Class #630

Flowing Mat

50 min - Class
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Monica gives special attention to flow in this class. She reminds us that once we know the mechanics and principles, the challenge becomes creating and keeping a flow.
What You'll Need: Mat

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Feb 19, 2012
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All right. So, um, anybody interested in working anything particular today or just an all around good workout. So much energy. So say, okay, come on to the front of your mat. Yeah, we'll tolerate working again. All right, let's go ahead and sit down and then lie on out. What do you think Kristy? Do you need any extra pillows today? Okay, let's get you try lifting your head and seeing how that works. So is that the one that you like using [inaudible] that that'll work. That'll work.

That's what you like or do you want something a little flatter and flatter? Okay. Let's see here. How about this heart? Yeah. Is that still too high? Alright. Okay. Go ahead and bend your knees and feet flat on the Mat. Great. All right, well let's just start off with breathing for a little bit.

So I want you to take a big breath and exhale. Good. Really think about all the muscles in your body right now. I'm seeing a lot of energy in other parts besides our powerhouse. So think about the frame that you should have. We should have a straight line from one shoulder to the other shoulder and enjoy that. Those shoulders are staying away from your neck.

Oh, that's good. And then you should have a straight line from one hip bone to the other. Try not to have one higher than another. Good. So just thinking about those why slide your hips over just a tiny bit.

All right, good. And then you want your hips directly under your shoulders as well, which for you Candace are just a little off to your right. You might stand a little bit more on your right hip during the day or we're going to, that's a little overkill. So we're going to just slide over just a tiny bit and this there now directly under your shoulders. And I need that. I'm going to have your feet in just a little bit. Okay.

And I want you to kind of sway your legs a little bit back and forth. Just letting him go side to side. Yeah. Or just a tiny ever so slightly. I'm just seeing a lot of tension in your thighs and the 10 year quads and even just lying here and breathing. It's like they're holding you or you're pressing your feet a lot into the mat. And I want you to just let go of that energy and when you feel that you've let go of it a little bit, then just have them straight up to the ceiling and try that breathing again, where you inhale and exhale as you exhale, implant every bone of your spine into the mat.

That's where your concentration wants to be. And taking a big breath and exhaling shrilly feeling your center. We're gonna do a typical workout today, but I'd love to concentrate on getting some good legwork, some good long leg work. So go ahead and have your knees right on up and I want you to place your hands behind your head. One over the other would be great and I want you to inhale and look at your stomach. Exhale, pull it in and come up a little higher and then go ahead and lie back down.

Stretching your back down one bone at a time. Let's do that again. Inhale, look at your belly, and exhale, pull it in and come up a little higher. Good and rolling down. That might start waking up your stomach a little bit here. Last one. Inhale, looking at your belly. Exhale, make it disappear. Pull your navel to your spine. Hold yourself there and lengthen your arms away. Hold yourself up for me, everybody. Stay up. Lengthen your arms by your side and start pumping them up and down. Inhale, two, three, four with energy. Exhale, two, three, four, five.

While you're doing this, open your collarbones a little bit more. Don't let them come up so much good and really draw the belly in as you exhale. And remember what I was saying about your legs. Really holding a lot of tension to make sure they're relaxed right now and the tension is in your belly, not your neck, not your shoulders, not your legs or your feet. On the next exhale, I want you to draw that naval in even more and bring your right knee to your chest, chest towards your chest. Good. And on the next exhale, use your stomach to bring the left knee in towards your chest and create a little tabletop. Beautiful. Christy with your cat's good and exhale.

It's about 60 hour and take a big breath. If you feel strong enough, I want you to be able to straighten your legs at a 45 degree angle, but do not let your back arch. Okay, Christy, make sure your head is not no man's land. Really pull it, support it with your powerhouse and wonderful. Last set. Inhale two, three, four, five. Exhale. Exhale as long as you can. How long can you exhale and hugging those knees to your chest and rest your head down. Use those legs to rock up to a seated position. Right on up. Right on up there are weak. Go legs are squeezing together. Put your hands under your knees and round your back, not just your upper back. I need a lower back that's round. So I want your naval to be scooping into your lower back, pulling far away from your thighs and think about that line that I had talked about. The straight line from one hip bone across to the other.

Hipbone make it like a laser beam that if your stomach pushes in front of that laser beam, the alarms going to go out. So really pull behind that laser beam and I want you to pull back your waist, leaving your legs there. Let's roll down through your sacrum, through your, all the way down just to your waistband. Touch your waistband, hold, take a breath, exhale, pull your belly in and come forward. Good. Try not to have every party you come forward when we come forward. So take a breath and exhale pool your naval backs. You're walling down through your spine. Hold it there with your waistband.

