Feel-Good, Strong Mat

Happy new year. Let's get moving. We're gonna stand on the mat, lengthen and lift the spine and close your eyes. So just for a moment with the eyes closed, feel yourself in your body. I don't know what that means to you, but you know. So just feel yourself in your body.

And can you imagine that your spine is getting longer. Can you imagine that as your spine is getting longer, your arms are getting heavier. And you feel that multidirectional energy in your body, the up and the down, and you find your feet on the earth and open your eyes and take the arms out to the side. As the arms travel overhead, let's lift the chest. So expanding in the body.

Reach back out to the sides. As you pass through that t position or outward shape, take the body back to straight, soften the arms down and bring the chin to the chest. And begin to articulate your spine down towards the floor. And as you do that, let the knees soften, let the head and the neck soften, and just begin to pay attention. Or continue to pay attention and inhale. And pressing into the earth, feel the ground beneath your feet roll through your spine.

Come to standing. Lift the eyes. Take the arms out and overhead and lift the chest. And keep that chest lifted. Feel the expansion that you can create in your body pressing into the air with the arms.

And then bring the body back to straight. Let the arms soften. And round, rolling the spine down would do maybe one more. Maybe two. I haven't decided yet, but I will in a minute. So going down, going down, going down, lifting through the center of the body, push the ground away, roll back up.

Come to standing. Bring the arms out. So create some energy in your body. Lift the chest. Create energy in your body so reach way out wide.

So just with our intention, we can control our experience in our body, that softness as the arms drop, we are gonna do one more head goes down. Soft in the knees. Roll down so you can find soft. It's possible in your body, even as you're looking for details and precision roll up, feel the articulation, the movement of the spine through space. Come to standing.

Take the arms out. Reach one more time overhead. Come out to the side with the arms. Take the left arm down the left leg, reach the right arm overhead and reach down the leg to stretch up and over towards that direction. And then stand. Both arms come out to the side.

Bring the right arm down. Take the left arm up. And as you reach over to the right, press into the left foot so you're finding opposition in your body. And then let your body float. Let the arms just soft it softly lift one more time to each direction over to the first side.

Like you're swaying in the soft breeze and There is actually a soft breeze in my room right now. And reach over. Go go, go explore the stretch and back up arms out to the side. Arms back overhead feeling that expansion through the spine. One more time. Arms back out. One more time.

Take up all the space that you can. Soften the arms down. Bring your chin to your chest and roll down. We're gonna stay down when we get down. So once you're all the way down, allow your hands to come down to the floor. Step one foot and then the other foot back on the mat and bring yourself forward over your arms.

So you're just in a long supported position with your body. From there, Bring the hips up, press down through the heels. Articulate up onto the toes and articulate the spine to come forward, create your straight line, press back through your heels. Lift up with your hips. Take the head between the arms, lift up through your feet, stretch your feet, roll back through, and find that supported position again.

And we go up and moving like a wave in the body. So each movement just becomes the next movement up and roll. One more up. Yeah. Roll. I And left again, we're making a change.

Bend your knees. Look at your hands. Hop and sit. To lift the arms forward, we're gonna roll back. Again, the idea of linking the movements together, go up.

As the body lifts open the knees, open the arms, dive forward over your legs, let your body have that stretch. And then as you roll up, bring your knees back in and go back. And inhale. And lift and lift the body, open the knees. Open the arms around.

Dive forward over your legs. Just feel that fluidity of the body. Roll up. And back, and up, and lift the spine open the knees. Circle the arms.

Go forward. And lift up, bringing the legs back, and go back last one. And up, just moving through the spine, warming it up. The body goes up. The knees open.

The arms reach around. They go forward. We come up, bring the knees in. And go all the way down onto the mat. So I need to move myself towards my feet.

You can do the same or bring your feet in closer to your pelvis. The head goes down. Feel the feet of earth and roll. So feeling both feet actively pressing down, create a straight line in your body. Reach your arms over your head.

Roll down through your spine as you continue reaching over your head, feel the expansion. Really let your body feel nice and good and drop down. And inhale. And as your pelvis comes up, press your arms through space. They'll pass the pelvis.

