Magic Circle Mat

Hi, I'm Lesa Logan. And in this magic circle mat class, what I'm excited for you to explore is how you can do this all at one time from start to finish, or if you only have a few minutes, you can do the very beginning, or the very end. And we're gonna use the magic circle a little bit in the beginning, latin and a couple times dispersed in between to help you get the most connections out of it. So let's get into it. we're gonna actually sit. I like to sit cross legged.

You can also, if this is uncomfortable sit on a box or a bench and place your feet on the ground, like a 90 degree angle pushing in. You'll have your arms straight out to the side with the circle slightly in front of your hip. He'll let your hand is on the pad long fingers, and you'll press down into the circle. Now it's tempting to do this from the elbow or from the wrist or to lean into it. So take your opposite hand and wrap it around and feel the muscles around your back turn on.

You should feel lats and some other muscles that like to turn on there, but you should feel it all coming from the back. It shouldn't be in the front. Or in the bicep or the tricep or the elbow. It's just all right here in the back. We'll do 10 of these, and then we're gonna switch sides.

And what I like about this is it helps connect our arms to our back. It's really setting us up for the mat practice we're about to have. You'll notice you have one side that is smarter or stronger than the other. Let's go ahead and switch to 10 on the other side. And in that case, you can always repeat on the side that needs more attention.

So you'll start with that side Do the smarter side, then go back to that side. It's really good. You can do it into this class even just to help bring that one to the party. Right? So after 10 of these, now our arm should feel nice and strong. You can always do this with two circles, by the way. You're gonna take the magic circle place it vertical on the mat, and then take your ankle on the circle and lie down. So the other leg will be straight on the mat or can also be bent, and you wanna make sure that your pads are one on top of the other. It'll work the best here.

And then take that legs hand, reach out and touch your thigh, and then feel the backside of your thigh and your outer hip push the circle down. So I'm a hypermobile body. My knee loves to do it. We need this to be all the muscles in the back of our leg. So where your thigh meets your butt, that's what we're turning on here. If you are someone who feels a hip click or your hip flexors over work, this is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

Let's do two more. And then the best thing to do is roll up. I know you wanna just lay there and move it with your feet, but I promise you. It's a little easier just to do a roll up. Put your other ankle on.

And press down. So 10 of these, and it's not huge. And I, like, that's a huge press down. Like, it's you're not gonna break the circle. You're not trying to get the circle to the floor. You're just trying to get that outer hip and hamstring to work.

And because my left leg is my weaker leg, I can feel the circle wanting to bounce around, especially as I lift it back up. So I have to really push into the circle as I lift my leg. Once you've done 10, roll back up, and now move the circle into the middle of your mat. I'm gonna put both ankles on it. If they can't both fit, they're kind of on that top part of the handle, or they can even be on the side.

That's fine. You're gonna push both legs down and lift it up just three of these. This is gonna help you for that double straight leg stretch that's coming up, future hundreds and teasers. Hold the circle down on the one. Lift your head and chest up and pump your arms for your 100. And so I've now supported your legs.

You're welcome. It's a nice little gift, but it's not about the circle not bouncing. I don't even know if it's possible to keep it. It's totally still, but can you hold the circle down as you pump your arms? So can you get the back of your legs to turn on? Outer hips inner thighs so that the 100 we're gonna do in a minute feels easier. Yes. We're gonna do this again. One more cycle of breathing, and then go ahead and roll up.

Put the circle to the side. You're gonna grab it in a minute, but just Put it off to the side, lower yourself all the way to the mat, heels tight together, toes pointed, take your arms overhead. Now as you reach your arms up and over, feel where feel the same spot that you felt when you push into the magic circle. And then dig those heels down into the mat to feel like you're pushing into a magic circle. Everything on the back body should be on.

Take a deep breath in, exhale, lift it up. Maybe your legs float up a little higher than they were for the circle or maybe at the same lay level, and you're in a pump. We'll just do five cycles of breathing. Inhale for five and exhale for five. Do you feel the magic circle in the backs of your legs? Lower the legs down as if you're pushing into one and go ahead and roll on up.