Take a breath and exhale, bring just your the top bone. Then the next one, that was great, Michelle. So that time we really articulate a little bit more. I want your lower back to get a little more flexible here. Candace, take a breath and exhale, rolling through. So you're rolling down through here and here. That's wonderful. Hold it there. Take a breath, exhale, pull in and use your arms more as you come forward. So that you hug in that set and we stretch that lower back.

I loved that. That was wonderful. Now we're going to go down to our bra strap, taking a breath, and exhale. Roll down one bone at a time. Great job. I do want you to use your hands. Go down to your bra strap or the back of your shoulder blades. All the way down here. Know your body. I want you to rule down, get down this bone and this bone. Go back, touch this to the mat. Go down, down, down. Now take a breath and exhale, lift the bra strap, and then one bone at a time.

So we're rolling down through your spine. Let's start that again. Take a breath and exhale, roll back. So we're going to roll down this phone this month. You've got it now all the way. And don't skip any of these to your bras job. Take a breath, exhale, lift your bra strap, but try to come up instead of all of these at once.

See if you can articulate on the way up. Okay. Again, rolling it back. Go down to the Bra Strap. Take a breath and exhale, really pull in those ribs as you come up articulating one, a wonderful Shayla, much better. Christy. Makes sure that you're going only back, even if it's just the waistband, because you'll build strength if you go to where you can go. If you go past that, then you're going to jar your body and you're going to hurt something. So we don't want to do that, but for if you can't, I want you to go all the way down to your head. Now you're staying at your waistband. Thank you.

And you're going to inhale, lift your head back up and then exhale. Roll right on up. Good. Excellent. We're gonna do one more of those. Inhale, start rolling back. Exhale all the way down each bone. That's it. Shayla, down to your head. Inhale, lift up the head to your chest. Exhale, look at your belly. Scoop it in more and really articulate. When we're here, I want you to go ahead and straighten your legs. Forward. Straighten. There we go guys, and reach for your ankles. Good.

And now we're going to roll back one bone at a time. If you need to, you're welcome to bend your knees as you roll back and lower back, middle. I would, Christie, I'd keep my knees bent and then head arms are just down by your side ladies. And Inhale, lift up your head. Exhale, draw on your belly and roll up. Good. And reaching all the way forward and rolling back or missing right now is I want you guys to keep moving is the continuous flow in our workout. We're gonna inhale, lift up your head and exhale. Rolana good. Alright, so I think I'm going to do a couple of reps with you guys so that we can really continue the flow. Okay. Give you an idea of that symmetry. So everyone, let's sit up and stretch forward.

Okay. And now we're going to not stop moving, so we're not going to take a break when we lie down. As soon as your head touches, you're going to come a little right back up. Okay. I'm Christie again. I'm want you to have your knees bent and just, even if you do two reps while we do one, well that's really good. Okay. So rather you do that then cause you're trying to keep your box square and strengthen your powerhouse. So if you're going back too far and you're opting to come up, then we're not keeping that box square. Okay, so we're here in, let's move with our breath.

We're going to inhale to start and exhale to roll all the way down. Inhale, lift the headaches here, right on it and stretching and he'll roll back. Rolling. We're moving. Exhale, roll low the way. Inhale, lift the head. Exhale up. No, we're talking. And again in here, ruling back. Exhaling all the way down. Inhale, head up. Exhale, good. Last time in her ruling back. Come on Candace, stay with this. Exhale. Roll all the way down and stay there. That is much, much better.

So in the beginning you start working really heavily on those principles. Make sure this is this way and this is this way and this is this way. But then you want to try to keep mastering those while moving at a good flow. You don't want to keep it too stiff. Alright, we're going to bend your knees. Put your feet flat.

Romano is used to say that plot is should be like a gold chain. So one link goes right into the next, goes right into the next, and you never see a start and a stop in the exercise. So let's see if we can keep that in mind while we're doing that. So bring your knees together and your feet together all the way together. Feet touching. Good. And now draw on your right knee to your chest. Hug It in, straighten that leg up to the ceiling.

Place the hands behind your thigh and try to give yourself a good stretch without changing your box. Now place your hands by your side and we're going to draw a circle on the ceiling by pulling that leg up with your belly as high up to your nose as you can. Cross your frame. Go as low as you can without arching. Come right back up. And now let's get that flow crus around crusts, around lift, cross around, up so you're keeping your belly and to keep your back flat. One more. Cross around. Nice job. Go the other way and down around, up to you're crossing your frame for me, Candice. There Ya go. And Cross around, up and down, around up. One more. Down around and hugging that knee to your chest. Good.

Place that foot down. Bring the left knee. Good. Straighten the leg up. Always moving. Put your hands behind your legs. Stretch to you. Good. Arms by your side and creating that frame and box. Pull the leg up with your powerhouse. Cross the body around. Up.

