Beginner Progressions Flow

Hi there. Sarah Berticelli here. The intent for this class is to bridge from the beginner work to a little bit more intermediate work. I first want to have you think just a little bit about standing and engaging your core. What it means to engage the core can be many different things, and I'm gonna ask you to use your hands for a moment on your hip bones. I'll call this the Peter pan sometimes, so I'll take my feet a little bit wider at times.

You can keep them narrow. It doesn't matter. But press into the hip bones with the heels of your hands and take your whole pelvis with intention into your hands and grow tall. Now release that. Maybe touch your belly, see what you feel if you don't think about that. Using your hands to press to engage the abs a little bit to help you understand where your pelvis is is gonna be a theme throughout the class today.

Let's go ahead and get started. So walk over to the back end of your reformer, near the foot bar, I'm on one blue spring, and you wanna come close to the reformer with your body. Not super close, but close enough to where if you were to shift, you might be able to touch the foot bar. That's a good good gauge. Stand on your feet, feel your heels.

Also feel all five metatarsals, specifically the ball of your big toe. I'm actually lifting my toe digits up because I like doing that these days, and I'm pushing out a little bit through my heels to widen through my backside. Take your hands on your hip bones and just press your pelvis a little forward and feel you just naturally grow a little taller and you're a little more engaged, release the hands. Take the arms up to the sky, look up Take the arms down, roll down one vertebra at a time, find the edge of the reformer with the heels of the hands, slide forward into a flat back, chest open, shoulders away from ears, round in use your abdominals. I like to inhale and reach forward, looking with my eyes in the direction of the springs, and I'll use an exhale to round in hollowing the belly inward, maybe all the way to the stopper, maybe not, inhale reaching forward, push out slightly through your heels, round in.

When I say push out through the heels, I don't really wanna see the movement. I just want you to use the friction of the floor to open through your backside as you reach forward. Exhale to round all the way into the stopper, shift your weight back to your legs, roll yourself up, catch the footbar with your hands if you can. If you can't catch the footbar, put the hands on your hips, look up and extend your spine a little bit. Look forward. Release your arms up to the ceiling.

One side bend to one side, look up at the hand that's up, come back to center, one side then to the other side, look up at the hand that's up, two hands up, and roll down again. So we roll forward, catch the edge of the reformer, and then lunge forward into a flat back, chest open. Good. Rounding in, try lifting all five toes if you can on both feet, so that would be 10 toes. Reach forward to a flat back.

Use your eyes. And then I'm round in. We'll do one more time here, please. So the nice way to warm up the body, and also stretch things out a little bit, engage. Come all the way into the stopper.

Roll up. Catch the foot bar with your hands if you can, or use your hands on your hips if you need, and lift your heart looking up into a little back extension. So I'm pushing into the foot bar as I lift up. Come back through to center. One arm lifts, look at that arm. Stretch side bending. The other arm lifts, look at the arm. Stretch. Arms down. Beautiful.

Let's move into our footwork next or actually we're gonna move into a warm up first. So footwork spring needs to go on. For me, it's three reds and a blue. That's what I like to work with. If you know you need to use less spring, you might set that up.

To please set that up to your needs. So it doesn't need to be a lot. So scooch into, a comfortable spot for you to roll on to your reformer safely and comfortably and settle in. Remember always to take the time to settle in even as we start to move a little bit faster. So I'm gonna find this spot right now where it feels like my feet are resting on the bar, not totally on my heel, but not totally on my arches.

So kinda heal an arch. My feet relax. Inhale here, we're gonna do a bridge, exhale, engage the abs and curl up using both legs equally. Take a breath, and then curl yourself down one vertebra at a time. Inhale.

Use the exhale perhaps to curl up. So what are we trying to achieve here? Back of the legs working, glutes, and hamstrings, nice high lift, and roll down. Artculation through the spine, put the pelvis all the way home at the end, please. And curl up again. Find the breath that suits you.

Press down through the arms a little bit more to help lift higher so don't be shy about using your arms. And curl down. And we'll do two more bridging like that. So exhale to curl up. We sometimes call this the pelvic curl.

It's a bridge. It's also a pelvic curl because we're articulating through the spine. And I'm not putting a lot of emphasis on what my feet are doing. I'm trying to keep them kind of relaxed right now. Curle up and stay this time. So we're high in that big bridge position. My pelvis is high.

