Reformer for Asymmetry

Hello. I'm Madeline Black, and we're going to do a reformer class, and I'm gonna be looking for asymmetries. And with me is Aaron and Jess. Okay. We're gonna first start with an assessment because you need to be able to feel where you prefer to move and where you maybe don't prefer to move, and we're gonna work with that. So first, just sitting on your reformer on the side with your feet on the floor, hands just on your lap is fine. And then just I want you to focus in, and I want you to feel your sit bones that are in contact with the carriage.

And notice, and everyone will notice they have this, is one side is a little bit heavier than the other. Alright. And it's a unique pattern to each of us. So I want you to feel is your right one feel heavy and is your left one. And if you don't know, pick one. No. It doesn't matter.

But just notice the sensation there. Now take your hands and you're gonna place them on the sides of your ribs here on the lower part. And then it's a very subtle movement. I want you to just do the tiniest little wave, right, and left. It's not a big movement. You're just pushing a little bit and pushing side to side. You wanna feel can your ribs move to the right?

Can they move to the left? You know, what does that feel like? And note you'll notice as you really can sway a little bit more in one direction than the other. So we're gonna go up to the middle now, come up higher on your ribs if your shoulders can handle it and do it again. There'll be less movement, and you shouldn't feel a lot of shifting on your sit bones. There'll be a little bit, but notice how your ribs move. Alright? And then notice what your preference is, right, or left side. And now we're gonna go way up in the arm pit. Way up high here near your sternum.

And just again, side to side and notice how the ribs are moving more to one side or the other. Whatever you notice. Okay? And now come back. And at the end, we're gonna reassess. Okay. So stand up and you're gonna stand at the foot bar facing the foot bar. And you wanna stand so that as you sit back, your hands are gonna reach forward and you're gonna touch the sides of the bar, and you wanna press real firmly into the bar with your hands, press into your heels, and you can go as low as comfortable. Alright? And then just stand up.

So that's how we're gonna start. So sit back, grab the bar, straight arms, press into your heels, press into your hands, and stand up. Keep going. Just keep moving. Back. And you can challenge yourself with maybe a little bit deeper knee bend or not. It's okay. Here, push.

Take that moment to engage. Really pushing hard through the bar and pushing into your feet. And come up. We do a few more and press hold and come up. Now we're gonna stay down there and press hold. Stay. Now you're gonna push with your left hand hard.

Okay? And then you're gonna shift, just your weight over to that left foot. So you're pushing really hard on that side. Now push the other hand and come back to the middle. Now you push the other hand more. So now you're swaying over, all standing on one leg, and then coming back.

And then just stand up for a second. And again, sit back. Grab the bar. Push with one hand, shift to that side. And come back by pushing both hands.

So you're pushing into the bar almost like pushing it away so that you can shift your weight, come back to the middle and stand up and repeat, and sit back. Press your right hand. And onto the right foot and press the left hand, onto the left foot, come back to the middle pushing both hands and come up. So keep moving, and I want you to notice once you have the pattern here is when you shift to one side, the right side, Are your ribs going with you? Are your ribs over your foot and press the other arm? Are they staying there and come back to the middle and stand up, you can keep moving your own timing too. If you wanna do this a little quicker, push and shift, and push and shift, come back to the middle, and stand up. Okay. Progress so long.

Now pause here. Push into the bar. We're gonna do the same motion. You're gonna push into the right hand, shift to the right foot, and then just lift your foot a little bit off the floor. See if you can maintain your position. I'm shoulders and pelvis, and then come back to the middle by pushing both arms.

Now push the other arm, shift to the other leg, lift the foot up. Good. Hold it. And shift back. Just stay there. Repeat to the other side. Push same arm, same leg.

Unweight the other side. Good. Come back. Push. That's it. Stand there. Try to maintain that nice shoulder over the pelvis. Let's do it again one more time.

Really loading your leg. Right? And loading that hip. And be cautious of not swaying your pelvis too much. So we have asymmetry in our pelvis. We tend to shift the pelvis a little bit. Good. Come back to the middle and stand up. Oh, okay. So now we're on a blue spring. For that exercise and the one coming up.