We're going to go cross around up. There you go. Kras around lift. Good job, Chrissy. Cross around, stomach in and cross around. Belly. One more. Cross around and hold. Go the other way. Down. Around and up. Down, around and up. Good. Stomach's bullying the leg up too. Around up. One more time and hug in that knee. Nice job.

Use that leg to sit up. Go ahead and sit up. Lift your bottoms as much as you can. Forward to your heels. Good hands are gonna go under your knees. So start and we're going to do another rule back. That's the exercise that we almost started with right after the a hundred knees together.

Feet together and scoop in your belly so that we will back almost your waistband. We're going to roll down your waistband. Not almost. We are. So leaving the legs there, we're going to roll back through your lower back. Great job, Chrissy. Keep it going and keep pulling back in your lower back. And now exhale, come forward. Yes you can do it. Just a little votive encouragement. That's it. Good.

And now pull back again. Use your lower stomach to start leading you back. Use your upper stomach to come back up. Now thinking about that pullback because if you're going to do another roll back, so pull back in. Aha. Stay there though. Freeze. Um, Shayla, come keep your hips where they are, but yes, keep. So I wanted your pelvis to be pulled back, but bring your shoulders forward over it. So try to get into yet and out. Can You keep these here almost and bring your shoulders as forward a little bit more. Great. Stay here.

See if you can keep that position and balance a little bit more forward. Candace, more and more and more balanced with the right foot just off of the mat and then keeping your stomach. Can we bounce with the left leg just off of the mat? Good. It's all in our powerhouse and we're gonna roll back. We're gonna rock back. Roll back and exhale right on up. And inhale, roll back and exhale right up massaging each bone as you go back. Exhale up. Try to keep your eyes on your powerless. Inhale, roll back.

Exhale one more. If you feel that you can really roll through each boat easily, hold that scoop and we're going to stay up and we're going to slide our hands now to our ankles and pull them close to our bottom. Now we're tighter as a ball yet we still need to keep that beautiful round spine. So if it's making you arch, then you should go with your hands back under your knees. But let's try this. We're going to roll back, roll through the spine, exhale right up and roll back. So you want to make sure you are really rounding down, massaging your back, and not jarring it as you go. And inhale back. Exhale up. One more time. Inhale back. Xcel right up.

Hold all your powerhouses in. Rest your feet down. Nice. Lift your bottom back so it's in the middle of the mat and then lie down. Give you a little breather. Good. All right, so I might give you a little breather in between exercises but never during the exercise. Okay. And then one day, not never during the entire mat class would be the goal. So while we're here, I want you to put your hands, I think this is very effective for you. Go ahead and keep your knees bent, feet flat, hands behind your head. Inhale, look at your belly. And exhale, pull it in more. Lift up a little bit more. Great.

Stay there and just reach your arms long like you did for the hundred k your arms are not going to be a part of the first part of this exercise. I want you to really pull in your stomach and bring the right knee almost to your ear. And then put it back down on the mat and really pull in and use it to bring your left knee in. Good. And bring it down. I don't think you guys could do more. Use your stomach to bring in your right knee. It touches your chest, it touches your ear, and it's doing it because you're contracting in your belly.

And then bring that foot down and bringing in the left. You really should feel good. Burn in that stomach and putting it down. And now you're going to pull in the right knee again. Good. Stay there and you can put your hands on it and just hug the knee to you. And look at your left thigh. Can You keep it there? But straighten the leg.

Good. And now we're going to switch legs like this. Use your stomach to pull in the left. Good and pulling in the right and pull the left. It's all from your stomach. You just got that feeling. Make your stomach burn as it pulls in your knee all the way to your ear, Shayla, all the way in, all the way into here. So we're gonna have switch.

I'll help you. So we pull in like so and switch. Good. One more. Ending on your left. Grab both ankles and rest your head down. Very nice. The double version of that. So we're gonna inhale and lift up your head to look at your belly. Exhale, pulling a little bit tighter and look in your hands. Slide down to your ankles. Great job. Look out close to your knees are to your ears. It's beautiful.

Feel how flat your lower back is. Do not let your back come off the mat as you reach your legs forward in your arms, up, and the bullet all back together. Inhale, pressing your back flat. Exhale. Good. Inhale, reach, and exhale. Keep your shoulders lifted in. How prs your back flat.

You have a solid powerhouse. Exhale. Try not to move your upper body. Inhale, lift up your arms. There you go. Exhale. One more time. Inhale, reach, and exhale. Pull in and now you get to rest your head down. Great job. Good. Alright. Single, straight leg. Inhale, lift up your head to look at your belly. Exhale to pull in a little bit tighter and coming up. Good.