Lift one leg off the footbar. You can point your foot if you want, and then the other leg off the footbar. So we're marching here. Notice as you march with your legs, there's a little bit more energy in one side of your upper back. So same leg that's lifting, that side of the upper back might be grounding a little more lean into that with your arm strength and back strength.

Think about that. Try it one more time on each side. And then your two feet are down articulating from the ribs first. Roll down through the ribs, through the mid back, through the low back. And finally, the pelvis is home.

Let's bring the feet together with the back of the heel on the bar. And your hands up, so clasp the fingers together creating a circular shape. Keep the legs glued together, twist the legs to one direction. The arms go in the opposite direction, and then come back through. So as I twist my legs, I'm on one foot. The other foot just stays attached and is now lifted off the foot bar. Right? So let's do that just a little faster with whatever breath suits you.

But see if you can use the connection here of the arms or the movement of the arms to help you connect a little deeper to those those muscles that rotate your spine, primarily focusing on the obliques right now, the abdominal obliques. One more time. Good. Come back through to center. If you choose to accept the mission, you'll take your two legs up to a tabletop position, and we'll do the same thing. I like to use an inhale twist twist and an exhale twist.

Twist. So I'm inhaling to twist and exhaling to twist. So we're just gonna keep the movement going for a little bit of time. And if you keep your low back, really almost fully grounded, you're going to feel quite a lot of challenge here in your core, but you're also using those arms to reach a little further each time. One more time each side, hug two knees into your chest. Flow your legs then to tabletop hands to the ceiling. Take a breath.

Lift your head and chest. That might be an exhale. Stay there. We're gonna hold on to one knee and drape the other foot over the foot bar. This is our modified single leg stretch. Change. So my knees stay bent and I change.

Now if you choose to accept the mission, we go to straight legs, single leg stretch traditional, and you press a little bit into the foot bar as you breathe here. Let's keep going. Stay lifted. Remember, I need a hint of a smile across the cheeks because we're having fun here. I also need you to make sure that you're actually inhaling and exhaling.

Good. Let's just hold one leg in, one leg out. Can you release your hands, clasp them together and put them behind your head, rotate to the bent knee. Take a breath here. Use your exhale to change sides. Take a breath here. Use your exhale to change sides.

If you need to use a hand to help maintain the height of the curl, use that. Change sides again. Make sure you're breathing. Inhale is key. Good. Now whatever versioned a little faster, here we are inhale inhale exhale exhale perhaps. Right? So the legs are organized.

The body stays lifted. Good. We're having fun. One more time on each side, please. Two knees into your chest. Lift your body. And then rest your body on the on the reformer.

We're gonna settle in for footwork now. The heels are on the bar. The traditional position that I'll often teach is the center of the heel. I'm gonna suggest that you go down a little bit and allow the bar to be just a little bit above the heel and allow the bar to sink into your feet. Think about that.

All your pieces are organized. We press our legs to straight. So I like to find when my legs are straight, the sweet spot where I really truly feel like The bar is just kind of resting right above my heel. And then that allows my feet to stay stable when I come in and out without me having to actively hold them there. So see if you can play with that idea. So we're pressing the legs to straight at a pace that suits you, and you're breathing when it makes sense to you. Okay?

So let's pay attention to the rib cage grounded, pelvis in a neutral position, chest open, Another cue I like to think about is this idea of spreading the backside so we're not gripping the gluteals. The glutes are working, but in a wide peachy way rather than in a pruney way, simply meaning I don't want you to grip. But I do want you to engage. So one more like this, please. And then come on in and shift to the active toe position.

So all five metatarsals are grounded. Press your two legs to straight and feel this is where we establish the height of the heel lift. You wanna be grounded here through the whole foot or the all five metatarsals, and then we bend in trying to keep the heels at that same height. So here, as we pick up the pace a little bit, if you feel ready, just feel though that you are fully straightening your knees, and you're still fully coming into the stopper. And if you're not ready to pick up the pace, it's okay. You're just breathing and you're moving. What are the rules? We're trying to keep the rib cage grounded. We're trying to get those knees fully to straight, aware of engagement in the glutes, but not squeezing gripping.