So you're gonna get a little closer to the bar, and we're gonna go we're gonna take the hands in front of the bar. As you're gonna bend the knees, you're gonna slide until your hands, the palm of your hands touch the edge of the reformer, and you're gonna push the reformer out, but keep your knees bent. And you're kind of doing a long quadruped position. That's good. Just stay there. So now the task is to not move the carriage. That's the hard part.

So push firmly into the right hand to stabilize the carriage and place your weight on your left foot. So right arm is pushing left weighted foot, and now just take your left hand and lift it off the carriage. Excellent, double the carriage and bring it back down. Good. And reestablish. If you lost the carriage, reestablish the pressure, try the other arm, push into the carriage and lift the right arm. Good. And come back.

And, again, we're gonna do the other side. This time, we're gonna add the leg. So you're pushing with your right hand standing on the left leg, and your other arm is gonna come up, and your back leg is just gonna go out not too high. We wanna keep the pelvis and the shoulders level. That's the challenge.

And then bring the leg back in. Great. Switch sides. So pressure, set up your hand first, stand feeling on your standing leg, and then reach out. The leg doesn't have to be high, but just enough to keep that balance. Good. And come back down. We'll do it one more time.

Push the carriage out a little bit. And we kinda lost it a little bit. Keep pushing out. It's a lot of activity in the arm and the standing leg, weight the leg, reach back. Excellent. It's really beautiful. Good.

And then coming back and switch. Awesome. Not moving the carriage. Establish a leg and hand. Very good. And bring the foot down. And now keep the pressure.

Now you get to roll through your spine. Just kind of curl up gently, slowly bring the carriage and let it push into you a little bit for a nice release and come up and stand. Okay. We're gonna sit now on the foot bar with the feet on the carriage, and we have a blue spring. And at some point, you might wanna have a red spring, but it's really up to you. Alright. So we're gonna push the carriage out Right? And hold the foot bar so that you feel safe and not gonna fall backwards or that. Now with the leg straight, you're gonna be on the cuboid bone. Oops.

That's my talking. But the front of the heel. Alright. So and and make sure your feet aren't flopped forward. Some people have very, pointed feet and their feet flop. It's not that you have to pull your feet back, but I want the pressure in the front of the heel and your foot just kind of not relaxed, but not super pointed. Okay.

Now notice, again, your weight on your sit bones, right, on the bar. So there'll be a difference. You'll feel it a little heavier than the other. You don't have to do anything. I just want you to notice it. Alright. So we're going to bend the left knee and you're gonna place the foot behind you on the platform or on the metal bar. Yeah.

Whatever's comfortable with that. Great. Yeah. And let's have it down on the metal bar. So your heel is on the platform because we're gonna use that. Yeah. You were fine. You were fine. Put it up on the yep.

There you go. Okay. Now sitting there, kind of press your arms down on the bar. Whether your elbows are bent or straight. I don't want them too straight. I don't want you leaning forward. So they can be bent a little bit.

I just need for you to have pressure of your hands into the bar. And all you're gonna do is bend the right knee, resist the carriage, and pushing out. We're gonna do 10 repetitions. Just push and notice, keep going. As you're doing that, is your right sit bone moving forward on the bar. You can feel it. So you wanna prevent that right side to move forward with your legs. Good.

Keep going. Reach. And here is where perhaps you might wanna heavier spring if you want a little more load in the leg. But right now, we're just working on the awareness and the sensation of trying to keep those sit bones nice and steady there. Good. Let's do two more. I'm approximately counting, but it's good. K.

And now keep the leg straight. You're gonna bring the other leg to the carriage, establish it, switch sides. Great. Find your foot placement. Good. Alright. Here we go. And bend resist, right? Push out. Good. And keep that sense of your sit bones weighted on the bar. That sense of the arms pushing head nice and free. Great.

Resist sit as you come in and press. Very good. Excellent job keeping the sit bones nice and stable on there. Good. Keep going. Okay.

Two more times. Really feel that resistance as you're pushing and resist coming in. Very nice. Alright. Now we're gonna stay there and you're gonna switch your feet again. Okay. Now this next part is a little bit challenging.

Alright. So if you feel safe of caking your hands off the bar, then place your hands on your pelvis like this. Okay. And now what we're gonna do, we we're not driving, the carriage with your leg. You're gonna drive it with the pelvis. So you're gonna rotate your pelvis away from the leg on the carriage. You're gonna rotate it.