So You're gonna place the magic circle around your feet like a halo or a saturn ring. Make sure your feet are flexed. I'm gonna give you three roll ups with the circle, then we have to do two without. Okay? So push out on the circle, not from your knees. It's really easy to do, but from your thighs. Take your arms overhead, and then lift your head and chest up on the hardest part, push out on the circle, pulse three times and roll down.

If you use a mat with a strap, then you don't need the circle. You can actually just hug your legs together and use the strap. But if you don't have a mat with a strap, using the magic circle to do the roll up is always a great option. However, this is our one. Take the circle off. Sweeze your legs together, roll down. It's important that you notice what your body does when you don't have the circle.

Can you still turn those outer hips on? Can you still feel the same muscles that are pushing out into the circle turn on for this last roll up? You might not be able to yet. Alright? We try. Go ahead and lie all the way down and take your right leg up to the sky, flex your left foot. Let's just do three circles in each direction for single leg circle.

So you'll cross the body out and around it up after three in this direction reverse. And so as that leg circles around, imagine you're pushing down into that magic circle, go ahead and switch legs. That should help hopefully reduce the hip click. Let's go to the other side, three across, and then three in reverse. If it doesn't, you can always circle lower, rather than smaller circles make lower ovals.

Go ahead and bend your knees in. We're gonna grab the magic circle one more time, and it will be a while before we do. We're gonna push the knees into the circle. So it's like a little crown or like a little halo over your knees. Grab your feet or, sorry, your ankles or your hamstrings. And let's do three rolling like a ball pushing the knees apart. If the circle becomes a necklace, you lost your glutes. Okay? So I love to just teach my body what my hips are supposed to feel.

With this magic circle, and then take it out and do two rolling like a ball without it, and that should reduce that elvis pelvis at the top, right, that little bouncing around. Hold at the top, We'll do the abs series without a break. Take one if you need to. Bring your right knee in. Switch your left leg out.

Round back to the tips of your shoulders. Pull pull switch. Pull pull. So we're doing single leg stretch three times each side. Rest your head in between if you need to. Otherwise, bring the heels together, double leg stretch. Pull on both legs two times, reach the arms and legs away, circle around and pull it in. Reach, circle around, pull it in one more time.

And single straight leg stretch, grab one ankle, lower the other leg, pull pull. Imagine that leg is pushing. The free leg is pushing to an imaginary magic circle. So it's not just hanging off of you. Right? Once you've done three, hands behind your head or underneath your seat double, straight leg stretch, lower the legs and lift. We did this with the magic circle, of course, it was lower, but you can feel how do I push into an imaginary magic circle as I lift my legs on this one? Crisscross twist one knee in, one leg out, curl up a little higher, up and over the other side, and twist, and twist last time each way, come all the way up. Okay. We're officially warmed up. Yeah.

Take your legs as wide as your mat hands between your legs. No. We're not using the circle here, but can you feel your legs push out into an imaginary one? Oh, do you see how tall you got? Yeah. When we get our glutes on, we get a little taller. Round forward, and pulse one, two, three, and roll it up. And again, round forward, and pulse one, two, three, roll it up. Last time, you can stick with your spine stretch forward. You don't wanna do open leg rocker, or you can repeat rolling like a ball, up to you, point the feet for open leg rocker, lift the legs to your hands, whatever version of straight you can do is fine. Just make sure your elbows are straight. Okay? And then you're gonna rock back and up.

So those legs are pushing away, just like they would be, like, pushing into a magic circle. So the back of the legs are on, that's gonna keep you from having that, like, rubber banding type of legs when those hamstrings are on. Stay up after three. Hoping like rockers squeeze the legs together. Open them up.

Squeeze them together like you're squeezing a magic circle. Open them up. Squeeze them together. Open them up lower the legs down a little wider than your mat. Take your arms wide to the side. Little saw. Twist round. Pulse one, two, three, and roll up.

I love a saw. It's not easy, but now that we've warmed up our hips, it should be easier to anchor them down. So we can get the best part of a saw, which is that stretch of the lower back. We're just gonna do two times each side, and then we're gonna flip on to our stomach for a swan. We're all the way up and flip on over. Alright. You can do a swan prep with your hands under your forehead, or you can do hands by your shoulders. I like to go a little wider than my mat, roll the shoulders back, reach the tailbone away, and pull the heart forward, and lower it down.