So there's a holistic engagement of the whole glute and hamstring, hopefully, at the top, especially, and the bottom too. Come all the way in, please. Slide your heels together. We're making a small v position. Again, as much surface area through the balls of the foot as you possibly can, and we press out. The ball of the foot is the metatarsals.

Breathing and moving again, I'm squeezing my inner thighs a little bit at the top. I'm squeezing also the inside of my knee, that vastus medialis oblique. That is the inner quadricep that is really important for knee well-being. So try to get that to engage a little bit. Think about that inside quadricep.

We'll do just a couple more here, breathing when it makes sense to you. And last one, coming all the way in. Let's put your heels wide on the bar. Again, play with your position. Classically, we teach just the I I teach just the center of the heel. Play with maybe finding a place where you can let your foot be in this position without forcing it. So the foot will remain stable, but you don't have to actively pull the toes back to achieve that.

Instead, the foot just stay is stabilized by way of the placement. So think about that a little bit. So your rib cage is grounded. Your pelvis is nice and neutral. Your chest is open, and you're breathing and you're moving at a pace that suits you. Leggs are fully straightening at the top.

Do work with that. Toast should feel kind of relaxed and not overworking today. Both legs working equally. Let's make this the last one, please, come all the way in, and then we're gonna play with our calf raises for a moment. So active foot position, use your legs first, press to straight second, feet go down, feet go up.

Feet go down, feet go up. So try to feel that you can keep your kneecaps facing straight upward. For many of us, it feels a little like you have to roll them in in order for them to not roll out when you lift up. So think about that a little. Another thing to think about is keeping the weight dispersed through the whole foot, but specifically paying attention to that first metatarsal, the ball of the big toe. So here, stay. We'll do some prancing, just changing and changing.

So you can go slower if that suits you. You can go faster if it suits you. Just make sure you're breathing and that both feet are participating in the movement throughout the entire exercise. So up and down, both feet are working. We'll do just a couple more on each side. And then let's hold a stretch, whichever foot you're on is fine.

Adjust your foot so you can literally just relax for a moment. Feel free to close your eyes. Let the foot bar support you. Allow your heel to relax under the bar, breathe in, and breathe out. Explore the possibility of where you might be able to move your foot to feel a slightly different stretch. Change sides.

So, again, find a spot where you feel supported by the foot bar, heal is relaxed, breathe in, breathe out. You might roll your head side to side. Explore the possibility. Beautiful. Good. Support with both feet, bend your knees all the way in.

We're going to move into single legs and I'm going to keep my spring the same, but perhaps you'll wanna take a spring off. So we've so sit up and do that. And then lie back down on your reformer, and we'll put our heels on the bar. And if you feel interested in exploring that position where you're just above the heel, It's quite cool. I like it, but you can also go to your traditional position. Let's put the right foot on the foot bar, lift the other leg to tabletop.

Be aware of your pelvis position, your ribcage grounded, all the things. Also, try to feel like you're letting the bar into your foot versus pushing it away. So let it in to float off, to press to straight, full straight knee, to come in with control, Again, think of letting the footbar in to your foot. For me, that simple cue and the placement really wakes up my hamstrings and my glutes in a way that makes me not have to think about it. Which I find to be quite refreshing.

So I'm on four right now, and I'm going to make it to ten. And I'd like you to be aware at whatever pace that you're moving, you try to do even numbers. The numbers don't matter as much as that they're pretty much even. Right? So for me, two more, fully straightening the knee, and just one more here. And then the same thing on the other side. So spend a moment if you're if you're fiddling with this new position, really letting the footbar into your foot, press out. Perhaps you'll stay for a moment and feel that.

And then you'll come on in. Beautiful. So we wanna feel that you find a pace and a flow that suits you, that you are straightening your knee all the way, that you're trying to think about letting the foot bar into the foot there, like, play with that and see if it makes sense. For me, it means I have to start a little slower at the bottom, and then I can pick up my pace a little slower at the bottom. Do make sure the knee is straightening all the way.

So spend a moment up there in case I didn't make that clear on this side. And I just have two more here to make it to my equal number and one more here. Beautiful. Come all the way in. Draw your legs into your chest. Give your back a little stretch.