Your right sit bone's gonna come forward as you push the carriage away. Exactly. Your shoulders and pelvis remain organized together like this. So we're not twisting in the waist. That's it. Really nice, Jess. Good. And there's an endpoint to it.

There's only so far you can actually go. So this is a pelvis rotation, on the leg on the femur. Right? It's on your leg and your ribs and your pelvis are just going along for the ride. So the rotation is solely in the hip joints. Excellent. Now guess what? We're gonna go the other way. So bring your pelvis level again. No. Don't change legs. Yeah. Now what's gonna drive this rotation is actually the left knee. So you're gonna reach your left knee forward and the right leg, the carriage is gonna push into your pelvis, and you're gonna turn your pelvis towards your leg.

It's very small. Right? And then push the carriage back with your foot. So here we go. So feel the reach of your left knee. Don't bend the knee. Yep. And rotate pelvis. Less shoulders, more pelvis rotation. Beautiful, you guys. Going in this direction is a smaller range than the other direction.

And what we're doing is we're rotating that pelvis right around creating that strength there. And you can feel it, I'm sure, also in your core. Okay. And coming back, great. Let's switch legs and do the rotations. Make sure you have both legs on the carriage, then switch.

So we don't have that moment of no legs on the carriage. Okay. So here we go. And now I really feel the sit bones. We're gonna push the left foot away. The pelvis is rotating away from the leg and you'll feel the, sit bone on the left going forward.

There you go. And then feel it come back onto the bar. So you're using the force of the carriage as it's pushing into you. You're using that force to rotate the pelvis back. Wonderful. If you want a little more challenge, we can change the hands to behind the head and put a little pressure there. And then you can feel more of that connection of your arms to the trunk, which is helping with that rotation. Awesome.

Let's just do two more before we change the direction of the rotation. Nice. And I love how you're driving it from the pushing of the leg against the carriage and resistance. Now, you have to reach your left knee and let the carriage come back in and rotate away from the bent knee. Good. Notice your sit bone on the carriage. Yeah. You might wanna go back to placing your hands on the pelvis. Because what I'm noticing a little bit is a little bit of hip hiking, a little bit of hitch.

There you go, Erin. Right. So put your hands. Actually, you can track your pelvis here. So the idea is to be able to do that rotation and try not to lift one sit bone off the bar or the other. Excellent. Good. Very nice. And you can turn your focus with it a little bit like you're just floating along.

There you go. Awesome. Really nice. Okay. Now we'll bring the right leg back to the carriage. So this time, I want you to go on the balls of your feet. Right? So walk down a little bit and bring them in just a little bit narrow. Okay.

Now let your heels drop and let the carriage press your toes towards your shin. Good. And they'll feel the carriage doing that. And then you're gonna push against it with straight legs, push and lift your heels. Heels up, heels down. And resist the carriage on the down. Right? So really send the heels under.

Good. And you go a little quicker. Right. And again, when you do this, you you could add more weight if you'd like. There you go. So it's just a nice bilateral movement. Notice your pelvis on the on the bar. Are you pointing and flexing your feet? And shifting on it or just maintaining it.

Excellent. Very good. Okay. Now we're gonna bring our feet back to the front of the heel. Now here's a little more of a challenge. You're gonna bring carriage in, bend the knees right under you just like a 90 degree bent. Excellent. Now place your arms here.

What you're gonna try to do without with the minimal bending forward, I want you to push and see if you can bring your sit bones up off the bar and come in front of the bar a tad about and just hold it. Hold it. Hold it. It's like a holding a a squat. Right? You're holding, holding, and then sit back down. Great. And we wanna minimize the forward. There's some forward, but you're trying to work the back so you can kind of maintain that.

So go again, lift, float up, push out. Now hold. Hold. Keep breathing. Good. And then slowly bring your buttocks back to the bar. Excellent. You guys. Good. And again, go up.

Sit out. Hold. Good. Bring it back and sit. Now, you're gonna stay in that squat. Okay. It's a lot of work in the in the trunk, and you're gonna move your legs out in, out in just nice and easy. Try not to change the organization of your shoulders to pelvis.

Very good. Really pushing through the heels. Lovely. Keep pushing down. So you gotta keep the shoulders nice and drawn down and open chest. Do as many as you feel comfortable with because if you're starting to fatigue, go ahead and come out of it. Alright. Do two more.