Straighten both legs up to the ceiling and crawl behind your right leg, both hands as high up as you can. Good. Now if you're back in state flat, it's going to be super straight for me. Shayla straight-leg both of them. Good. If you can keep your back flat, lower the left leg as low as you can. Keep that back flat and like giant scissors. I want you to switch legs switch left and right and left and super straight and scraped the ceiling.

Don't bend the knee at all and try to hold it either behind the calf or the thigh, but never the knee. See the knee joints the weakest joint in the body. So if you grabbed behind it, it's really bad. So glad here or all the way up, up, up, up. That would be even better. Can we straighten and switch and one more set and the other one the other people will think you later. Bend the knees and rest your head. Good job. Strong, strong work. Okay, now you guys want a really long break after that one now, don't you? All right, we're going to keep your knees where they are. Place your hands behind your head and inhale, look at your head, your belly.

I mean, exhale, pull in and lift up a little bit more. Now, do not allow your upper body to move from here at all. Extend the legs up to the ceiling and take a breath. Exhale. Try to pull those straight legs towards you a little bit. Inhale, let them go as far down as you can. Keep your back flat. Exhale, pull them back up towards your inhale. Keep your belly in. Exhale, two more. Don't let your belly rise like a loaf of bread in the oven. You got to keep it in one more time. Inhale, keep your belly in. Exhale, pull it back and bend the knees and rest your head, but do not take your hands away. So bend your knees into your chest. Good. All the way into your chest.

Good, great stretch. Inhale, lift up your head. Exhale a little bit higher, and now keep your right knee exactly where it is, but extend your left leg and try now to lift your left elbow. To your right knee, twist up to it. Hold two, three and we'll switch legs right up, up to now. Keep your shoulders up. This time as we twist up up, we go to the other side. You can do it Shayla and switch and also stay up as we go the other leg.

Oh yeah, there you go. All the way in. Hug both knees into your chest. I was only gonna make you do two sets. We are all done with that one. I want you to try to make sure that the exercises are always about pulling in for you. We want to make that more solid. So as you were doing that exercise, it started getting further and further out and we want it making sure our back is secure and into the mat. Okay. Alright. Just stretching it here. We're going to sit up, alley up and your legs are gonna open and are going to work on beautiful posture. Sitting up tall, arms up at shoulder height. Go ahead, take a breath and exhale. Roll off an imaginary wall. Touch your head down to the mat. There you go. Good.

And inhale. Roll up one bone at a time. So if you're looking at yourself in the side mirror right now, you would have perfect posture. You want to pull into your back, you want to grow as tall as you can, shoulders away from yours. And now exhale down. Touch your head down to the mat, the crown of your head, down to the mat. Good, nice stretch. Inhale, use your belly to roll up one bone at a time. Beautiful. Good. And again, if you need to take an extra breath, do so and exhale down. Christie, how are you doing? I forgot about your hip flexors.

There's great and inhaling up one bone at a time. Now let's try to pull our feet back so our toes are flex and they're right over our heels. Again, big breath and exhale down. Good. Touching the crown of your head down to the mat. Nice. And inhaling up and we're gonna do one last time. Inhale up and try to process this. Exhale down.

Touch the crown of your head down to the mat, but between your thighs, not between your knees, not between your calves, but all the way between your thighs and inhaling up. Good job ladies. Good effort and rest. Candice just gave me a look. Okay, so the idea is when you go down, you don't want to be tipping your pelvis so much. You don't want to go into an anterior tilt just to get yourself down onto the mat. So you want to keep your hip bones directly over your sit bones.

So that causes you to actually go closer into yourself rather than out when you go forward. So that is the goal. All we're going to just balance for open like rocker. So I want you to have, your legs are here, right? But bring them together and pretend you're going to do another roll back that we've done somebody. So you're gonna draw your belly and you move from your center and then it's like you're just a little bit come up a little more good. It's like your feet are attached to your powerhouse and as you pull it in more they come towards you and then you're gonna put your hands on top of your ankles and balance. Now the goal is not to be super round in this exercise, but I want you to be this round until you feel that you can actually lift your chest with your stomach, not with your lower back.

You don't lift with your lower, you hold your rebellion and then you start lifting and lifting as much as you can. So let's focus on something dead ahead of us and you're going to extend your right leg as much as you can without moving the frame of your body and then draw it back in. So we have our perfect frame that we always talk about and then pulling in your belly, left leg, nothing changes and down. Now if this is really hard on our hamstrings, we can definitely grab behind her knees and then you just extend to where you can and then bad [inaudible] and left and down and extend both legs. Good. And I'm going to switch back to my ankles.

Extending both legs. Hold it there, that Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah. Bring the legs together. This one day will be your teaser apart, [inaudible] and down. One more time. Good choreography. Extend straightening those legs as straight as you can. Doesn't have to be straight legs together apart. [inaudible] and bend the knees so the feet come down again. Rest your feet down.