And let's roll to our side and come on up to a sitting position. So one spring for the next series, we're gonna do some seated rollbacks. Kinda like doing the mini roll up on the Cadillac. So we'll sit here far enough forward. So, you're comfortable, but far, that was a lot of words there. Make sure there's enough space so that when you roll back your pelvis and a little bit of your low back will still be on.

So for me, it's about that much space. I don't know. Six inches or so. See if you can rearrange your feet so they're relaxing over the headrest just a little bit. Retrieve your straps and hold the tape. I'm on one red spring, which is a nice assist.

If you wanna work harder, you'll do this on a blue spring. Your elbows are straight. Your shoulders are plugged. Try to sit up straight. Inhale. Use an exhale first to flex or round your spine and begin rolling back.

So ideally, we wanna get the whole pelvis down and just the low part of the low back, then we're gonna use a breath, and we're gonna roll all the way back up rounded. And then look forward and sit. Sholders are plugged, meaning they're not rounded forward. We're gonna roll back again and all the way back up. And sit tall. I like to inhale here.

Use an exhale to roll yourself back, shoulders are plugged, take a breath, and roll yourself up. Sit tall, feel the shoulders. One more time we're adding on here. So now we're down. We're gonna stay down.

We're gonna lift one leg to tabletop. We'll lift the other leg to tabletop. Take the legs a little bit away from you so the knees are not over the hips. And try to keep them there as you roll yourself up and then straighten the back out to a modified teaser. We're gonna use our abs to roll down, keep the legs there.

And roll yourself up straightening out your back. So in the mat work, we will teach this as a preparatory exercise for teaser, and I find that using the spring to allow you that full range of motion is a really nice way to learn this skill. So, hopefully, you find this interesting as well. Ideally, the legs are completely still. And the spring is simply assisting you to go down and up. Put one foot down, the other foot down, round and roll all the way up to a sitting position, and put your straps away. So we'll move into our hip work next.

For that, you'll need a red and a blue spring for most people. Certainly modify as needed for you. I'm on a red and a blue, and we'll lie back down on the reformer. Hearing up for some hit work, settle in, make sure you're straight. Take that moment.

Retrieve your straps, and then put your feet in your straps. Let's just begin with some frogs. We've been doing this all along in the progression, so that's going to feel quite comfortable. I hope. But feel ribs are grounded, pelvis is grounded. We have breath.

Try flexing the feet quite a bit and press all the way to straight, inhale in to about 90 degrees and press to straight. So just a couple more simple frogs here, pressing all the way out, and one more time pressing all the way out. Point through the feet without curling the toes. Try to spread the toes, lift to about 90 degrees, and let's circle down first and around to the top position. The size of the circle depends on you here, what feels good. Feel free to go a little bigger, but check-in with your core and make sure it is strong.

You could always use your hands on your hips like I showed at the beginning of class. One more time here, just to feel that stability there. Reverse. You can also press down through your arms quite actively and use your arms and your upper back a little more here, which is kind of a nice feeling. One more time here for circles.

Good. So bend your knees in again for a frog position and then straighten, bending and stay. Keeping the carriage still, we're gonna straighten the legs out to the side one time. Bend them, touch the heels and slide the legs out. So we're gonna slide the feet in, open, straightening the knees, bend heels together, he'll stay together, carriage moves as you slide through a frog, and you come back in.

One more time, we open the knees, open the feet, and then bring the feet back together. So now extended frog is the exercise we're prepping. So you're going to first press your legs to straight, bend your knees, open your legs out without moving the carriage, pull straight legs together, heels touch, bend the knees in. Open without moving the carriage, pull straight legs together, heels touch. Two more times like that. That's your extended frog.

You can also do it in the opposite direction. So let's do that. Open the legs out to the side. Pull the heels together. Push out to straight.

Open the legs to the side. Pull the heels together. Push out to straight. One more time. Heels together and push. Just bend your legs and let your feet be in a position that is comfortable to rest for a moment.

I like crossing my ankles and stretching like this these days. You could put the bottoms of the feet together with the knees open. We're just taking a moment of pause, and you can also straighten your legs out to the side if you prefer for a stretch for the inner thighs. Let's take another breath or so wherever you're choosing to be. And then the last class we did what I call a circular frog or a short spine prep. So here I'm going to offer up the short spine, but choose to work at your pace, and don't do it if it doesn't feel right.