They'll press down. Lift up in the back of the legs and then reach the arms overhead. And roll down. Take your time. Feel each piece of the spine. Feel the stretch in the body.

And inhale. And press down and lift up and inhale and reach And roll down lengthening, opening, and inhale. And press the arms, push into the air. Create your own resistance. And inhale, raise the arms up.

Let them be light. And roll down. So we create our own experience just like life all the way down. And lift up. This time, take the arms just to the ceiling, just straight up. Turn the palms to face each other. We're gonna take the body down in a like a flat back.

So we're gonna open the arms, let the body hover. And press and inhale, open the arms. Reach wide. Feel that expansion across the chest and press and open. And press.

It's interesting to see if you can get your arms to move exactly the same. Interesting for my brain. Anyway, last one the same. And lift, hold it there. Step into the right leg, lift the left leg. Same thing. Open drop.

And press. Open drop. And press open drop and press two more inhale and up. Last time, open and hold there, place the left foot down, lift the other leg, the right leg, and go down, and press, and and press nice and high down and press and down and press and one more Up. Place that leg down.

Take the arms overhead. This time, as the body comes down, circle the arms around to the sides. Keep them reaching wide, wide, wide, off the ground. And then once the pelvis comes all the way to landing, we can let them rest down, bring the knees and the feet together. We're gonna go over to the right with both legs, inhale, moving the spine, and pull to center.

And then let it be rhythmic, organic inhale. And deepen. And inhale bringing your awareness inwards into your body. Into your mind. So always when the world is crazy, which it often is, we can always come back to ourselves, to our bodies, to our breaths, to our mind, and inhale.

And pull. And inhale flow. Can you feel one more to eat that after this? And can you feel floaty? But also like you're working deep. Let's do one more in here.

And exhale. Keeping the knees in the center, bring your hands behind your head. Feel the full interlace of the hands, creating a cradle for the head We're gonna curl the head and chest up. What is nice to feel is the feet pushing down. Again, grounding into the ground, the earth. And, and inhale, and lift up.

Holding to inhale, going back down, pressing into the ground and left, folding under the ribs wide elbows heavy head, and down. So challenging, but also can you find ease, ease within the challenge? And down, we're gonna do one more and then we'll make a change. Go up. Deep in.

And, keeping the head and chest down now, bring the knees up. Keep the back flat pull in. And tip the floor and pull in Halloween. And tip the floor. I play a little game with myself. You might know it already, but I try to not let my skin touch my tights.

It's impossible, but definitely helps you connect and down, and start the XL and pull. Make it heavy. And done one more time, and then we'll do another change. Listing up. Going down now, we're gonna combine those two things, curl and bring the knees.

Lower and take them down, curl and bring the knees, deepen, deepen, deepen, and down control, focus, breaths, and on, and two. Both two sides of the body coming together in the center. And one. And center and down and curl up. Take the body to the left, the legs, to the right. It's small and pull, center, and go the other way.

And go center, and inhale. And exhale. So I thought today that I would treat you to all my very favorite things. Hope you liked them as much as I do. And over.

And center curl, curl, curl, curl, and over. Center only just didn't gonna do one more to each side over and center and over and center and reach the arms forward. And stretch one leg, and stretch the other leg, and take the arms, and bring the head back. Oh, take the arms around, curl the head and chest up. Little mean to do this right now, but here it comes.

Roll up. Find your c curve. From the c curve, lift the body. Open the chest as the arms circle out to the sides. Push the air as you round back into the c curve and we'll go down.

Sorry. At the hiccups, we go down. They'll go away. Rounding, rounding, rounding, rounding, take the arms back when the head comes down. And then we allow that opening of the arms. The circular action, curl the head and chest, roll up.

C curve. From the c curve, go up. Open. Draw in through the waist, press into the air to round and go back. And reach and around collecting the head and chest, flatten the spine into the ground and roll. And float and allow the chest to reach through the arms and round and go flowing from one movement to the next movement with ease, with intention around with focus, with grace, are things good to think about, not just in Pilates, but in life, ease.

Last one on the way down. I might have already done said that, but we'll do it again. Yeah. Grace, ease, focus, breaths. Around this one, this time we'll stay at the top. So we go up.