So we're not trying to come to straight arms, It's not necessarily about how high you get, but how long you can get. So we did all that warming up to help us work against gravity in our swan. One more time. Lift your chest forward, pull the shoulders back. And come all the way down.

Bend your knees, windshield wiper your legs, you can just lower your chest. And then we're gonna prop on up to our forearms for our single leg kick. Pull your chest through your arms, reach your tailbone nice and long, and then give it a kick. So We're not gonna use the magic circle here. I think that really depends on the length of your legs for that, but I want you to feel like you could like squeeze into a magic circle from your heel to your seat.

Really feel that hamstring curl here. Last time you try, that's how you're gonna stretch the front of your hips too. Then lower all the way down, we'll do two double eight kicks. So take your hands high up on your back, let your elbows fall down, stretch your shoulders, and kick both feet to your seat three times. If your booty lifts up, reach your pubic bone down, push the feet down, lift the hands, lift the heart, pull it forward, look the other way, kick, kick, kick, and reach the arms up, heart pulls forward.

One more time each way, look to the left, kick three times and arms up chest forward. If your arms are reaching for your feet, that is not up. Gotta go to your ceiling. Kick three times and reach Hands down, sit back. I love to do this little stretch.

You'll take your legs together, your head to the mat, grab back toward your feet and lift your stomach. It just does like a little reverse, reverse run like a ball. Awesome. Okay. We're gonna do some thigh stretch. We are gonna grab the magic circle. So we're gonna place the circle for two reps between the legs, which is a little weird because the circle kind of likes to be wider.

So it's kind of tight, but you're gonna put it between your legs and squeeze, and then take your arms up. So if you have knee issues, I love this as an option because when we get our inner thighs on, we tend to be able to stand on our knees still under the thigh stretch. So squeeze the circle, lower your arms lean back, squeeze a circle, lift back up. Squeeze a circle, lower your arms lean back. Squeeze and lift up. Okay.

Now that you felt that. You wanna feel that with you're without the circle. So you've got that feeling. Now take your thumbs inside the circle and pull the circle apart and lift it up. So I've got long fingers, and I'm pulling the circle apart.

Lower the arms to lean back. Lift the arms up to come up. So now we're activating the upper back. Did you forget about your imaginary magic circle between your legs? Alright. Here we go. Put the circle down.

Two reps finding both of those without your circle. Lower the arms, but hug the legs. Lift the arms. So ideally, we use a prop, a tool to teach the muscles we want to turn on so we can impress ourselves with what we can do without it. Okay. I don't like a neck pull without a strap, if we have a magic circle, gotta do a neck pull.

So place the circle around your feet like you did for your roll up, and then push out on the circle from your thighs lie on your back. If you're like, are you kidding? You can do the roll up. Okay? You can totally replace what you can't do yet with what you can. Interlace those hands behind your head. Take a deep breath in here, curl up and exhale on the hardest part as you push out on your circle and pulse one, two, three, sit tall. And then roll it back.

And again, take a deep breath in, exhale in the hardest part, pulse, get the stretches, and then lift, and then roll on down. One more time. I'm not gonna make you do the neck pull without the circle. Every day is a different day. Today is a hard day for my neck pull. Right? It's just it tells us a lot that's going on in our body. Alright. We're going to place a circle off to the side, and let's see what our body can do without it for our shoulder bridge.

So arms down by your side, roll the hips up, and then roll the hips down. Your feet are not too close to the seat, but you are staying on all four corners of each foot. And you can just roll up and down, or you can roll up and stay up. Take your feet into the mat, push down, feel the muscles around the back of your legs turn all, like, when you push into the magic circle. Keep that as you stretch one leg out with the pointed foot, kick it up. Flex lower it down, point it up, and flex lower one more time.

Flex down, and then we'll do the other side, slide it up, and flex. Oh, it's hard. It's hard when you get to your other leg. Right? And place it down and roll all the way up. Alright. Let's do a spine twist because it's so good for us.

Squeeze your legs together like you're squeezing a magic circle. Take your arms wide the side, twist to the right. Hold it twist a little deeper, and a little deeper, a little bit more, and unwind. Twist the other way. Two, three, unwind. Twist, and unwind, and twist. Awesome. Okay. We're gonna do a little teaser.