So everybody find your feet together, press your legs to straight. We're gonna bend the knees in, and that's our start position for this exercise. So I'm in a frog position. We press the legs to straight, you point your feet. You're gonna fold at your hips.

You're gonna keep folding as far as you feel comfortable. If you can touch the stopper, you're ready for short spine. But let's bend the knees here. And let's feel the low back grounds using your abdominals to pull the feet through, push out to straight. So that's the option one.

So pointed feet, we fold at the hips. If you are at the stopper and you feel safe, You're gonna feel what part of your back is currently grounded and grounded a little bit more. Use your arms and your abs and roll yourself up onto your shoulder blades. So finding that position, you wanna feel like you're continuously going up on the diagonal, bend the legs here, keeping the body lifted, and roll down leading with your upper back. So think upper ribs, middle ribs, bra strap area, low back, pelvis, and then the legs come through.

Press the legs to straight, point the feet. Full at your hips. When you find the stopper, notice what part of your back is down. So press that part down more to lift the rest up. Use your arms. Don't be shy.

Straight strong legs, breath, bend your legs here. So as you roll down, feel the upper ribs moving, the middle ribs the low ribs, the low back, and finally the pelvis. Press out to straight one more time, folding it to your hips. Roll yourself up. Bend your legs, roll down, feel the upper back leading the way.

Middleback, low back, legs come through. Beautiful. Let's take our feet out of our straps and come upright, please. Roll yourself onto your side and have a seat. So let's adjust our spring to one spring for the standing up stretch work. I do like to use a green spring, which gives a little extra support, but certainly you can use a red or adjust as needed.

So it is always important to know to remember that you want to support with your hands first on the foot bar, step up onto the reformer and then arrange your feet in position. So here, heels are lifted. Try to spread the weight through all five metatarsals actively. Feel those arms strong, shoulders are away from ears, abdominals are active. Do push through all five metatarsals as you slide the carriage back.

And pull in. Check-in with your body. Your upper body should stay completely stable. Your belly should stay engaged. Your backs of your legs are working a little bit, but the spring is light that you might not feel them working. This is more about stability.

Sliding back, I like to inhale and exhale pull in. And one more here, exhale pull in and stay. So shift down to a plank position here. In your plank, can you be sure that your elbows are nice and straight? Your shoulders are pulling away from your ears, and you're lifting the back of your heart.

Your heels are pressing into the shoulder rest there. Two arms push you back a little, and two arms decide how far you can go forward. Ideally, the pelvis remains exactly as it is, meaning it doesn't lift and it doesn't lower. And you kinda wanna think about that thing we did at the very beginning of class, where you're pressing the pelvis into an imaginary space. Come to your halfway point.

So middle point, we're gonna bend the elbows a little bit back and straighten three times, a little bit back with the elbows. So the elbows are going back. We're bending a little bit. Slide back with your body, slide forward with your body. Find your middle space.

Spend your elbows three times a little elbow bends. One go ahead. And two. And three. Slide back. Slide forward one last time, and then we're out of this. Okay.

Middle ground, three elbow bends. One, support with your belly, two, and three. Good. Slide forward as much as you can. Maybe you touch the stopper, lift the hips up, put the feet flat, take a nice little stretch here. Elbows are straight back as long, lift all five toes if you can, and slide the carriage back and in a couple times. Sometimes the elephant can be done kinda fast.

So feel free to do it quickly or stay slow and enjoy more of a stretch here. So we'll do this just one more time, everyone, and then walk your hands to a forward fold, allow your head to dangle and feel that beautiful stretch there. On your hands to the front part of the carriage and then roll your or come down to your knees. However, you wanna get down is gonna be just fine there. So you can keep the same green spring on, or you can lighten the spring. We're going to do arms kneeling.

So it's an arm exercise. Knees are going to be up against the shoulder rest. Reach forward and hold the ropes. But actually, just hold the straps in one hand and look back at your feet. So if you can sit on your feet, that's wonderful. If you can't sit on your feet, you can be upright.

What I would like you to see is that your feet are in a straight line to the best of your ability with your lower leg and that you're not curling your toes. So you're gonna endeavor to press down through the whole top of the foot and the whole lower leg there. And that's gonna change what's happening in your legs here. Okay? So think about it. Now reach forward and hold the ropes above the buckles, perhaps, and press your pelvis forward again. So it's not just tucking the pelvis, but the hip bones come forward. Like we did earlier, into space. So imagine your hands there.