These guys are doing good. They have big smiles on their face right now. Okay. And then bring your sit phones down. Okay. Take a little breast. Alright. Next challenge.

For those of you who know tendon stretch, we're doing little modifications, not modifications, but just little variations of it. Okay. So here we go. We're gonna come here, and you're going to push out to that little squat because there's now straighten your legs. Keep them straight. Okay. And now just start to swoop your pelvis up and forward. Just try it for a second and then sit down again.

Sit down on the bar. Some of our people don't know what this is. So I wanna break it down just a little bit. So you come up straighten your legs. Come up, and then go slow, curl your pelvis, push the bar, the carriage away, then come back, bend your knees and sit on the bar just to feel safe.

Okay? So do that a couple of times. And this may be your exercise. There you go. Come back. And sit. Okay. One more time.

Great. Push. Now keep the legs straight on the next one. Sit on the bar. Come back. Start again, straighten your legs. Now you're gonna keep them straight.

Lakes are straight. Keep them there. K? And do the curl, lift your pelvis up like a back plank or what we call back support. So now try to lift and lift a little higher through the sacrum. That's it. Nice. Excellent.

Just come to the bar. We're just repeating one more time. Good. And then sit back on the bar again. Give your arms a little rest in your alright. So that might be your exercise.

So I'm gonna do one more. Alright? And it's gonna have a little bit of a swing to it. Okay? And so bring your arms there. So I'm just gonna let them do it. Alright? Because you have to get into a rhythm and let it swing. So here we go. Straighten your legs.

Straighten first. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back. Sorry. Straighten your legs first. That's you need that push to start. Okay.

Here you go. Push up, pelvis up. Now swing it back. That's it. And push up. And you could keep your trunk nice and long. You don't have to do the head drop, the normal tenon stretch, full tenon stretch, we're just swinging.

It's actually kind of fun. Lift the pelvis, swing it back. Lift the pelvis, swing it back. Two more. Lift back. Last one.

And, wow, that was a lot on the wrists. Right? So shake your wrist out. Good. Excellent. Okay. So come on up. We're gonna do some side splits. So you will need to put your bar down, and we need some padding. So you need a couple of pads for your knees, and then a towel or another pad for your shin because the bar is gonna be touching your shin.

So we'll be kneeling on the reformer. And we're gonna do, a blue spring, or you might wanna do a red spring. It's your choice. I'm going for looking at the the, glide of the hips and the organization of the torso with a lateral shifting. Lateral movements really important to help you organize yourself towards the midline.

Great. Okay. Right. So the first thing I want you to do is to take your hands. It can be just this way against your back. Alright? And then what I want you to do is just very simply start to push yourself forward. So you're pushing on your sacrum, but just pushing it forward. And notice how your weight comes to the front of your knees. Alright? Now don't counter, don't counter the shoulders. So you have to bring your pelvis under you.

This is there you go. You gotta what's gonna happen? This is gonna fire. It's gonna be like, that's what's holding you up here. Great. And then your ribs are right over the pelvis. That looks like a great organization.

Alright. So what we're gonna do is you're going to you can keep your hands there. And now just push the carriage out, slide it out and feel, yes, the hips kind of get deep on the side. Excellent. And then control it to bring it back in. You guys look great. Okay. So you can keep your hands there, or you can change your hands to the side of your hips here, like, where the little dimple is here.

So that as you open, go ahead. As you open, you're actually pressing in, pushing in through here. Excellent. And your sacrum's going forward at the same time. So that and you're not leaning back, go forward. Pupy bone. There you go. There you go.

Right forward. Feel the difference in what it does to your hips. Right? We're kinda trying to keep the hip extension here. That's really nice you guys. And if that feels good, you can place your hands behind your head. Yeah.

Good and come in, and then start to notice there's lots of things we can notice here. But start to notice your ribs, you know, if they are shifting from one side to the other, but you guys look great. Good. And reach out and brought in and making it look so easy. Okay. And out. And draw it in.

And now we're gonna stay out. Of course, we're gonna go out and stay. And then I want you to pump a little bit just like a little push and push and push and push, good. Push push, keeping that organization, keep the shoulders over the hip, two more. Great. And bring it in slow.

