Confidence Building Mat

Hi, everybody. It's Amy havens here at Pilates anytime of course. Look at that. Look at look at that back there. Isn't that crazy? How beautiful it is? I'm so blessed. So we are here to do I am here to do with you a basic mat class with a magic circle. And when I was a very young teacher in learning, we had this, class called the basic eight, eight exercises of the beginning level mat.

And sometimes in an hour class, we would repeat those eight exercises three or four times because repetition is where we learn. Right? So those basic eight doing one rep one round of it through full hour was also an approach. Or doing all those eight three or four times. And or sometimes adding a prop to those basic eight, which is what I'm gonna do. It's fun. It's a great way to look at the the work. And again, repetition is where we learn. Right?

Our it's motor learning, our brain loves repetition. And then when you add an element or a prop in our world, that has a clear intention to support the basic exercise It's like learning galore. It's amazing. So, all props have intention, don't they? So when we use the magic circle today, we're talking about how it connects us to our midline, the chest and arm muscles, that inner thighs, the back of the legs, the core strength, the dust stability, which sometimes can be challenging to feel open chain and without, the prop. So if you are a beginner or if you're not a beginner, but whoever, experience it, play with it. If you're really, really used to mat work and you already know what the magic circle feels like, I think you know what's coming.

But if you're brand new and beginning, welcome first and foremost and have fun, and you're gonna see how The basic aid exercises really will feel different and may be more meaningful for you with the prop. And then eventually we take the prop away, and we hopefully we retain what we felt with that prop. So we could do mat work in the park without any prop at all. Okay. So that's the idea. Let's gonna come on down. And we are gonna start, of course, with some breathing.

So lay your lie your body down. You can put your arms at a place that feels comfortable, everybody. Take a few deep breaths and we are gonna have a good level pelvis, ASIS, bumpy hip bones nice and level, sink your back into the mat without having to adjust your hips. Feel the breath, feel your torso. And the exhale may be right away feeling the energy gets deeper, collected in your center. Take a deep breath.

I want you to really feel like you're expanding your ribs three sixty. And your exhale closing three sixty. Okay. Couple more times. And exhaling which you more. One of our principles is centering.

I think the breath is really about that centering. It can also be alignment and centering that way, but I choose to think about it from the coming in perspective. Okay. Walk your knees together. Bring your legs to your chest. I want you to press your hands on your shins.

Pick up your head and your chest. So we're gonna go right away into the 100. I'm gonna break it down into two sets of 50 pumps. I'm going right for the full form, which is legs up, heels together toes apart. We're gonna pump. In, two, three, four, five, x.

One, two, three, four, five, x. Squeezing your legs together using your adductors. We're using the back of the legs to wrap a little bit around the back. We want to increase our circulation. Lift your arms a little higher.

Fifty two three four five exhale three four five, take a quick rest. Sometimes that gets the neck a little funky. We're gonna go take up the second set. You could always lower your legs. I'm gonna keep mine right here and six, two, 3, four, five, So we wanna press the legs toward the midline.

We wanna get some heat stretch of the legs. Ten, two, three, four, five, exhale, three, four, five. Hug it in. Roll yourself up. Take your arms forward. Reach over your legs.

My knees are bent to begin. Let's do a little roll back. We're gonna go halfway back everybody. Now I want you to roll just onto your sacrum, the which is the base of your spine. Pause when you're there.

Take a breath. Pull your stomach in and bring yourself forward up and over your thighs. Again, rolling back just to your sacrum. So the pelvis has to roll backward off of those thighs. Hold yourself on your sacrum and round forward. I want you to think of lifting your low back up, your stomach up, and over your thighs.

One more like this rounding under. Arms have energy reaching forward. Go back under that sacrum pause. And then lift yourself up and round over. Now, roll yourself all the way down this time.

For a real roll up, we'll see what we do. Arms come to the ceiling, head and chest come up. You may want to kick your legs a little bit forward. That is completely fine to do, stretch up and over your side. Rolling all the way back, feel free to bend your knees along the way I will show that.

