Dancer's Mat

Hi. I'm Zola. This will be a dancer's mat workout that, of course, anybody can do that will focus mostly on turnout rotation in the hips, extension of the spine, and of the hips. And other things that we love in Pilates. Let's get started. We'll stay standing. Come to the front end of your mat and start with your legs together in parallel standing up nice and tall. Let's make genie arms one crossing over top of the other, pushing those arms into each other.

Think of the tailbone pointing down towards the floor and the crown of the head lifting up to the ceiling. The pinky toe side of my foot, the big toe side of my foot, and the heels are pressing down equally into the mat. Now from here, truly using the outer hips, go to your pilates v. So rock back into the heels without shifting too much, and then find your pilates v, putting the toes back down. And again, using your belly, can you squeeze the inner thighs, lift the toes and come back to your parallel position?

So using those outer hips again, shift a little bit back into the heels without doing too much movement, think of growing taller and find your pilates v. And again, going back to your parallel position lifting the toes. So just alternating, turning a little bit out. Don't go to your full turnout. And then going back to parallel. Good.

One more time, shift back, lift in the belly, and then lift the toes and go to your pilates v and stay in your v. Switch the cross of the arms, push them into each other. And then again, feel the big toe side of the foot and the pinky toe side of the foot press into the mat and lift your heels up. Don't let the heels disconnect. Push them into each other.

Now, it's easy for dancers to go into that full, what we call releve, but we don't want to do that today. We want to not hang into the joints and lift the heels only as much as the pinky toe side of the foot can stay down. So for me, that's not gonna be very high. I'm trying to avoid shifting too far forward to lift the heels. I wanna go straight up and straight down. Let's do three more of these.

Heels push into each other. The backside of my legs are working like crazy and lower down. Two more. Lifting up. And pressing down.

And one more time, lifting up lifting up just until the pinky toe side of the foot stays down. So we're not hanging into the joints, and then lower those heels down. From here, reach the arms forward, cross one leg behind the other, and with control to send down to your mat. Good. Once you're down, you can send to yourself onto your mat and lie down on your back. Legs go straight up to the ceiling.

I'm going to flex the feet, arms down by the sides, collar bones nice and wide. Now, from here, same idea, but this time, experiment with how much turnout you can go into So going past the Pilates v, turning out from the outer hips, really wrapping the outer hips around, and then going back to just parallel. Good. Again, feel the outer hips work and that wrap goes into the glutes, so now I feel the back sides of my legs, and then go back to your parallel position. Good. See how far you can turn the legs out Making sure the movement, of course, doesn't just happen from the feet, and that's your true turnout, and then go back to parallel. Two more of those, outer hips wrap, glutes engage, bellies pulling into the spine, heels are still pushing into each other back to parallel. Let's do one more as far out as only your outer hips can take you.

Now just go to your natural pilates v, and let's point through the toes. Reach the arms up to the ceiling, keeping the legs straight up, press the arms down, curl the chest up. Let's do the 100 with the legs straight up. Inhale. Exhale. That's 10 inhale.

And exhale. That's 20 inhale. Exhale. That's 30. If you feel comfortable push those heels into each other and start to lower the legs only as much as you can keep the pelvis from shifting. Continue your pumps inhale and exhale and pushing the heels into each other.

I'm not pushing into the backs of the knees going into that hyper extension. Inhale two, three, four, five, exhale. Two more breaths. Inhale, and exhale one more time. Inhale two. And exhale.

Good pause here. Can you lower the legs the rest of the way down without arching the back without losing the connection to the backs of the legs? Now, since I have the advantage of the strap on this high mat, I will use it. So slide your feet under. If not, you don't need it. It still works with that one. Heels together toes apart. Same idea. My heels are pushing into each other, and I'm trying to keep my heels pushing down into the mat. So I'm not pushing into the back of the knees going into that hyper extension.

So go ahead and lie all the way down, make sure the strap is nice and tight. Reaching the arms back, can you reach the arms back without splaying those ribs off of the mat? So, hug the back ribs down, pull the shoulders down, and then engage those legs, curl your chin up towards your chest peel your spine off of the mat and round yourself forward. Pull your ribs and waist back and reach your fingers towards your toes in opposition. Come down, inhale, exhale one bone at a time onto the mat. Let's do three more inhale.