Very, very nice job. Good work. So that's your prep for open leg rocker. Pretty soon you're going to be rocking and rolling like that. Go ahead and lie down on your back. You have your nice flat square frame. Bend your knees into your chest. Good.

Extend the legs up to the ceiling and I want you to let the legs go towards the ocean. Go towards the ocean and now use your belly to pull them center. So we're trying to find our own obliques. We're going to go away from the ocean and we're going to find the side of our stomach muscles to pull them center. Try that one more time to the ocean and then center and away from the ocean and pull in and get every border a brack flat. Now let your legs go a little bit down and pull them back towards you with your stomach. One more, a little bit away from you and pull them back up with your belly. Good.

See if you can keep a Palabra stance as we go towards the ocean down around to your left. Dan Back Center, away from the ocean, I should say, down around towards the ocean and back center. Very nice, Chris. You're doing what you can and towards the ocean. This is not easy around pulling in and center. How are we doing? And pulling in away and you're doing a good job keeping it in your belly and your belly. Nice and that is enough. Hug your knees into your chest. Great. Sit on up. Up we go. We're working out. We are. Come on guys, straighten your legs and open them a little bit wider than your mat and not too wide. You want them just a tiny bit wider than your shoulders. And Chrissy, let me know if you need anything to sit on here and I want you to try to get perfect posture. Arms up just a little in your peripheral vision.

Don't let him go far behind you all. Thanks. And let's all twist towards the ocean twist, Huh? And exhale as you reach your pinkie to your baby toe and inhale up, rolling up through your spine, twist away from the ocean, and exhale, reaching your pinky for your baby Cho. Excellent. Inhale, lift with your stomach. Good job, Christie. Twist and exhale. Inhale up tiny way.

So you've got this tiny scarlet or Hara waist and twist, and exhale. Inhale, lift. Let's pull back those toes. We have flex feet and twists. One more set towards the ocean. And exhale, really exhale to breathing. Exercise. Inhaling up, twist away from the ocean, and exhale is your belly pulls into your back and inhaling up. Great. Relax. Yay. Okay, we're going to go ahead and lie on our side.

I want everyone to face this way. Um, I'm going to have both of you bring your head heads this way. There we go. You know what, Candace and I might have you guys switched. Do you mind switching that way? Christie can follow you. That would be great. Perfect. I'm going to bring your pillow. You might need it. We're going to lie on our side.

Stretch this arm straight on the back of the Mat. Good. No, no, no. Straight straighten it. Does that hurt? No. Okay. Keep it straight all the way. Lie on down. And then you're going to, you can use this as a pillow. There Ya go. And then your legs can come forward to the front edge of the Mat. Okay. Everyone else looks good now. Um, I gave that pillow and, and adjustment for Christy, but you don't need to have it if you don't have any upper body or neck injuries.

You go ahead and rest your head on your hand. Are you more comfortable like that Candice or can you come up? Perfect. Okay. Yeah, so it's still want to have your relatively over the other shoulder, but definitely your hip bone over the other hip bones. So we're still thinking about our box. Okay. And I love to get a lot of good work out of my legs.

So the more you move your box back and forth when we do these exercises, the last you're going to get out of your thighs. So we want to use our powerhouse to hold our box perfectly straight. We don't want our shoulders rolling forward and we don't want any arching in the lower back. Okay? We're going to try to keep that frame. This is more advanced than just being on your back because now our frames on the side and gravity is not helping us so much. So while on our side, we want to keep our frame as square and still as possible. I want you to lift the left leg up, so that's the same level as your hipbone.

And then I want to always be able to see your inner thigh. So turn out your leg so that you're showing your inner thigh and your knee is slightly towards the ceiling and your toes are slightly towards the ceiling. All right, we're going to do one slow, but then I want you to really just move. So you're gonna bring that leg forward towards your nose, trying to keep the inner thigh showing. And then take it back, but hold it right when you're straight with your body. Come back a little more, Shayla with that leg. Good. Right about right here. You need to really turn on your bottom and the hamstring and support your lower back with your stomach as you try to squeeze that leg back as far as you can back and back. Can you go any further again? Is, there we go, good without taking, get into your lower back. Beautiful.

Now let's get some tempo swing. Get follower and take it back. It should be like a pendulum and it goes forward and back and forward and back. Good and forward and back. Let's make that leg longer as it goes forward longer as it goes back and to and back and last time, forward and back. Great legs together. So again, we try to keep all those plots, principles in mind, but you also want to move.