We float the body. Let's bring the hands behind that. Flex through the feet, and then we'll take a rotation here. Reaching up through the spine and we go, pull, pull center, and twist, twist center, and twist, twist center, and twist, twist center one more time to each side, and then we're gonna do a combination. And I'll tell you what it is when we get there.

So here it is. We go down. Flatten the back. Come up. Turn to the right. Round down.

Lift up. Come to the center. Rotate to the left. Keep equal weight on the sitting bones around to the right. Roll up to the left, come to the center and go down the center round and flatten the back and sit up and rotate right and round left.

And lift up. Makes me happy and the other way and go down and up and center one more time through round down. Possibly feeling joy in the movement out, out, out, and up, and twist, and go down, and up. And center, and the last time. And, down, and up, and bend the knees.

Just making sure I got room to roll. Take the feet. Find your shape, find your focus, be in your body, and go back, and balance, and back. Anne, balance, and back. Ann balance, small change, back.

Bow and stretch the legs. Bend the knees. Find your shape and rock. And up and lift. And find your shape, flow, and up, ease, and bend one more.

And up, reach, and bend just in, parallel to the ground. Slide your hands to your legs, back of your legs. Roll down. Take the hands to the knees. Pull yourself into that shape and then expand, double leg stretch and come around.

And inhale, and back, and inhale, and curl, and reach. Feel the arms as they go back, trying to get nice and close together behind you really challenging the flexibility of the shoulders and three and in. And I'm doing that little pause each time so that we can all recollect, not rest, go deep, last one, and around both hands on the right knee, left leg out straight, single leg stretch, and we change. And we change and we change and we pull into the center of the body and we keep that focus. The legs pass one another and pass one another. And we'll do two.

And two, and one, and hands behind that criss cross, and change, and change. And change. Keeping everything nice and tidy and fun and four. I don't know about you, but I'm having fun. Three and three at two at two at one.

I have a surprise for you. Come to center. Reach forward. Keep the arms there. Scroll the knees to the chest.

Lower back down. Take your arms up and put them back behind your head. Cur your knees to your chest. Lower back down. Reach forward.

Cur your knees to your chest. Go down. Hands behind that. Girl your knees to your chest. And, arms forward.

Head down. Same thing. Curl your knees to your chest and then reach over with to straight lengths. Keeping the legs together as you roll down, think of dragging the feet along the mat as long as you can. Come down slowly, controlled, really feeling the energy in that stretch, and then bend, and curl in and reach over.

You need your arms, let the feet drop, and go down. Letting little legs get heavy towards the body. And bend and curl and reach. Almost got a cramp on that one. Fun fact.

And roll. We'll do one more. And bend. Cura and reach. I'm done.

And roll. And bend and lift that and take the feet and come back into your rolling like a ball shape and come back out into that seated stretch. And open the legs. Oh, almost lost my balance and bend the knees and put the feet down. We'll do a diamond. Arms go forward.

Lift up and inhale. Feel the body, the energy you're creating in your body. It's worthwhile to pay attention and go down. Reaching forward. Go out in a flat back, reaching the arms, lengthening the spine, go down.

And build the spine back up and just allow the arms to float in space coming with the body and go down and flatten the back. Really find it. Best shape. That's what I'm telling myself and go down. And lift.

Feel the fluidity of the spine. Something to be grateful for, and out. And down and and taller all the time one more time. Go down. And and down, and soft.

And take the arms out to the side, and we'll rotate and the front arm goes back and we'll just dive and up and center. And dive. So kind of in my mind here, like, less looking for every single little piece of where everything's meant to be exactly correctly and just go and find flow. It's not to say you're not, it's not to say It's not to say what. Just feel the ease of movement in your body is the intention one more time to each side reach down and up and center and reach and down. And up and center and take the arms overhead and open the arms out to the side And just like we did in the very beginning, as you reach forward, bring your knees in and round.

And then we go down. All the way. And we'll turn to our side. Creating a straight line in the body will reach the legs away to lift the legs off the ground. We'll reach the legs away to lower them down.