Exhale round yourself up and forward. Inhale curl the tail under. Exhale. Come all the way down. Inhale. Exhale peel.

Inhale tailbone to heels, exhale round it down. One more. And roll it all the way back down. Nice. Let's take the feet out of the strap. And again, since I have the high mat here, I'm going to use the poles for the rollover. If you don't have a high mat, if you don't have poles to use, just keep the arms straight down by your sides and do everything else the same. From here, stretch the legs up to the ceiling, keep the toes pointed, lifting the hips and letting the legs go up and back.

Don't let the legs fall all the way down to the floor. You want to stay lifted in the sides of the waist, open the legs shoulder width apart, and then articulate your spine all the way down, feel that nice massage, let the legs come to 45, close them together, roll it up. Stay lifted open, roll it down. One more this direction, close the legs, lift it up, open and roll it down. We reverse those circles open shoulder width, roll the hips up. Close, roll it down with the legs together, push them into each other.

The legs 45. Open, roll it up. Squeeze to close. Good roll yourself down. Keep the sides of the waist long. One more time. Lift up.

Close the leg squeeze, roll all the way back down. Good. Let the legs come down to the mat with control. Good and roll yourself all the way up. So that if you do have a strap, we will put the feet just the left foot under the strap. Four, single leg circles, but we will do a little preparation first.

Think short box on your reformer, taking the right thigh to the chest, Since I have the flexibility, I'm going to hook my right arm under the knee and then hold on to that right wrist with my left hand. Try to drive the right hip downward. Keep the thigh bone where it is and stretch the right leg up. Good and bend. Feel that nice stretch in the hamstring, lengthen and bend two more up and down one more. Keep the legs straight, climb your hands up, up, up. We flex the foot, get that big stretch and point through the toes, and flex the foot, and point two more.

Point, work the feet, one more. Point the toes, keep them pointed arms by your sides. Now from here, I can really drop the right hip down, turn the right leg out. We lower the leg with control. Be bought mod up, lower it down, and lift down with control, up with power down, and four more long legs, long waist, three, lift, two, This last one we hold the leg up, again reiterating that wrap of the outer hip, circle the leg over, down around and up.

Keep the rest of the body steady over, down around and up. Two more. Over. Down around and up. Last one, this direction, then we reverse. Inhale, exhale circle. Inhale. Two more.

Last one. Reach the leg long, lower it down with control. And then once the leg is all the way down, go ahead and slide it under the strap if you have one. Good other side, hooking my arm under that leg. For me, this leg is a lot tighter, so maybe the thigh bone won't be as close to the chest, but you do what you can.

Point the toes, stretch the leg up, and bend. Good three more stretch and bend lengthen lengthen lengthen, try to keep the thigh bone in the same place we stretch and hold, climb the hands up and flex the foot deep stretch. And point. Flex and point. Flex and point one more time. We point the toes, let the arms come down by your sides, wrap the left out or hip, find that turn out in the leg, lower the leg down with control, butt mod up, lift, control it down, power with the lift.

Two more. I like to do four more from here, four, and lift. Three, lift it up. Two. Last one keep the leg lifted, single leg circles, inhale cross, exhale circle. Again, inhale two more this direction. Reverse. Three more. Trying to keep the rest of the body steady.

Keep the leg lifted. Reach the leg long as you lower it down. Take your right foot out of the strap, reach the arms up. And in one piece, we bring ourselves up to the rolling like a ball position. So take a big inhale here.

As you exhale curl yourself up, bend your knees, find those ankles, and round your spine. Try to get the ears close to the knees, arms and legs pressing to each other. Now we have a little combo here. One rolling like a ball. Balance at the top.

We find teaser. Stretch the legs long. Open the chest. Keep the legs where they are. Roll yourself to the tips of the shoulder blades and roll right back up. Find your rolling like a ball position.

Hug it in. Inhale back. Exhale up. Hold at the top. Stretch the legs. Roll to the tips of the shoulder blades.

Roll it back up. Find your rolling like a ball position. Again, inhale back. Stretch the legs. Open the chest. Keep the chest open as you roll down, and up. Round the spine.

Find your rolling ankle ball. We do one more inhale back. Exhale up and balance. Find your teaser. Roll to the tips of the shoulder blades.