So now we're going to keep that top hip right over the bottom up as we're going to push that leg up to the ceiling. Now up towards your ear. So push it up and then squeeze a million pounds down and up and squeeze dad and up and pull your stomach deep into your back. As you go down, give your back a stretch up and squeeze on. Use Your outer thigh to go up and really use your inner thigh to come down. And one more time and make that like longer than your bottom on. Hold it down, up. We'll do an extra one. There we go. And hold it down. So when you're down, if you made your leg longer than your bottom one, your heel will almost reach into the arch or the other foot rather than shorter. Yeah, show your inner thigh a little bit more.

And we're going to do five tiny circles. One, two, always showing your inner thigh and go the other way. A little more inner thigh. Let me see it. There you go. Good. Two, one, and rest down. Rest that leg. Very nice. All right, we're going to do some bicycle, some hard work on the bicycle. How are we doing? Good. We're going to keep our box frame nice and I want you to lift that leg back up at [inaudible] level, hip level, and show the inner thought and then make that leg longer than the bottom one. Keeping it at that level. Bring it forward to your nose as much as you can.

Use your belly to pull it up, up, up, up, hold it there, and bring your knee to your chest and your heels should be all the way on your bottom. Really bend that knee, knee to your chest, healed your bottom, bringing the heel closer in, and now you're going to bring your knee back so that the knees are together. Stay there though. Whoops, your knee is bent. We're going to bend your knee. There you go. And now we're going to take this and you can rest this hand in front to help you and we're going to hold it here. Remember your frame, secure your belly. Good job.

Now keep your heel on your seat and try to take that five back as far as you can, but don't push forward and [inaudible] here. Keep that and take it back from here. Keep it going. Keep it going. Good. Now squeeze that leg straight back there. Good, and reach it forward straight all the way up to your nose. Bend that knee to your chest. Take that knee to the other knee. Now really watch the alignment of your hips.

As you take that leg back further and further and further. Then straighten your leg behind you reach, and one more good job forward to your nose. Then that need your chest. Take that need to your knee and then watch the alignment of your hips and your belly supporting your back as you go back and then straighten the leg behind you. Reach it legs together for the reverse. We're going to squeeze that leg straight back. Good Candace. Then try to bring your heel to your bottom.

Then need a knee, knee all the way to your chest and extend it up to your nose. All right. How's that hip alignment now? All right, let's keep watching those hips. Take that leg back all the way back. Heel to your seat. Try to keep that knee back. Could bring. Bending your neighbor, you're gonna Bring your heel all the way to your bottom. Then need a knee, knee to chest and extend. Now when you extend, you're going to want to ask her more of yourself and keep that open. Okay, one more back heel to seat. Need a knee. So right here.

Let's keep this stacked as you bring your knee to your chest all the way to your chest. Now straighten it. Good job, legs together. Wonderful legs together. Good. Bring your legs back and lie down onto your belly. We'll do one exercise on your belly, on your stomach. Go ahead and make a small pillow for your forehead with your hands.

One hand over the other for your forehead. There you go. Good. All right, so now we have flipped over our frame onto our stomach and gravity is going to be wanting to pool our belly down to the floor, but I want you to pull it up off the mat and support your lower back. Really be aware of your lower back because we're going to lift our legs up in a second and you can really use your lower back to lift your legs or you can use the muscles that you want to use, which is your hamstrings and bottom. I do this too every time Candace, but sorry. There we go. All right, so we're going to squeeze. Press our hips together, support our lower back with our stomach and lift those legs up as high as you can. Good. High Up. There we go. Now I want you to open those legs about the width of the mat and then squeeze your inner thighs all the way together.

How close can you get those legs together together for me, Shayla, all the way together. There we go. Open the legs towards the Mat and then squeezes likes all the way together. No light between your inner thighs. Now do the same thing, but at 20 times a tempo. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 Tim. Or get those thighs up. Canis three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 and lower down. Nice job. Everybody's swing your, um, I want you to actually round your back and sit back onto your heels, pushing up with your arms. Here we go. There you are. God. [inaudible] and we're gonna flip around so our backs are still to the ocean, but our feet are pointing the other way.

So let's go ahead and turn the other way. That's it. Perfect lining up. So your guy's going to be resting your head on your hand at set for you, Christie. I'm going to help you with that pillow. Okay? Go ahead and lift up your head. Stretch your on that. [inaudible]. How's that? Good. Okay. Bring your feet forward to the front edge. Good.

And you have very nice frames. Good, Nice Square frame. Lift up the right leg up at hip level. Beautiful, nice turnout. And we're going to try to keep this perfectly still as we bring it slowly forward for one, all the way forward to your nose. How Muse your belly to pull it up. More up, up, up, and now take it back slowly as you go back. Don't let yourself hide the inner thigh all the way back, all the way back.