We'll go out focusing on the middle of the body and down. And reaching out, bringing awareness not just to the upper part of the waist and the front of the waist, but also to the lower waist. So everything is Connected. Last one. Reaching out.

And now take the arm, the upper arm on the thigh, the upper thigh, and holding the legs still, reach the upper body up. And down. And try not to push too hard with the arm, although it does give you a little bit of support here. As you're working those obliques, and we'll do three and down. And two, balancing.

And down. One. And all the way down, let the legs come down. Take the top leg to the back. The arm on the same side of the body to the front.

There is no perfect position to be in. Just please find a stretch. Reaching. And coming back and we'll do coming onto the elbow. We want the forearm and the elbow to be precise hand behind the head.

You can bend the bottom knee for stability if you wish, or you can keep it the way it is. Lift the top leg up, flex the foot and go, kick, kick, and reach. So the leg is the moving piece, but the focus or a focus is what's happening in the body. Can we keep everything very organized there and go forward and back and forward and back and keep that bottom side long. Now the body will move slightly forward and back, so you can allow for that, but just keep everything under control.

Another life lesson, maybe last one forward or my life and back. Take the hand from behind the head, put it on the mat. Turn. The back leg is lifted. Bottom leg is pressing down. Pull forward with your chest, with your arms on the mat, and now lift that leg up. Little ups.

Three, two, one, circle. You're welcome. Two. Three, it's spicy. Four, five, circle the other way. One, two, pull forward. Three, four, Five.

Ben both knees. Sit all the way up. Both legs off to one side. We'll just take a side stretch here. So leaning over and coming up and reaching over and pulling with my arm, the one that's on the bottom.

And lifting up. Last one. And bring the leg across now. Hug it into the body. Drop the hip down towards the ground.

Holding here. Lifting taller. Lengthening the body, softening into the stretch, and bring the leg out to the side. So going into the mermaid arms reach out, we're gonna hinge over. Allow the arm to find the ground, the earth.

Take a rotation. When that rotation, let your chest reach through your arms. You can rock the pelvis. It's creating mobility in the spine. Round the spine unwind. Come up and reach over.

And then let's let everything flow together. So we go out. And down and around and extend and round and open and up and over And back last time over. Touch down. Take your rotation. Use your arms to feel that mid back working.

Use your arms in a pushing away action to feel the low back stretching unwind, come up and reach over. And we'll change sides. Just bring the legs to the other side. Come all the way down. Create your straight line.

And here we go. We reach the legs out and up. And, heavy head, work through the center of the body, and down, and out. And, connection focus. One more. So here is where we took the lakes down.

We took the arm up, kept the legs still, and we go reach and curl the upper body. And done. And reach and curl the upper body. Keep the legs there. Squeeze them together.

Have fun. And as a suggestion, and left Uh-oh, I don't know how many I've done. I think three. So two more. We did five on the first side. If I'm wrong, and it matters to you, then five is the intended number of repetitions.

Last one, reach out. Oh, and everything comes down. Top leg goes back same, side arm reaches forward. And this is your chance to just find some opening in your body. So wherever that feels like the right place to be is the right place to be.

And come back and come up onto your forearm. And press into the mat lifting the underside of the body. We took the hand behind the head. We took the leg up. We did a flexed foot and then we go pull pull and reach. And pull pull.

And pull back and forward. And back feels ahead pressing into the hands and forward. And back and reach nice proud through the chest. We'll do three more forward and back. And forward, and lengthen, and last one, reach.

Take the hand down. Take the body around. Pull with your arms, lift the chest up and forth. So I'm thinking it almost as sliding out into the ocean. And then we take the leg up and up and lift.

And two and circle. Keep the leg high, active in the arms, active in the abdominals. Last two, it's a small circle. And one, go the other way, lift, and reach forward, and three, and four. Last time, and take the leg down, bend the knees, come up, lift the arm, and reach over.

And back and up and over. Really opening the side of the body. Ribs in the pelvis are stretching away from one another. And up, last one over. And up.

Take the leg around. HIG it in. Drop the hip. Finding the upright positioning of the spine. Trying to get a little heavier on that sitting bone.

My body feels like two different bodies. One lives on the left side, one lives on the right side. This one is less agreeable. I don't want to take the leg out to this side. Fun fact, arms out to the side.