So is there a little teaser ever? No. We're gonna do teaser, but you have the option of what however you wanna do it. So if you want to roll like a ball into your teaser, you can. Okay? Otherwise, we're gonna see what this magic circle has brought us so far, with our arm back connection, with our inner thighs, with our outer hips. Take your arms overhead, squeeze everything together, and float away from your mat, toes in line with the eyes, and then take your arms up and roll your upper body down three times. So it's like your legs are reaching into an imaginary magic circle.

Makes it a little easier to stay up here. After three of these, We have one more set of teasers to do. It's teaser too. So push your legs down into an imaginary magic circle, pick it back up. Push them down, pick them back up, push them down, pick them back up. Everything goes down.

Flip onto your stomach. Let's rinse it out. We're almost done. Take your arms in front of you, legs behind you, reach your tailbone nice and long, and then lift your hands head and chest up, lift your inner thighs up, and swim. So if you feel your lower back is pushing down into the mat, it is.

Reach your tailbone a little longer and pull your heart a little more forward. Get more length in your extension, and then sit back, round your spine. So that reverse, rolling a ball head to your knees. I wanna do some push ups here. If you want to place a magic circle, It's not the most comfortable thing. On your sternum, and the other pet on the mat.

It's a great way to practice push ups. It's a little weird to get into it, so you kinda have to move your legs around. But once you're in, here we go. Get into a plank. And try just one set with me.

If you hate it, it'll put it to the side. Ben your elbows, and come back up. You can put your knees down too. Ben your elbows, and come back up. Because the thing about push ups is if you always do little micro bends, you will always be strong enough, go and rest your legs down.

To do micro bends. So I love the circle because it helps you do the full range of a push up to get you stronger. Now let's put it to the side and see if we can do a push up without it. If you're like, are you kidding? Well, you can put your semantic circle back.

Here we go. Find a plank, shoulders are shoulders over wrists, heels tight together, knees can be down if you want, bend your elbows back three times, just three. And then walk your hands back to meet your feet. Arms by the ears, rolling up. Alright. Now for our magic circle ending. Okay. This is that mini workout if you ever need it while you're standing.

thing you're gonna do is stand inside your circle and place it on your ankles just above the bones. Okay? So you don't wanna be on the bones. Now if you need a gondola pull for balance, you can use it. Here's the deal. Our goal is to not lean. Goals are worth achieving someday. Today might not be that day for me.

So you're gonna stand firmly in your left foot, and you're gonna lift up as tall as you can through your center so your right foot can hover off of the floor. And then you're gonna try to push that leg out without leaning. And I am leaning, so I'm gonna use this leg to push out so much. It kinda pulls me less leaning. I'm gonna lean a lot less for 10 of these pulses and put it down. If you felt that in your standing leg more, You nailed it. It's not really about the pulsing leg. Let's do the other side.

Stand firmly, lift tall, and and if you lean too much, you'll lean it back and reset. Every day is a new day, so pushing out. Noticing if it's from the joints or from it's from the femurs. You want the femurs pushing apart. And after 10 of those, you are welcome to repeat. My outer hips felt all of that.

We're gonna take the circle and So now between the ankles this time, we're gonna do a little series. I highly recommend if you're on a mat to kinda turn sideways because we're gonna we're gonna walk forward. We're we're gonna go on a journey together. So squeeze the circle between your legs. Set up nice and tall.

Without leaning, lift one leg up, and then squeeze the circle in and release in and release. So we'll do a total of 10 of these. And when I say release, I don't mean let go. I mean just, like, open the circle. Again, try not to lean, then hold the circle in with the circle holding and rotate the circle forward.

And then you're gonna pull the leg back and reach it forward and back. So in Pilates, we do single straight leg stretch, we do swimming, we do leg pulls, this little leg pulling back is the strength that we need to scissor switch our legs in the air. Okay. Hold the circle in. Put the front foot down. Continue to squeeze the circle as you lift the back leg up, and lift your center into your back.

It's tempting to push that lower back forward. So lift your center in, and then squeeze the back leg forward. And when you squeeze the back leg forward again, you're practicing the kick of the leg forward and your side kicks and your single straight leg stretch. After 10, you rotate it to the side. So we're back to the beginning, and you squeeze that side leg in.