Now watch this. Don't start using your lower back. Use these muscles and said go back further. Take the leg back behind you further that way towards the ocean. But Watch you see how much we rolled here. So when you go back, keep this here, keep this here and just take, use these muscles are it to tempo.

Go forward and back and forward. This is your hard side, Candice, and back and forward and back and forward. This is right on top and hold. That's it. Bring this elbow back. You're stacked up beautifully. Right? And forward and back. And one more. It's cause this hamstring's been so injured and legs together. Yeah.

So this hamstring has a hard time, right? So yeah, that's the only reason why you don't feel centered when I hold you. Is that all right if I hold you good. All right. So we're going to now lift this leg up just a little bit and we're going to take it up towards your ear and then squeeze down as if you're pushing me down. Good. And the hips stay stacked as you go up and squeeze down and up and we're going to make sure we're not hiding our inner thigh and make sure we can see it and push it up and we can see it. That's it. And last, I remember we're making that leg longer than our bottom one and hold.

Let's see if we can keep it down and working. And five little circles. One, two, three, four and reverse it. One, two, three, four, five and rest it down for a moment. Are you okay with my bottom and your face here? Okay, nice. Thanks. Very, very polite of you. Alright, we're going to keep our box nice and square and we're going to lift up the leg just a hip level again and we're going to bring it forward to our nose for bicycle forward needier chest and then align your knees to take that bent knee back. Now here, Candice, just go back as far as you can. It doesn't need to be big but does need to be right. And then straighten your leg behind you. That's perfect. Forward to your nose. Straight leg. Bend the knee into your chest.

Take the knee back so the knees are aligned. Then take the need back further and then straighten it back. Good. And one more forward to your nose. Bend the knee to your chest. Good. Take the knee back so the knees are aligned and keep going back as far as you can and straightened behind you legs. Together. We're going to go the reverse.

Take the leg back, working from here. Bend the knee, bringing the heel to your seat, but bring the heel to your seat. There we go. Work, work, work, work. Need a knee. Need a chest and straighten the leg. Wonderful. Taken it back. Try to keep all of this stack. Take it back, back, back. He'd gone. Beautiful heel to your see. Need a knee. Need a chest. Use your belly to pull it up and all the way straight. Last one, taken it back from here and then healed a seat. Need a knee. Need a chest and extend straight legs together.

Great job. All right, go ahead and lie on you too. I want you to swing your legs towards them. Go ahead and lie on your backs. Bend your knees into your chest, hug them. Take a tiny break. Here's my little allowance for your little break because we're going to sneak in some teasers and seal. Now to finish. Really Nice job.

Okay. Use those legs to go ahead and swing up and sit up. Go ahead. And you're going to do all of them too, but not as far drill. Do all of them. Okay, we're gonna put your hands under your knees. Good. And I want you to round your back again. Draw your belly and roll back your waistband.

Go all the way down until your head touches for you, just your waistband. And then exhale full. And then take a breath and exhale forward. Pull me all the point of no return, and then take a breath and exhale. So you're rolling down one bone at a time and take a breath to come up again. We're trying not to pause when we get down there. Good.

Now pull back into a c curve. Great job. Good. Stay there. Now keep your thighs together. I want you to pull back your body a little bit more. Oh dear. It's in like me holding your feet down. See how your thighs are at the same level. Yeah, and your knees are same level.

Keep them that way. Just up Candice. I would, I would actually everybody bring your feet into your a little bit more so your knees are a little higher. There you go. Okay. And now straightened just the right leg. Keeping your thighs together, keeping your knees together straight and your right legs. You got to lift it a little. There we go. And now, oh, what happened to your thighs? They're not the same height anymore. Make them same height and we're going to roll down your body. Go away from that leg and inhale.

Head up and exhale. Right on a beautiful, and again, you got it. And rolling down you had before and exhale back up. Hold. Let me see that. Control, that precision. Beautiful. Rest that right foot down. Easy as can be. And extend the left leg. Voila. Good. And again, rolling down. Beautiful.

That's what I want to say, Christie and come back up. Good. Do another one like that. Excellent. And Rolling back. [inaudible] Nice, strong, and exhale back up and holds Dana's c curve. And you're gonna extend both legs and we're going to roll back and your hands your hands and roll back just a tiny bit and come back up. Yeah. And Roll back as far as you can ladies and XL back up. And we're going to do one more. Transitioning into seal.

Inhale a little bit back and exhale all the way up. You know, once you're up, back up everybody up. Bend your knees apart and put your hands under your ankles. That's right. There we go. Good Hoo, Hoo. Almost pull back up. We got it. That's it. And now I'm Shayla. Drop them through your legs. Bring your arms together. Yes. Down and under. Yes.