Stay here. Single leg stretch right away, right knee to the chest and switch and switch and switch. Double leg stretch right away. Inhale, find the position first. Exhale, circle the arms. Pull the legs in. Inhale stretch. Exhale pull. Three more.

One more. Single straight leg stretch. Try to get your legs straight up to the ceiling and bring your upper body to your leg instead of using your flexibility. Now, from here, pull your leg to yourself. Pull. Pull. It's really easy to hang into the flexibility when you're a dancer. We want to find the strength in the movement, the lift of the chest.

One more. Hands behind the head. Let's do heels together toes apart, double straight like stretch, inhale, lower the legs. Exhale lift. Inhale down.

Exhale up. Push the heels into each other. Maybe a slight bend in the knees. If you're prone, to pushing into the back of the knees, two more. Last one, crisscross right away, elbows wide, twist the wrist. Lift up to switch up to switch hugging the inner thighs in towards the center.

One more each side. Last one, bend both knees and rest your head. And let's rock up to seated. Bringing the soles of the feet together, opening the knees like a butterfly, grab onto your ankles and sit up as tall as you can lengthen the sides of the waist. From here, just like when we were little kids, press the knees down.

We're not gonna bounce though. Press the knees down and use that to try to grow taller in the spine. Use the leverage of the hands holding on to the ankle to stay lifted in the spine without splaying the ribs open, which It feels like I want to do there. So outer hips press the thighs down, and then you can release that. And again, just little slow butterfly flutters of the legs, finding those outer hips, finding length in the spine, shoulders, stay down, and then release that. Again, press those outer hips down.

These get closer to the floor. Spine grows more and release. Do that one more time like this. Now, keep the thighs pressing down, can you reach the arms forward without changing the amount that the that your thighs are pressing down? So from here, do that release again and continue to butterfly your knees down towards the floor. Now, we don't have the leverage of the arms to help us lift taller. You really have to use your center, use your core.

Good one more time. Press the thighs down. This is kind of like frog lying flat on your one to chair. If you can imagine that. Now from here, keeping that lift of the spine, can you lengthen the legs forward and out for your spine stretch forward. Inhale.

Exhale round down. Inhale, roll yourself up. Exhale, push the heels down, round yourself down, pelvis stay steady, lifting up and over an imaginary barrel, roll yourself up inhale. Again, exhale peel your spine from an imaginary wall. Finger tips get closer to the wall in front of you, top of the head reaches to the mat between your knees.

Roll it up. Exhale last one round it down. Bend your spine like a candy cane. Inhale roll up and exhale sit tall and bring your legs together and roll yourself onto your back with control. Good.

Fly down on your stomach and lengthen your arms long behind you, forehead reaches down to the mat. Try your best to keep your inner thighs hugging together and think of the inner thighs coming upward towards the ceiling. So finding that true parallel position, it's really easy to sit in the turnout. Let's try to get parallel and together, which is very hard. So stretch the arms long behind you feel the scapula pulling down the back And while you're here, even though you're lying on your stomach, you're pulling your abdominals away from that mat as much as you can. Inhale, lift up.

The spine stays long, neck in line with the spine, x hail down tops of the feet, stayed down into the mat, and feel that challenge of extending the upper back while keeping the inner thighs hugging. Does it make the range smaller for you? And bring it all the way down. Now we do the same thing with the arms in a t position. So palms face the floor.

Shoulders pulling down the back. Again, we inhale to lift long arms reach to the side, and we exhale bring it down. Again, inhale to come up. Long spine, long neck, exhale bring it down. Did your legs separate? Mind sure did. Reglue them together if they did.

Inhale up. And exhale down. Keep the arms lifted, but reach them forward. Palms face in. Now we can have the legs separated a little bit and try to feel your pubic bone kind of pull up towards the belly button. Shoulders pull down, inhale lift.

A really long lever here. Those arms are really heavy. Exhale lower down. Again, inhale up tops of feet, press down. Exhale lower down.

And I separated the legs here just to give you a little bit more space and lower it down. From here, take the hands on the mat next to your shoulders, pull the shoulders down again. Hover the hands off of the mat, lift the chest hold. From here, reach the arms forward, keeping the chest lifted. Swim the arms out to the side and back.