I want this nice straight line through the body, pressing down through the tops of the feet, lifting up through the body. Two straight arms pull back. Now, This can feel a little vulnerable if you've never done this before. It might feel like you'll fall forward. One, please don't fall forward. Two, stay in control. So as you find this place where you think, oh, boy, this is a little scary, That's where you have to use your arms, use your abs, and then take it just a little more with control.

Beautiful. So the arms are pulling back, opening the chest with nice straight elbow intention, and inhaling forward, trying to lift up look up the whole time. So when I say up, I just mean on the diagonal a little bit above the horizon rather than down to the floor. Good one more time, please. Nice little chest expansion. And we'll go ahead and gently rest that.

So facing the other direction requires quite a lot of strength and balance. So let's shift to just one blue spring for that. If you find this is too heavy, you could even go down to a lighter spring of yellow if you happen to have that. You're going to need to turn around. Oops. Making some noise here.

Try to really tuck those feet in so you really tuck those toes under. And get a good connection as best as possible to all five metatarsals and try to get your feet really wedged up against the shoulder rest. That takes quite a lot of flexibility, so you're working toward that. I have one strap in each hand, and I come upright on my knees. So once again, I'm endeavoring to have that pelvis forward position, not just the pubic bone, but the hip bones too.

Strong through my core. My arms are in alignment with my body to begin and just be here. Feel the feet. Trying to stay in position. All five metatarsals, heels up against shoulder rest. Now just take your arms up shoulder height.

That might be enough for some of you and take your arms down. Endeavor to keep them straight, please. See if you can come all the way up. Good. And then all the way down. And now we're going to make a circle. So first, you go all the way up, turn your palms to face forward, circle down and around wide until you're just in front of your legs. Repeat.

Up through center, open wide down and around wide. I'm spreading my fingers wide right now just because I'm trying to create more space. You don't have to spread your fingers, but think about reaching east west. Think about really spreading your body, your wings spanned. When you come out to the side, I said spanned. I meant to say spam.

Let's reverse here. So open wide, spread your wings. Keep going up And then the knuckles turn down as you come through center. Let's do that two more times. I know we did a few more on the other side, but let's just do two more here.

And one more. Now working into the triceps here. So can you touch your thumb and your first finger together? And then can you take your arms straight up in alignment with your body? That's asking a lot for your core and your arms. So if you need to, your hands are forward. You're gonna try to bend your elbows straight down, touching the back of your head, and then go straight back up is the goal. That is a lot of work.

So if you need to aim your hands forward, you may, but give it a go. So you're bending the elbows just behind your head, you'll touch. Remember, we don't wanna move the head to achieve that. We wanna move the hands. Right? And we'll just do a couple more here. Perhaps you're going a little faster.

Find a breath that suits you. This is my last one. Up with the arms, circle wide out to the side, have a gentle meal on your feet if you're able to, bring the carriage in, and stow the straps so we can move on. So for this next piece, we'll be doing some standing work. So on this reformer, it's really nice because this particular foot bar, you can put it down to the bottom position, and you have enough space to stand, and you can use the foot bar as a balance beam. If your reformer doesn't have that, take the bar all the way down, or put a foot platform on. Okay?

We are going to work with one spring. I'm on one red spring on the button, so it's more secure. That's my recommendation. I'm going to step my foot forward. I'm gonna use my hand on the bar or on the frame if I need to, and I'm gonna step up on to the reformer and come up to standing. Yeah? Okay.

So I have both feet standing on both feet, but both feet are hanging off a little bit. So my big toes are hanging off. Specifically, the one on the white part, it's hanging off a little more. And I'm bringing that foot just a little behind the other foot a smidge. Let's do that Peter pan thing where we press So feel it. We're gonna bend. I want you to feel not your pelvis pubic bone going forward, but I want you to feel your hip bones pressing into your hands and widening.

Stand on the leg that's on the platform. Push out with the leg that's on the reformer, come in. The pelvis remains so push out and come in. So I like to do it this way because I really like to use actually the foot bar as a little bit of a feeling, so I know exactly where I am in space. So if you can set your reformer up like this, it's wonderful. We're trying to target that lateral glute, and we're doing about 10 here.