Perfect. And now we're going to clap three times. One, two, three. Inhale, roll back. That's a right on up and hold and clap. Two, three. Inhale, roll back. And exhale, roll up. Very nice. And inhale, roll back. Really pull your stomach in. When you balance up here and you look at your belly while you clap and inhale, roll back and exhale up.

And one more time. Inhale, roll back. Exhale up. Hold and rest down your feet. Very, very nice. I want you to everyone to stand up. Good. Good. And I want you to uh, yeah. Let's walk to the back edge of our mat. I'm gonna take your pillow for you. Good. We are going to finish with somewhat of pushups but not really.

Not really the kind of, okay. So he plotty stance. Heels are together, toes are apart. Good. That's it. And you want the weight of your body, not back on your heels. You want the weight of your body forward onto the balls of your feet so that you can lift up your heels easy. Okay. Looks very, very nice. Good.

You want your shoulders so that you basically your want your knees a little bit in front of your ankles. Side profile would be better. Um, your hip bones, a little bit in front of your knees and your shoulders, a little bit in front of your hip bones and definitely your head in alignment with that. Not forward, but pulled up in alignment stomach. Nice and in and out. Good. I'm able to give you pushups for now cause you guys did such a rock and Matt, you did really, really good. So we're gonna. What I wanna do is see you hold a nice pushup position. So let's reach your arms up to the ceiling and really pull your belly in because we're going to try not to stick our bottom behind us as we roll off an imaginary wall.

So use your belly to hold your bottom right where it is and roll forward off an imaginary wall. When your hamstrings start screaming, you can bend your knees if you need to to put your hands down on the mat and then just stay there with your hands down on the mat. Good. I've talked a lot about your frame. Let's keep your frame square as you walk out into a pushup position. So walk your hands forward until you're in a pushup position. Good. So think about your shoulders. Think straight line, your bottom, your hip, staying in the straight line. And that's a little too forward for you. Michelle.

Take it back a little bit. [inaudible] and you're going to have your shoulders right over your hands. And now squeeze your bottom down. So you're a straight line from your head. Almost. Squeeze it. Squeeze your bottom. There you go. Can you come down Shayla with your boss? Your bottom. There you go. Squeeze.

Excellent. Pull your belly in. And now lift bottom back up and walk back to your feet. That was really good. And Roll up and imaginary wall and reach for the ceiling once you're up. What was that, Christie? Never done that before. I know.

Pushing you guys past your boundaries, heels here. And it seems so easy to seeing somebody else getting a push up position until you get into it, right? Cause you guys are doing it with much better form and now you're going to roll off an imaginary wall again. Good. And I want you to just go out and feel yourself in that position again. So walk out into a pushup.

Okay? Your hands should be directly underneath your shoulders. Your belly is really supporting your lower back and you're squeezing your bottom. Very nice, Candace. Good. That's it. Squeeze and good support. Beautiful. We didn't come down until push up. Ah, you're almost there. Get down. Squeeze.

I have faith in you, Michelle. And then come back up, pulling back up. Good. And now round on up an imaginary wall. God round all the way up. Good. And I want you to take a deep breath and exhale as you reach to the ceiling. Okay? Pull your belly in as you're exhaling. Turn your palms out, palms out. Good. And I want you to inhale as you push the earth down, away from you, lifting in your powerhouse and exhale, growing even taller. Try to keep the weight more on the balls of your feet.

Watch the hyper extended knees and you are all finished. Really Nice job. Good job. Good job. You can't move in the whole time.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Brilliant ques especially for the open leg rocker prep- 'lift the chest with the stomach not with the low back'
love the workout...do you have tips for holding my head off the mat without tention? My neck gets stiff and hurts if I hold my head up more than a few seconds...any tips?
Enjoyed the class, also loved the cue of lifting the chest with the stomach. But, my neck really gets sore if I don't hold it with my hands. Can you comment on protecting the neck during upper body lifts. I am working as hard as I can in the core it doesn't seem to help. Thanks
This was so nice, I'm going to do this again for my morning wake up routine.
ditto as above, lovely class, great cues for alignment, lots of information.
however a lot of lifting the head and neck gets tired. aware that this needs building on, but more levels options for neck would be good. wouldnt class this as level 1 though for this reason. otherwise fab really enjoyed it.thanks.
Nice class. I combat the neck fatigue by choosing to support my neck with one hand in certain poses. It doesn't work for all of them - but it helps.
I'm sold on Monica as a teacher. I'm in my trial period and will be staying with Pilates anytime due to her excellent teaching.
i feel good! thanks a lot
Laurence Brown
Excellent Class, It really helps me build my power house. Helps my breathing also. My body can really feel it when i am finished.
Monica Wilson
Hi Laurence, I am so glad to hear your body feels great after this class! I hope the breathing emphasis helps you to stay well and that you come out of this home stay period to stronger then ever.  Blessings, Monica
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