Maybe the chest lifts higher as you reach back. Good. Don't let the hands touch the floor, bend the elbow, start over. Inhale chest up. Reach the arms forward, exhale, lift, and reach. Good. Ben the elbows.

And come down. My legs are still a little bit separated. Push the tops of the feet down. Inhale, lift and stretch. Open exhale, reach and lift a little higher. Think of pulling straps on your reformer.

One more time, chest comes down. You inhale lift the chest to reach the arms, circle them out, and around palms face in, hold here, pulse the arms in and in. Very important that you feel the arms working from your back muscles. Your back should be on fire. Your upper back, at least 10.

Nine. Eight. Seven. Six, five. Four, three, two, and one. Bend your elbows. You can put the chest down.

Hands down. From here, let's stack the palms one over top of the other. We have a little bit more extension to do. Bring those legs together again and find that true parallel position. So you have to rotate those inner thighs upward towards the ceiling. Which can feel odd for many dancers.

We're so used to being in that turned out position. And from here, again, think of the pubic bone kind of falling up towards the belly button and the belly button pulling away from the mat. Just so we're not sinking into the low back, which is really easy to do in this position. Now, we're just lifting the right leg up and lowering it back down. In that complete parallel position, feeling where the glute and the thigh meet, that's what's helping you lift that leg up.

Let's do four more here. Try to keep it parallel, rotating the inner thigh upward. One more. We do the same thing with that right leg turned out now. Now see how the lift feels different when you have that turned out leg, but don't do like I just did and sink in the low back to lift the leg. Truly use the glute and the hamstring to lift that leg.

Three more. And lift two. And one. Go back to parallel on the right leg. We do the same thing on the left. Rotate those inner thighs upward.

Pull the belly in and lift the leg up. Don't sink in the low back to lift the leg. We lift and lower extension is really important for dancers for your arabesque. We want the backside of the body to be nice and strong. And usually, it's the opposite.

It's usually the front side of our bodies that are strong, the backsides that are flexible and loose. One more. Good. Same thing. Turn that leg out. Rotate from the outer hip.

And again, we lift up and down. Lift up and down. Long spine. Make the adjustments you need to make as your body starts moving around and compensating to get the leg off of the floor. Two more. Lift, and lower last one up, and, good. We do the same thing on the elbow. So now we have a larger extension of the back, which makes the movement a little bit harder. Let's stay in our turned out position.

So I'm gonna go heels together toes apart. Pull the elbows down and back and then lift the chest, pull up in the belly. Again, lift that right leg up. See if it goes up as high. Maybe it goes higher. Maybe it goes lower.

See how your body feels as the chest is lifted higher. Three more. Three and two. And one other side. And as you know, dancers need to be able to lift that leg up to the back with a nice high and lifted chest. Lift up four.

And three. Two. And one, since we're here, let's do single leg kick. Bring your legs back to parallel. Squeeze them together and kick, kick, right, and kick, kick, left, and right, right, and left, left.

Good, right, right. And left, left one more. And we come down. Let's put the right cheek on the mat, double leg kick. Climb the hands up the back as high as you can.

Press the elbows down towards the floor, squeeze the legs together and without rocking forward and back, kick your heels to your seat three times, three, two, one, lengthen the legs, lift the chest, lift the arms, get that stretch in the upper back. Good. We turn the head the other way. Kick three. Two. One, lengthen the legs. Lift.

And turn around lower down. One more each side. Kick three. Two. One, and lift.

Last one, kick three, two, one, lengthen and lift. Lower it down. Now we get to press back to a nice child's pose. Stretch it out. That was a lot of extension. If you wanna flip the palms up to the ceiling for a different stretch in the shoulders, feel free. And then roll yourself up from here.

And next, we will do our high scissors into our bicycles. This one's a doozy. So center yourself on your mat, lie down on your back. Now, the goal here is for this knot to get too risky. So we really wanna think about the lift in the backside of the body. So let's stretch the leg straight up to the ceiling, lift the hips up, hug the elbows in, and think of long wrists.

Now from here, I'm gonna reach my toes even more up to the ceiling and try to get out of those wrists. I really feel the backside of my legs here. Now starting small, right leg comes down a little bit. Left leg reaches up more. And then bring it back, switching sides.

