felt nice. I'm sure will come up onto Quadrupedd and make sure your crossover bar if you have this performer is out of your way. Find your bumpers.

So you may need to step back a little bit to really connect with those. And here we're just going to wag the tail. And in your tail wag, you have to keep the carriage up against the bumpers, which sounds easy. But it's easier said than done. See, two more and one more.

Push back. Take a child's pose. Keep your hands where they are, so you don't have to reset them again. Keep the rotation of the armpits. And now we're going to come right back up into that same position, close the carriage to the bumpers, maintain that position, and circle the hips. And as you're circling, again, keep the carriage against the bumpers.

That's gonna give you a lot more shoulder girdle and arm work. Reverse it here. Three two, oh, losing my bumpers. And one. Come in, close your carrot, and please for safety.

Add a spring. Moving on, we'll bring the footbars up. And even if you typically do this on a heavier spring, I ask you to go light here. We're going into lunges. We'll start with the back foot on the foot bar.

The other foot is back against the shoulder blocks. And if this is too much of a stretch for you, you can always add a yoga break. The shin is up against the edge here of the bar, and you can keep your hands down here at least for now, for balance. We're pressing the back leg behind you and pulling it under. Now It's a press back.

It's active. We're not collapsing into the position. We still wanna think of oppositional energy as we're going back. We're also going up and slightly forward with the pelvis. Exhale, and we'll do one more here. Now holding the carriage in, grab your foot bar, pressing back with the front leg.

Keeping the back flat, keeping the back leg aligned in the same position you started, four, and pulling in. My front heel is sick sinking below the platform That's just gonna give me more work up my leg inside and out. And pulling in and last one. I come in, bring the carriage to the bumpers, rotate. So you're squaring off. You may need to step back a little as I did.

And then I'm going to bring that same leg back to the foot bar. Hands can be wide or in prayer. This is the way I like to do it, and I'm rotating my armpits forward. Same action. Outside leg is pressing and pulling.

And as I'm going out and in, I'm trying not to go with that leg with my torso maintaining my plumb line. Two more? Last one? Pull in and hold stay. Now remembering to keep your alignment, hip over the knee on the standing leg.

I'm pressing away with my foot bar leg, and I'm remembering not to get snappy in the knee. As much as I want to, I have to think of the hamstring to heel connection as I go. Pulling in, My thigh is slightly externally rotated so that as I go out and in, I'm keeping the alignment hip to knee to toes. One more for good measure because I lost count. Come all the way in and close the carriage.

Now from here, you have options. You can either bring your hands underneath your shoulders this way as long as your hips are over your knees, or you can come more forward onto the shoulder blocks. I'm gonna come right here and rotate my armpits forward, and then I've gotta find my toes at the forward edge of my platform. Now starting with pointing and flexing, as I point and flex, I'm being aware that the work is coming from the toes and through the balls of my feet, I'm trying not to let my ankles do too much of the work. And I'll do one more here.

Now if you are so inclined, come up to a hover and you can either hold the hover or you can add some arms here. And for three, two, and one. Closing the carriage lowering down, we'll go to the second side starting from the side position. So both hip bones are still square to the wall in front of you. I'm gonna make a small adjustment. And my hands are back in prayer.

I'm very square. And then I'm pressing out. With my inside leg, and four. Keep the armpits rotating forward, and keep your plumb line long, crown of the head to the tail. One more.

Hold it in, stay tall, pressing out with your foot bar leg. Pull in from the under butt and the quadricep. Four more. Exhale pull, keeping your standing leg lined up immediately beneath the hip, two pulling in and in and one and close the carriage, keeping the same leg in front. Ball the foot to the platform and get nice and square.

Chest is lifted. Carriage stays smooth. Try not to let it jerk and bounce about, especially when you come into the platform. And pull. Three more. I'm getting taller as I'm sliding into this lunge.

In my mind, I am. Two more. And, blow. We have one more. And pull up and hold, bring your hands to the foot bar, rotate your armpits forward.

Now the front leg presses, the back leg stays. And pulling in, think of doming your arch on your footbar leg as you close the carriage. Three. And check-in with that back leg. Is it being honest?

Mine wasn't? Two. I'm pulling in. And one more. Well done.

Now we're going to a Z sit, and we're gonna go around the world. So my back will be facing you to start. I'm sticking with the same spring. Feel free to make a change if you need to. As we go into our side bend here, we're keeping the shoulder block hip down.

As you come up, Keep the footbar arm pit rotated forward. Press out and side bend. Pull in. We'll add on here. Add rotation up and side bend Now that back hip lifts, I rotate reach and grab underneath me to the frame.

And if you can't reach that, grab the forward edge of your carriage and deepen your rotation. Now we come back through. Get the hip down first, come all the way up. And again, up and over, lift the hip, rotate, twist and reach. Unwind side bend and come up.