Of course, we're not done. Bring your arms out to the side like this. Okay. So find your sacrum again. Don't let your bum go out back. Right? You're pushing it forward, reorganizing the ribs. So you're going to look to the right.

You're gonna push the carriage out. Stay there. Good. Look forward, center, and bring the carriage in. And then look left, push the carriage out. Stay there.

Look forward and bring it in. Again, look right, press out. Hold, look head, good, and in, push out. Oops, look left, you're right. Push out. Stay.

Good. Center. Let's do it two more rounds. So you look, you press, you hold, you turn your head center, you come back in. And again, you're starting to feel that little bit more ease and glide in your hip joints, and the ribs not shifting from right to left. Great. One more time. And your eyes and your focus, your neck needs to be able to rotate also.

Good. Beautifully down. You guys, sacrum, sacrum, sacrum. Awesome. Good. Great.

Okay. Let's do the other side. You have to take your little pad for the shin with you, but you can keep the pads there. Fantastic. Okay. We're gonna start just to reset the sacrum again. So place your hands back here.

Give yourself that little pressure here. Okay. Feel the weight on the front of your knees. Okay? You can keep your hands here or place them here on the side and start to press out. Great. And as you push out, you can use your hand to kind of push into the joint a little bit. There you go. And then control the carriage in.

And repeat. So we're watching that your sacrum it almost has two years starting to go back, go forward. Yeah. So as your legs open, the the sacrum and the pelvis is gonna start to fall backwards. So you really have to actively imagine it's continuing to move forward. That's it. See, and then it connects into your hip differently. Yeah. Excellent. Good. And pull in. So when you go out, think of your hands being there and that you're pushing it out there.

That's so much better. It feels very different, doesn't it? Very good. And keep going. We'll do one more here. Good. And now you get to stay out there, and we're gonna pulse it. One.

And press and press. Keep that sacrum moving forward. Good. Keep going. Good. Good. Excellent. The ribs are staying nice and over the pelvis.

Do two more and control it in. Great. And now we're gonna bring the arms up. Okay. So now we're gonna look to the left. You're gonna press out. Hold it. Look center.

Come back in. And then you change other side. Look right. Push out. Hold it. Look center, bring it back in. Repeat.

And again, keep that forward. Keep it forward. So, she, when you're turning your head, turn. There you go. Come back and left. Reach. Good.

And I love that you're keeping your shoulders nice and square. The pelvis is forward. So that there's not that extra rotation going on when you're turning your head. Very nice. So being aware of that. And center, come back. Let's do one more.

Pelvis forward. You got it. Look center. And bring it in. Excellent. Let's get on to chest expansion. We're now gonna kneel on the carriage with your knees against the shoulder rest.

We have one blue spring or you could do one red. The blue spring's light, so therefore, you have to challenge your balance more. Alright. So now you're gonna reach for the ropes, and you're gonna hold them pretty high up because we don't want them to dangle. So like hold here, like, oh, the loops. Yeah. We're just holding the ropes. Yeah.

And you'll the carriage will move a little bit away. So now we have to counter that pull. So now we gotta find that sacrum. And you have to maintain that. And we're simply just gonna pull the the straps open.

And then bring them resist and check your sacrum. That's when you're gonna wanna fall backward. Okay. So pull. Great. Find that opening. Beautiful done.

And come in. Great. And go a tiny bit faster. There you go. It's not that heavy for you guys. You could do red, but we're not gonna change it, but I I want you to but you have to challenge your balance. You see, if the spring is heavier, then it might be easier to balance. So this is really a challenge of keeping your position with a lighter spring.

Excellent. Really nice, you guys. Keep going. Yeah. It's the return, right, that deacceleration. Very nice. Good. So just keep moving, and you'll see that one of your ropes, because you crossed it, one is over the other one, one's on top. For Jess. She's got her right strap on the top and same. No. Erin has yeah.

Do the same one. Okay. So that's fine. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna put the underneath strap which would be the left one on your, little handle or put it on the floor, whatever you wanna do. We're we're just gonna use one strap. Yeah. Okay. Great.

Excellent. And choke up on the rope here. So here's a challenge. We're gonna try to keep the shoulders over the pelvis at sacrum forward. We're gonna bend the elbow to the side, not turning the chest yet, but then start to continue and rotate and turn your chest to the left. That's it. And then bring the hand back to where you started keeping the resistance, but start with the arm.