And it will feel different because you've done so many other things so far, but how tall can you be? How much can you hold on to that circle? And then you're gonna rotate the leg forward by the way, if you've lost your circle, just reset. It's it happens. It takes time to get the circle to stay, and also depends on pants and leggings. Pull that circle back and back, and back place the front foot down, squeeze the circle, pick the back leg up.

This is the last one. Squeeze it forward. Whoo. How tall can you get? So you're squeezing that leg forward from your center and not just your quad. Five four, three, two, one. Rotate the circle around and grab it. Okay. Our grand finale is a little bit with the arms.

So you can place the circle on The side of your hip, it's gonna land where the length of your arm is, and you're gonna hug the circle in, and in. Let's just do six of these. Again, not filling it in the elbow, but filling it in the back, just like we did when we were sitting. Right? And then place it to the other side. If it feels uncomfortable because it landed on your hip, you can go above and below or below. But you just want it to be so your elbow isn't doing the work. You want it to be from way up here in your upper back.

Alright. After six of these, Now we get fancy. Take your right arm in, palm down, get the circle above your wrist. Take your left arm in palm up above your wrist and turn the wheel. K. Now we're gonna push out on the circle as we lift it up and push out on the circle as we lower it down. So you're not going so far forward that your lower back goes with you.

We're gonna squeeze the legs together, lift the circle up, pull our stomach back so that our pel our pelvis doesn't go forward, see how high the arms can go and then lower. I don't really get past like my eyes. Right? Because I'd have to rotate my shoulders out of the connection, but this really helps you learn how do my arms reach up over my head and double leg stretch and tees or and roll up. One more. Alright. Now we gotta do the circle to the back.

So this one is funky. You're gonna take the heel of your hands on the circle with fingers long. So no weird grip here. Just fingers long. And then we're just gonna squeeze and you can see how strong my squeeze is. The circle doesn't move.

But I feel so much of my upper back working. I feel my shoulders pulling wide. Last five. Four. Three. Oh my god.

Shaking two. It's taking my voice now. One. Alright. And then a little head series. So if you're familiar with the next retcher, this is where this came from. we're actually going to take the circle underneath your chin. Hands on the bottom of the circle.

And then you'll just do this little curl down. Now I'm not trying to, like, bend to the floor or, like, see how much I can bend the circle. It's just a small little head chest curl, and, it's so minor. But when done correctly, you'll feel the middle of your stomach, pull in. And that's how you wanna curl your head and chest up. You don't wanna do it from your chin to your chest.

You wanna do it from your stomach. One more. Alright. Take the circle to your side of your head. And you're gonna press into the circle with your hand, but your head has to keep the circle from pushing it off at center. Right? So your head's pushing in, your hands pushing in, and resist it open. Just four of these.

You should feel the upper back working because you're not doing this as like a bicep curl. The whole upper back is working. After four of these, you guessed it, we get to go the other side. So we're strengthening our neck. You know, a lot of times we feel things in our neck going to four.

We it's because our neck is weak. Right, and most of us, our head is off of our spine, so it's strained. So this little series is a nice way to strengthen the neck without straining it. Yeah. Last thing, take the circle behind your head, This is one of my favorites after I've been on my desk or driving for a while, take your hands on the inside, and then push the hands forward and the head back. So the back of our neck is what keeps our head over our spine. And there's some research that I found that has said that the more forward our head gets off of our spine, three more push the hands forward head back.

The more likely we are to see people coming at us as an attack, and not help, rest. And isn't that interesting that, like, we can get so consumed with our head coming more forward that not that we're consumed with it, but it's happening because of the life that we're consuming. That then when someone may be reaching out a helping hand, we see it as an attack, we see it as a fear. So the more we get our head back on our spine, the more we can actually see the world around us, as support, and help. And then we can see how our pilates practice isn't here to for us to be perfect at pilates. It's here for us to actually be able to do the life we want better.

It's here for us to reach up to the top shelf without straining, or to walk down the street without pain, or to look at your phone and get a great compliment text without straining your neck. So I hope that this whole series not only gives you some way to use your magic circle to get more connections, but also to bring your body back into that posture that we need to have so we can enjoy the life we have outside of this room. Thank you so much for working out with me today. Have an amazing day.