Now we'll go up and over side bend, rotate and grab the footbar. Hold it here. Deepen your press. Now when you come in, keep your elbows straight. Lift up. Let your gaze go up the wall to the ceiling.

Press back. Do a pull here. So I'm pulling in, again, parallel elbows. I'm pressing back. I'm coming up. My gaze leads the movement. Here, my gaze stays up for as long as it can.

And I do a a pull here and one more out. Gaze goes up rotating the armpits forward, lift the breastbone, press back, and come all the way in as we bend Shiff the hand side bend, get the hip down, and come all the way up. Now keeping the same spring, rotate and your feet are gonna come to your headrest. If that's not comfortable, you can straighten your legs, but I would try to be here just for the progression's sake. So you're going to grab your loops.

You can slide your hands in, and choke up slightly, find your middle back so pull your blades together here sit tall, and think of what we open the workout with. So take a big breath in, and then scoop sending your sits bones up the backs of your legs to do your roll back. Inhale inhaled here at the bottom and roll back up to sit tall, tall, tallest, two more scoping back, finding your inner thighs, finding the width of your back as you come back up, Let's do one more and stay here. Hold. So hammer curls or next. We're curling up and reaching away.

As you're doing this check-in with your neck chest and jaw, Only tense theories that need to be tense. Two, one. And let's roll back up. Take both legs straight here. Slide back.

Flip your hands out. Cross your hands this way. So we are clasped top of the hand to the bottom of the other hand. First, you'll rotate, and then you'll come back to the center. And guys, I really wanna lean as I'm rotating, but I'm on best behavior.

So I'm thinking that instead of lifting, instead of leaning, I'm gonna lift. Other way, turn. Now we'll turn here and then we'll hinge. You'll come back up and center. Last one hinge.

And up and center. I lied one more each way. It just feels too good to just end here. And we'll do one more. Turn hinge, come back up and center.

You'll put your loops back down, and we'll go into the z sit on the second side. Hand to the footbar. Arm wide. Start with the side bending up and over. And coming back up, leaving the hip where it is. Same thing.

Up over and coming up here, adding the rotation. Sideman up and over, now your hip will lift. You'll twist and reach around and grab whatever you can. Unwind, let the hip come back down. Come in, close the carriage.

Again, up over. Reach out of the pelvis, lengthen long. Find your back body. Unwind. We're back in that rainbow position, then we come up. Now we're gonna grab the bar.

Up an over side bend, hip lifts, we find the bar, slide the hand back, and deepen our press. Try to keep your head on the level here without dangling. Lending and lift up into your extension. Let your breast bone lift, not your head. Flop back.

Press back through the armpits, and we do a pull keeping your elbows parallel. Press, lift up, extend, extend. And we press back. Pull in parallel. You have one more.

Gaze goes up. Really work to square your shoulders and chest to the wall in front of you, pressing back. Unfurl, side bend, and come up. We're in the home stretch. So you're going to slide forward and roll back.

Grab your loops, and we will go to thighs or backs of the knees into your loops. Same Springs as always. We haven't made any changes here. And before you go anywhere, just feel your thigh bones really releasing into the back of the pelvis. So this should feel like a very comfortable supported position.

Keeping the neck long on spine to not looking at the knees, looking straight up. We're just going to press through the backs of the legs lightly and then come up. You don't have a lot of spring on this, so you don't need to go too far down because then you might lose control. Breathing through this, feel as if you're giving your organs a little bit of a massage, which sounds like an odd endeavor, but actually really, really good to think of what's happening on that visceral level inside. Let's do one more here.

And coming back up Bring the inner seams of the heels together, and the heels will be in line with the knees. I'm letting my knees come in past neutral and keeping the angle of my knees, I'm doing diamond leg lowers here. Still breathing, really enjoying this. I might just take a little nap. Just kidding.

Two more after this one, pressing and floating back up Again, focus on the glide if you wanna really hyperfocus on something, it should feel very smooth. Now we're bringing the knees back together. I'm past my normal normal, 90 degree hip set up here. From here, we're just going to open the knees and go into leg circles. So I'm really focusing on what's happening in the hip joint.

Below the knees. I don't really care what's going on. And if you find a place that's sticky, hold it there and just kind of roll through it back and forth, Working from the hip joint again. We'll do one more here roll through, exhaling back up and reverse stretching away only as far as you can go not to lose control or flare the ribs. Three and two more. Here's our last one.

And hold it here. To release, you'll slip one leg up and then the other. Feed to the foot bar and then drop your loops. Quietly onto the pegs. Let's roll up to sit up here.

And let's be proud of ourselves for doing something kind for our bodies for a change. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Thank you so much.