So pull the arm first, try to keep the shoulders, and then start to rotate as you continue to pull. And that sacrum stays forward, and that left side of your pelvis stays forward. That's it. You don't have to do it in little stops. You can do it as one continuous movement, but I want you to start with the arm and then rotate the pelvis and notice the left side of your pelvis. So it stays forward.

Great. Excellent. Turning. Great. Very good. And you might notice that your weight will shift somewhere on your knees.

Maybe perhaps over to the right a little bit more than left. So just notice that. Excellent. K. We're gonna do one more.

And now we're gonna switch your straps. Okay. Great. Okay. Now the rope is pulling you in a rotation.

So you have to counter that. That's the point too is you're having to work counter to that rotation. Alright. Elbow, don't turn the shoulders then turn the shoulders. Good. Then arm. And come back. So the whole time, you're kind of doing a little survey through your body.

You're you're looking at, so where's the weight on my knees? Right? And how is my thorax or my chest rotating? Yeah. So make it a fluid move, but just be aware that your square when you bend, and then the then the torso follows. So you don't have to do a break stop. We're not like going one, two. Right? We're just moving through. Good. And when the rope returns, you are can you stop from rotating left. Right? So as your arm is re once you get square, you stay there and the arm extends.

Different muscles extend the arm. Good. It's very tempting. That was nice. Good, but you have to rotate. That's the challenge with asymmetries is the rotation and the lateral movement. Excellent. Okay. Let's make sure we're even.

So let's do a couple more. Very good. Good. Nice. Okay. Let's put that down back, and we can put them back uncrossed back onto the loop. We're gonna get the box, and we're gonna lie the box, in the long position. And we're gonna do pulling straps for those who are familiar with the respiratory names.

So, the blue straps is probably fine. The blue spring, I mean. So you're gonna lie down on your stomach with your head facing the straps. Okay. Now, I want the lower ribs on the box. Okay? So we're not, you know, hanging off the box. So you have contact with your ribs on the box. Okay. So now we're gonna pick up the straps.

Now we have to take the loop and the strap together. So I want your arms to be extended out as I'm so kind of walk up, hold a loop. Otherwise, they're just gonna flop around on the floor. So just kind of get that. That's it. And the arms are overhead to start thumbs and palms facing each other. Great. So now you're active in the legs, and you're keeping your nice long body there, and you're just gonna pull straight back towards your pelvis exactly, and then resist the carriages as you go forward.

And again, So this is a bilateral, meaning equal pressure connection of the body into the trunk. So when you have asymmetries, we need to support both sides. So here we go. That's nice. Good.

Excellent. Okay. Now we're gonna keep the arms forward, and you're gonna look under. We'll start on the left, the left arm pit. So look down and under. So drop your head.

Now we're dropping the body down below the box a little bit, and you're looking under that left armpit. So as you pull, you're gonna be turning your head and looking at the floor, And then you're gonna look over your right shoulder as you're pulling all the way back to your hips. So start. Pull, look at the floor, and lift your chest up, and come over. So you're rotating to the right. Then you look towards the floor, arms are returning, and you look under the left armpit.

So do it as a fluid movement. So as you're pulling, you're going center over the right down and under the neck. So we have a little bit of flexion and turn your shoulders. You're looking over. Right? We're keeping the front of the ribs on the box, but you're gonna feel the weight more on one side of the ribs than the other. Great.

And lift. And under. Let's do the other side. So look under your right armpit and pull. You're gonna feel a difference. Look center, and then over your left.

And down. You might find your rotation is a little bit more challenging. So try to lean into the right side of the box to do that rotation. Yeah. And try not to overturn your neck. Okay? It's your chest that's turning and your weights on the box. That was nice. Very nice. Good. And look up and over, and down. Let's just do one more.

Up and over. Good. Excellent. And rest. Let's put the straps back on the little hook there or you can place them on the floor and come on up. We're gonna do a series of lean backs and some challenges for the for the torso. So we're gonna change the box.

To the short positions as we call it. It's gonna be up against the shoulder no. No. On the carriage, but up against the shoulder rest. That's it. Good. Excellent. You'll need your strap free, and you will need to have most of the springs, if not all, on your carriage, because we don't want the carriage to move.