So that's what I'd like you to try to figure out. If you're going a little faster, then you might do a few more. If you're going a little slower, you might do a few less. So one more, can you hold, squeeze that glute? Just feel. Nice strong glute there.

Gently come on in. So shifting to a modified side split. I'm gonna move my foot out a foot or so no more than the middle of the reformer, perhaps a little bit less. I wanted to feel easy to stand here. Okay? So put your hands again on your hips and press your whole pelvis forward, squeeze the carriage in with your inner thighs and lift as tall as you can here. Feel your heels.

Push outward through your heels slightly turn your knees in so they don't turn out as you push the carriage out. There's enough spring to where you have to push. I'm looking for a little target here in those outer glutes. And then feel as you come in, those inner thighs are assisted, but here you're squeezing them when you squeeze the stopper. Let's repeat. Push out through the heels.

Feel it. Target those glutes a little bit. Feel them participating. Squeeze in, use those inner thighs. Beautiful. Feel free to keep your hands on your hips or take them straight out to the side of your choice. Push out through the heels, roll your knees in a little.

Pull in inner thighs squeeze. Let's do two more. Push out through the heels, roll your knees in a little, and squeeze. And one more time, please. So it's more learning the mechanics of the move.

And then later on, we can do it with less spring and make it a lot harder. Shift to the standing leg that's stable. Take yourself down the same way you got in, and let's do the other side. So we'll walk around to the other side, step to the forward part of the foot platform. Use your hands.

Stand up. The foot that's on the white part or on the bed is gonna go back a smidge, both feet are hanging off, bend both knees, shift on to the standing leg. The standing leg is the one that's on the stable surface. Hands on the hip bones, if that helped you. Good. Feel it. We're gonna push out through the heel of the leg that's on the reformer or the white part of the reformer, the moving part of the reformer is a better way to put it because you might have a purple reformer or a black one. So on the carriage here. Okay.

So I am pushing out squeezing my glute when I do my intent is to do about 10 here, but you're counting on your own. So if you have to move slower, you're going to do fewer today. If you're moving faster, you're going to do a couple more. But see if you can keep track of your numbers and be in control of that, please. I'm just doing two more here.

Good. And one more. I'm gonna hold that last one, feel that gluteal, that lateral glute working, and then come on in. We're gonna shift to the side split position. So I'm not going all the way to the middle. I do wanna feel that little Peter pan thing with my hands on my hips if it helped me, and I wanna feel that here I can engage my inner thighs, but the spring is helping me quite a lot.

Push out through your heels, knees slightly roll in just so they don't roll out. And then you're gonna come in. The carriage is coming in because the spring is helping you a lot, but you're gonna squeeze here at the stopper and find those adductors, inner thighs. Push out through the heels. Arms can go out to the side if you don't need the Peter Pan hand position. Pull in.

Squeeze. Feel your heels. Push out. Feel those lateral glutes participating and pull in, please. Oops. I bounced it that time.

You actually have to control at the end there with this amount of spring, which is my my intent here. And hold it here for three, two, and one, shift to the leg that's stable, gently step off the way you stepped on. And then the bar needs to go back to the middle position so we can revisit the mermaid. We've done this in the previous classes, so we'll just enjoy a slight variation here. So I'm going to stand up and walk to the other side to sit down and mount the reformer in a very mindful way.

Tuck one leg back. One leg is in front. Choose the leg position that suits you. The hand should be placed on the foot bar so that your shoulder is, in alignment with your wrist here. I've kept the same spring, so I'm on a red spring right now. You can lighten it if you need to.

Feel your ribs tucked in. Nice and proud here in your mermaid shape. We're gonna inhale and bend to the side. The arm floats up. We're gonna exhale and rotate around, touch the bar, look down.

We're endeavoring to have a straight line with the arms. With the an they're in alignment with the horizon or the floor. Unwind here, tuck your ribs back, sit tall, go into just a little extra side bend through the neck and shoulder by coming all the way in, and then reorganize. Inhale to reach away, slight variation, exhale to rotate around. Unwind here. Now take your arm behind you.