Left leg comes forward, but the right leg stretches up. And then again, switch. Just keep it small to start. And then let's make the scissors a little bit bigger. So lifting up separating the legs, lifting up to switch, lifting up to switch, lifting up And then we start our bicycles.

I'm bending the leg that's already down, feel that stretch, and then switch, find the split, keep the lift, bend the knee. And again, and one more. Then we switch the direction, lengthen that leg reaching out, reaching out, find the split, reaching out. Keep the lift. One more, reaching out. Good lift the legs. I'm going to do a little switch of the hands, going right into high bridge. So let the right leg come down.

Let it start to bend. Find the mat I'm going to place my hands down on the mat because this is a big stretch for me. Good. Keeping the hips lifted. Flex the foot to lower. Point to lift.

Flex to lower. Point to lift. One more. Bend the knee, put the foot down. Other leg up, flex to lower. Point to lift. As the leg goes down, the hips try to come higher, point to lift. One more.

Bend the knee and roll it down. Good. You can rock yourself up, lengthen the legs long in front of you, and reach the arms long to your sides. Now try to lengthen in the sides of the waist squeeze the legs together. And unlike what I'm doing now, which is pushing into the back of the knees, press your heels down. Find the back sides of the legs.

Spine twist to the right. Three twists, twist three. Twist two. And one, you inhale center, exhale twist to the left three, grow taller to twist more, grow taller to twist more, and back to center inhale. Exhale One more.

Bring it center and rest your arms. Let's go into a little side kick series Let's come all the way down onto the bicep with the arm reaching long. The legs will be just a little bit in front of you, but both legs will be turned out. So you'll have to point through the toes and externally rotate from the hips, stacking those hips one on top of the other. Now from here, in little bits and pieces, we go into our Devela pace.

So think of the toe sliding up towards the knee. And then going right back down. Let the heels kiss together every time. So lengthen both sides of the waist and then slide that toe up towards the knee. Use that top hand, push it into the mat.

Use it for your support. And again, toe to knee, and bring it all the way down. Last one toe to knee pause from here, keep that outer hip working to press the knee up towards the ceiling, and then bring the thigh bone towards your shoulder, bring the toe back to the knee. And again, thigh bone to shoulder, keeping that reach in that bottom leg. Again, thigh bone to shoulder, toe to knee. Now we bring the thigh bone to the shoulder, keep it there.

Stretch the leg into your double a pay, keeping the thigh bone where it is, bend the knee. Again, stretch the leg up lengthen lengthen lengthen. And bend, bend, bend. Again, stretch it, stretch it, stretch it, and bend. Good from here.

Slide the leg all the way down. We do grandbap mass from here. So straight up. And straight down, trying to keep both legs turned out as much as possible up, and down, lift up, and down four more, four, three, two, And one, come all the way down. Now for sidekicks, let's make sure if you have the option that the front leg is or the bottom leg is on the box a little bit in front of your high mat. And your legs can go parallel again.

I can come up onto the forearm now, lift the top leg hip hip height. We kick kick to the front and lengthen to the back. Kick kick front. And lengthen back. Feel the length and the front of the hip as you go back.

Kick, kick and reach two more sets. Front front, long to go back. One more time. Good. From here, we do grand Ronde jam, so slightly turn out that top leg, bring the leg forward, circle it up towards the ceiling, try to keep the rotation of the hip as you circle the leg back and down. The hardest part is the balancing, keeping the hips stacked one on top of the other.

Let's do one more this direction. Leg over leg, reverse. Take the leg back back back. Circle it up. We try to find that external rotation as soon as possible, circle back around and up. Not easy, circle back.

Around and up and lower it down. Let's do the other side. So I will take the box with me to use for side kicks. Remember, The first few, we can lie all the way down on the bicep trying to find that straight line turning out the legs. The legs are a little bit in front of the hips.

Top hand pushes down and we start all over. So think of dragging the toe to the knee, knee to ceiling. Out or hip is what keeps the knee pointing to the ceiling and then slide it down. And again, lengthen both sides of the waist. The back side of my legs are on fire. Good. Again.

And from here, toe to knee, we pause. Take the thigh bone towards the shoulder. Keep the sides of the waist long. Toe back to the knee. Again, thigh bone to shoulder and toe to knee. Again. Goodbye to shoulder.