So now we're going to sit on the box facing the foot bar with both feet on the carriage to start. Great. Then we're gonna take the left foot and place it under the strap and place the foot on the platform. It's just there for you to hold. You don't have to pull on the strap. It's just resting there. Okay.

So now find your nice vertical line in your torso and you're going to lean forward from the hip, and you're gonna hold the back of your leg, and then you're gonna lean back upright. Pull the leg with you. There you go. Now the whole shape is gonna lean back, keeping the shoulders and the hips as far as you can go before you feel the weight shift on your sit bones. Now you're gonna hold that and just let go and hold the leg there, hold it, and slowly lower your leg. One, two, three, four, and place it back down. That's the exercise. So you lean forward.

It's called lean back, but grab your leg. Bring it with you as you come upright. Lean back. There you go a little further. There you go. And let go, hold it.

And then lower two, three, four. Great. Let's repeat that again. Just keep going. Now that you've got it, lift, and lean back. Beautiful. And let go. Hold, lower, lower, lower. Now you can keep going. Now if you would like to tap into your inner dancer, Alright? You can just repeat the same thing, but lean back. Let go.

Now extend your leg forward and then lower it straight down and then come forward. So we're kind of bringing in a little gesture of the leg. There you go. So come up. Lean back, extend the leg, hold it, and lower down two, three, four. Good. Let's do two more like that.

And lift lean, bring the leg with you, lean, let go. Extend. You don't have to extend. Right? We're not trying. It's not a goal. We're not gonna be going to the rockettes or anything.

You wanna feel how organized you are in the pelvis and the leg can be low. But you don't wanna go so high that it throws off your balance on your sit bones. Great. Alright. And rest. Let's switch feet. So first, we'll start with keeping the knee flexed. Alright. When you're ready, lean forward, lift the thigh.

Keep it close to you as you lean back, hold it, keep it in knee flexion, and then lower your foot down one, two, three, four, and then repeat. And again, and lift the leg When you come forward, keep moving, as you come forward, don't round your back over your knee. You're just going through hip flexion to grab your leg. Right. Two, three, four, if you haven't already. Yep. That's it. So just lean forward enough to take your leg. It's not that low. Just lean and then lift your leg and go back. Challenge yourself by going back further.

Let go and lower two, three, four. Alright. Keep repeating. Maybe that's your exercise or we can add our inner dancer here. So come up lean back, find a good position, let go, and now extend the leg and lower it straight, two, three, four, and repeat. Good. And lift lean back let go, hold it, and stretch the leg, lower, two, three, four.

And we got two more to go. And lean. Good. Pull it back. Go a little further back. Challenge. Challenge let go. Extend.

N, down two, three, four, last one. Good. And. Very nice. Let go. Stretch down two, three. Four. Excellent. Alright. Switch your feet now under the strap.

Now this time, you're gonna turn your body and face sideways on the box. The top leg, which would be a right leg. It's just crossed on the box. And you turn your left leg inward and you hook the strap on the ankle and your foot's here. Good. Right. Okay. Now the strap is loose to begin with. Alright? And then what we're gonna do is lean to the side Alright.

It'll put your hand on the shoulder rest. Alright. Now the first thing I want you to do is just push your hand on the head rest. Push hard. And you'll feel how when you do that, your ribs will translate or move slightly away. So you wanna keep that sense of the ribs moving away as you're pushing using your arm. Now stay there and press your leg up on the strap. Push it up. So you're lifting it, press hold. Hold, and now put the leg down.

Relax for a second. Just repeat that. So we're pushing as isometric contraction and pushing with your arms. The ribs are lifting, and you're pressing your leg against the strap. Hold to three, four, and plus it down. Great. So we're gonna repeat that. Again, press the arm. Shift the leg now.

Reach the top arm. The left arm up. So you're in a, horizontal line or like a t shape. And this might be a lot of work for you. Keep pressing your leg up. And if you want, and we're gonna do this, is let your right hand go off the shoulder rest there, the head rest. Stay there.

Hold it in gravity. Hold hold. Put your hand back down and then come out of it and relax and take a nice exhale there. Alright. Set up again. Get into the position. You're gonna push your hand down. Press the leg up.