Your free arm is gonna go behind you and look up. And then just come up like that. One more time. We're gonna inhale reach away, look up, rotate around, big stretch, come around, look up, take your arm down, open your chest, and just come up that way. Beautiful. Let's do the other side.

So it's nice to step off of the reformer and walk around. You can sit and spin if you prefer, but walking around is a good idea. Tuck the leg in, take the arm out in front of you, or the other leg out in front of you. Hand is in alignment with your shoulder, shoulder is anchored. Other arm is down.

We're gonna reach away first, tuck the ribs in, rotate around Looking for a parallel with the floor arm situation, come back to that other shape, ribs are tucked in, so I'm in a side bend. And then here, I'm gonna sit tall, and I'm gonna let my straight arm sort of push me into a little bit of a reverse stretch, which feels nice. Push off the stopper and find your start position. Inhale to reach away. Exhale, rotate around. So we're adding the the nuance in the side bend. So here we come around here.

Now you look up to your hand, take your arm behind you, opening your chest, and sit tall. And then unwind that. Good. Inhale to reach away. Exhale, rotate around, perhaps, big stretch, then unwind for me. Look up.

Breathe take your arm down and lift up. And then we can slide out of that. I'm going to finish with some back extension using the long box. So for this, it's nice to take the bar all the way down. You can keep that red spring on if you wanna work nice and hard. You could also go down to a blue spring if you prefer.

You wanna make sure you're listening to your body. Please remember this is meant to be more back extension than arm work. The arm work is the bonus. So if the heavy spring makes it too hard for you to do the exercise, go down. So I put my long box on.

I'm going to lie on my belly with my chest off a bit. So I'm in a comfortable pulling straps position. Pull the ropes above the buckles. That's one option. You can also take the straps with you and kinda have a little bit more to hold on to.

It looks cleaner, and it gives you more to hold on too. Start with your elbows straight. Your head is hanging. Think about that Peter pan thing here. Can you press down through your hip bones as much as your pubic bone, but your hip bones.

Hover your legs. Good. Plug your shoulders and lift to back extension with beautiful straight arms and lower down all the way through it. So shoulders, arms, back extension, chest open. Good. Make sure you're changing your gaze. So as you come down, you're looking down.

And as you lift up, you're looking forward, and you're finding the back extension that suits you, let's do two more before we add on. Breathing at whatever time makes sense to you. So it doesn't matter to me when you're inhaling or exhaling here. Lift and hold. Now we're gonna keep the height of this position. We're gonna bend the elbows. Think of opening your chest to straighten your elbows.

So if you just bend and straighten your elbows, I guarantee you you'll lose your back extension. Think about your shoulder upper back position more than the elbow bends. We're doing two more elbow bends. And then straight arms, we come down from there, and we Realax. Let's put the straps away and take the box off.

Oh, sometimes it gets stuck. And let's just finish now with a real quick yummy little standing lunge. So we'll put the spar back into the middle position. Same spring, one spring is perfect. And just stand with your foot near the foot of the reformer, the other foot is tucked into position, bend both legs.

Enjoy that. Try to square your pelvis. Be aware that your hands are not working too hard here, meaning you don't really need them. Can you sink a little deeper? You're not really relying on the equipment. The equipment isn't enhancing your stretch rather than holding you together. Breathe in and breathe out.

Maybe you'll take your inside arm up for a little bit of a side bend or a little deeper front net stretch. Look up perhaps. Explore softening your jaw. And let's change sides. So make sure that you're choosing to breathe in these positions, my friends.

Foot goes up against the shoulder rest. The other foot is near the foot of the reformer. We're going to bend, find our lunge, square the pelvis, do all the things. Look forward. Again, your hands can be here all day long, but be aware that you're using your body to be in this position more than the reformer, ideally. Okay?

Breathing in, and breathing out maybe you sink a little deeper, but check-in, can you still be here on your own accord? Take your inside arm up, maybe look up to the hand. Breathing in, and breathing out. We'll carefully come out of that. And let's just do a standing roll down, facing each other with your feet underneath your hips, take a breath, Curl yourself forward.

Bend your knees as needed. Let your head relax. Your shoulders relaxed. Naw your chin a little bit. Shake things around.

And then roll yourself up to standing nice and luxuriously. Thank you so very much for playing. Have a beautiful day.