We hold it there. Try to keep the thigh bone as close to your shoulder as possible. Extend that leg up to the ceiling and then bend the knee. Thibone stays close to the shoulder as you extend. And, Ben, don't forget about that bottom leg staying active, stretch, and bend.

One more time stretch. Good bend. Tow goes to the knee. We slide the leg back down. We do a grand battma, so the leg comes up quickly and down with control.

Keeping the turnout in both legs as best as you can, lift and kiss the heels up. And last one, bring the leg down. You can prop your head up into your hand. The legs can go parallel and come a little bit forward onto your box. Good. Side kicks, lift the top leg hip height and kick kick forward and lengthen back.

Good. Front front. Long leg to kick back. Try to not twist those hips front to front. And back to more sets.

Also pressing that bottom leg down into your mat, so it doesn't move. Good. Bring the top leg over the bottom. Turned that top leg out slightly, grand Ronde jumps, circle it front, around, and back. Again, front, around, and back. Bottom legs stay steady. That's one of the hardest parts.

And then we reverse those circles, take it back, keep that slight turnout, turn it out, and around, kiss the heels, reach back, up, and around one more time, lengthen back. Up and around, close the legs, and come onto your belly. Good. So we'll place the hands underneath the shoulders, heels are together toes are apart. Lengthen your legs so that your knees come off of the mat. Engage everything. And in one piece on your exhale, push up.

Good. From here, make sure the ankles are over the balls of the feet. The wrists are under the shoulders. And we rock forward pushing through the feet and back heels down towards the mat. Forward, think of long stretch on the reformer one more time. Come back to center, heels over the balls of the feet. Right leg up. We go forward and back.

Forward and back. Center switching sides. Forward and back. Forward and back. Center, leg down. Now for the fancy transition, my right hand comes to the left hand inverting the finger so that they face the opposite direction, lift the arm up.

Circle it back. And now we're ready for a leg pull up. So, lift those hips, push out of those shoulders and the right leg kicks up. Left leg kicks up. Right leg kicks up. The left leg kicks up. Both legs come down.

We roll the hips all the way down. Now, for my favorite exercise, boomerang or one of my favorites, There's a lot of choreography. So I think this is great for dancers. I will be crossing the right leg over the left, fingertips on the mat right next to my thighs, elbows pull back, lift up in the waist, and then round your spine. Curle your tailbone under, push into those fingertips and then roll yourself back.

Lex go up and back. We switch the legs, open close. Roll down through the spine and roll up to a teaser. Find your balance, flip the palms, bend the elbows, find the hands behind you, reach the arms up towards the ceiling, lower everything down with control, get that stretch. Think of rowing on the reformer, circle the arms all the way around, and then get that stretch at the bottom.

Roll yourself up. Spidey finger those fingers down into your mat. Round your spine, connect everything. Roll yourself back. Open close switch.

Roll it up to your teaser. Palms face up, bend the elbows, find your hands. Reach the arms up. Round yourself over. Good. Let's just do one more here.

Round yourself back. Switch the legs, open close, roll down with control. Find your teaser. Palms face up elbows back. Find your hands.

Reach, lower with control, circle all the way down, take that last stretch, and roll yourself up. Let's do side bend. Right into mermaid. So find that three quarter length bend in your knees. The hand that is down is just a little bit in front of the shoulder, so it's not stacked directly.

Top arm goes over the legs. Take a big inhale. As you exhale lift up and over, good and bring everything down in one piece. Two more of those. Lift up and over.

Wrap the shoulders onto the back and bring everything down. One more time. Up and over. Lower down with control. Hug those knees in. Hold on to the top shin, stretch your arm up to the ceiling.

Keep it really close to your head, and then side bend into your mermaid. You can look up to the ceiling, get that nice stretch. Even for extra stretch, hand behind the head, twist your ribs down towards your shins, untwist. Come on up. You can teaser your legs up and over and go to the other side for side bend. Stack those legs, and push up.

Find that balance, bring it down. Good. Two more. And bring it down. Last one, lifting up and over. Bring it down with control.

Pull those shins close to the body. Reach your arm up to the sky. Keep it close to the head, and then side bend, looking up towards the ceiling for an extra stretch, hand behind the head, ribs down towards your legs. Untwist your ribs. And you are all finished.

Beautiful job, everybody. Thank you for joining me. I'll see you next time.