Here we go. We hinge. Touch down. Take your rotation. Bring your chest forward and up. Stretch the mat or push it away as you go into a rounded spine, unwind, lift up, reach up, and stretch and go up and out and touch and rotate.

I like to push my thigh and my foot together. It helps me feel like I have somewhere to anchor from. You could try if you feel so inclined and round and open. And lift, floating again, and heavy. And one more.

Reach. That's where the foot and the thigh help touch. Round, lift the chest, round the spine, unwind. Come up. Take it over.

Let's come up and we'll turn all the way around to the front of the body. Bring the arms in underneath the shoulders. Press down with your arms, lift your chest through your arms think of pulling your elbows back and sending your chest forward. Lift the legs and we go kick kick kick kick kick. K. K. K. Really anchoring into the arms to keep that spinal position and pull and kick and kick and kick and faster.

Both legs straight. Take your arms behind you. Turn your head down. Elbows reaching down. And then you'll go kick.

You can rest your head. I just can't because of the microphone. And reach. But on the other side, I will, and let the head rest down and kick. Two. Three and reach out.

Arms reach back and kick. Keep the elbows. Let the elbows drop each time and reach back. And kick, kick, kick, and reach back, and kick, kick, kick, and reach back, bring the arms around to the front and we go inhale swimming and exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale. And exhale. One more. Press cycle that is.

And exhale. And everything comes down. Pause for a moment allow the back to settle. Bring the arms in, hands under the shoulders, press with your forearms, lift up, bring the knees in underneath you, and stretch back. Come up onto the hands and knees.

Finding a straight line in your body, tuck the tail, around the lower spine, allow the head to drop. So you're kinda looking down at your knees. It's not a big movement in the upper back, but there is some and then return, and then lift the chest up and forward. And center. And around the spine, stretching the lower part of the back.

Extend the spine. Extend up and forward. We'll do that one more time through cat stretch. Center. The round spine happens now.

Come back through center. The extended spine happens now. Tall the system and hold in the center, bend your right elbow. Take your left arm onto the mat. Take the right arm overhead and stretch.

Bring the right arm back. Push and left hand down. Bend the left arm. Thread the right arm through. Head goes down.

Left arm reaches overhead and you can use that arm to increase the rotation, the stretch in the back of the shoulder. Left arm comes back. Press up and both hands. Do that one more time to make my hands a little too far far back and go. Get down.

Reach. Enjoy. Come back. Come up. Other side.

Go up overhead and come back and come up and walk the hands back towards the knees and tuck your toes. So keeping the knees down for just a moment, really stretching through the feet here, the toes. And then we're gonna go over the toes and towards the heels. And over the toes and towards the knees and over the toes and towards the heels, dropping the heels down, and over the toes and towards the knees. And one more.

This time, stretch the legs up, dive the head down, soften through the knees. Lift up, rolling the spine, coming up all the way to standing. Take the arms out to the side. Bring them overhead. Now we notice again.

How do you feel? There's no right or wrong answer. Come to straight, take the arms down. Just a practice of noticing head goes down, soften through the knees, roll through the spine. Maybe there's more movement there.

Maybe it just feels more easeful. I don't know. Those are my, sensations. Ben journeys. Stretch your legs, soften your knees, and push down, lifting up. Wearing the arms around and lift up.

As the arms come around and we come back into that upright position, we'll take the arms out to the side. We'll take the right arm down in the left arm overhead and we'll side bend. That's very different. And stand both arms out. And change arms and side bend.

And, both arms out. We're gonna add a rotation this time. So we're gonna go over. We're gonna slide that arm around the back of the side and reach the other arm forward and back. And both arms out to the side floating. I'm gonna go the other way, reaching down the thigh with the arm, taking the arm behind the leg.

You could pull. I would just let mine glad, actually, I use it a little bit to just guide myself a little deeper into the stretch and then come back around soften. And come up and arms out to the side and reach the arms overhead and open the arms wide Take your time. This is the end creating space, gathering energy, preparing for whatever else is happening in your life today, and coming all the way down. Hopefully, whatever it is you can take that energy with you. Thanks.