Let go. Hold. Hold. Maybe go a little lower towards the floor. Maybe try to go there. Try to hold it. Try to hold it. Now put your hand back and push and come up and get a repeat.

And again, so as this progresses, you this is probably your exercise to push up, let go, see if you can lower a little bit, just a tad, and then see if you can lift back up and then reach back down and then lift back up and reach back down. Just don't overdo it. Just kinda try to keep the ribcage in that nice position there, one more, and reach in both directions. Place your hand on the headrest and come on out. Excellent. You guys. Alright. Let's turn to the other side.

Very good. Lateral movement, and challenging against gravity is really excellent, to really get the body organized when you feel asymmetrical. Okay. So, alright, let's go. We're gonna break it down. Right? So you're in the position. You're first pushing the arm, and you're lifting the leg up against the strap. And we really need to keep that leg parallel so that we can really activate that side of the hip. Very good. And then relax.

So just try to feel that. Push with the arm. Feel your ribs move slightly towards the ceiling or away from the box. Exactly. And use the leg. That's what's stabilizing you here.

And then relax. Let's do it again and press and lift and hold it. Great. Now if this feels good, you're gonna bring the other arm up into that t position and it it engage again, arm, leg, ribs to the ceiling, let go and hold. Hold, hold, and then relax out of it. Reset yourself again.

Arm up, leg pressing. Can pressing. Yeah. And see if you can feel the ribs go to the ceiling. Push with that arm. So the ribs are going that's it.

Lift that way. Excellent. And let go. A little harder. That's good. And restore. Put your hand down. Relax last time before we go up and down.

Here we go. Feel your ribs. Really try that's your that's your work. Yeah. Try to hold that. Great. And now let go. And then go a little lower and come up a little little lower up. Little lower, up.

Two more, lower, lift, lower, and lift. And come on out. Excellent. Alright. We're finally gonna lie down after all that. So let's remove the box and we'll go to two red springs. And, we can be either a low bar or a middle bar, depending on your reformer. We don't want the bar too high.

So I'm putting this one in the middle. Okay. So you're gonna lie down and you place your feet on the foot bar. And I want the feet on the front of the heel. Okay. Very good.

Now, I call this what we're doing, a long bridge. So, we're gonna start by going up into a bridge, and then we're gonna slide the carriage out. So we're gonna reach the knees. There you go. Get the pelvis up. There. Now push out as you're pushing out, you're slowly lowering the ribs, the waist. And when your legs are straight, you're firmly pushing into the bar and the pelvis is down. And then you come in flat. Just come in flat.

That's the repeat. Reach your knees first. Get your pelvis come up. Very good. Press through the front of the hip. Reach slowly articulate down.

Very good. And come back in. Now feel try to feel both sides of your ribs and both sides of your pelvis. Reach your knees. That's it. See if you can get your pelvis up high. Not not ribs higher than the pelvis.

Very good. And come in. We'll do one more. And lift, reach your knees. That's it. Press as you lengthen out. Down down down down, and come in. Let's reverse it now.

Go flat out. Now the first move is your sacrum and your pelvis float with straight legs. Then you bend the knees and come up higher, higher, higher, and then you come down any way you would like. So we're not trying to get maximum arch. The beginning of the exercise is to lift.

That's it. And then bend the knees and continue bringing your pelvis up. Very nice. And come down. Very good. And come up. Peelvis up, pelvis up, pelvis up. Beautiful.

Excellent. We got one more, lift, lift, and roll down. Okay. Take your feet wide. On the bar parallel. K. And just kind of sway your knees from right to left. Sway your knees from right to left. Great.

Good. And then come back, and now sit up, and let's reassess. So come on up. So first, just sit with your hands on your thighs and start to notice how your weight feels on your sit bones. Is it any different? Yeah. Do you feel more even? Yeah. It's nice. Now check your ribs.

Let's go a little bit side to side. Hopefully, that little translation seems a little e easier from both sides and go up higher. Yeah. Nice. Really nice. And now up under the armpit, I feel that? Great.

Good. So we kinda got you organized. Even though we're all asymmetrical people, we get a little more organized with our tissues, and we start to feel a little bit more aligned through the midline and have good movement in both directions. So be sure to watch the tutorial about this class because I'm gonna break down into the pieces and address specific asymmetries and how this pressure here and pressure here in the movement actually organizes it differently. So thank you very much.