So the roll up is about mobility, right, strength of the center, mobilization of your back. We all have the ability to mobilize and get strong, and this mat work is such a wonderful place to gain those skills. Let's go one more. Arms, head, neck, and shoulders. It's okay to keep those legs a little forward and rounding forward.

We're gonna take ourself back and work into our single leg circle. Okay? So single leg circle, bicycle one leg up to the ceiling. Take the leg that's, ideally we're working for a straight knee, externally rotate this leg, and the other leg, everybody, keep it strong on the mat with a flexed foot. Push it down into the mat. I want you to feel that hip working and your shoulders stable. Here we go. Five circles.

We cross the midline a little, circle around and center. So we all kind of know the size of the magic circle. I'm I'm kind of just drawing that size of that circle in my socket and also feeling the back of my socket in the mat. Let's go the other way. So you could also think, wow, the circle is happening in the back of the hip socket.

We want to feel the femur come into the socket, femur into the socket, the back of the socket on the mat, and very firm. You will feel your core. Alright. That was five and five. Bicycle it down. Bicycle the other one up.

So take a moment. This leg is straight, external rotation, other leg is ankle flexed. This hip is active. Ready. Pull the femur into the socket. We're stable here. Cross.

Down around and center. Visualize the size of that magic circle in your hip socket, or the movement is about that size. It doesn't have to be big at this level. Okay. Reverse. Feel how nice and stable your pelvis is, the platform for your movement, last two, and last one and bicycle that leg down.

And then I want you to bring both legs in, hug yourself, and we're gonna rock ourself all the way up. Now, in the mat work, we're gonna move next into the, rolling like a ball. Alright. Bring your hips forward toward your sitting bones. Place your hands on your ankles and visualize for a moment yourself like a little marble that's gonna roll back and forth on the mat very easy. Right, and playful, and that's you. My colors of my clothes are like a marble.

I want you to pick up your feet and just balance. How'd that go? Place them back down. Try rolling your hips back without picking up your feet. Did that feel better?

Let's try each one again. Try to pick up your feet and roll your pelvis back a little. It's a little bit trickier to do. Let's put the feet down and then roll the pelvis back from there. Either one is fine.

And if you're gonna see me put my feet on the floor when I come back up out of the roll, The idea is to stay stable in this curve and feel those low stomach muscles, pull in and back. We roll with that. Place your feet with control. Roll. Come up, place your feet with control. See how you're staying in that round shape.

Keep the flow going now. Three more. You can challenge yourself to keep your feet lifted like I'm showing there last time, and then every one he pause at the top. Okay. Slowly roll yourself down. We're gonna move into a single leg stretch.

Bring your knees to your chest first, open the knees, hands on shins, and just press down. Take a deep breath, Exale, raise your head and your chest up, and then close those knees together. One leg to the ceiling, the other hand's on your shin. Now, I do like to have the hands in the the outside hand on the low ankle. And the other hand on the top of the knee and shin. If that gets too confusing, just put them on your shin. Okay? But the top leg now, let's give it a little pull and a pull.

Change and pull and a pull. So the straight leg, see how it's on an upward diagonal, an upward diagonal. Our back is flat. The abdominals are deeply engaged. Four more, and pull and pull, single leg stretch.

Pull and pull and pull, tuck both knees in and place your head down. Take the breath. Xhale, blow that air out. Come on up. We're gonna do our double leg stretch. So I want your knees wide.

Lakes will come up to that same diagonal, glue them together and put your hands on your thighs and bring yourself to your center, and then close it back down. Let's take a breath. And, so, breathe it out, stretch, press your hands against your thighs. Come into your center, and come back in. One more of that variation or version, press the one unit. Come on in and lower your head down.

Now, we're gonna do another layer with that with the arms moving. The arms are gonna go back and then around in a circle, but you're staying connected into your center. Inhale, exhale raise your chest. So we start the same way and we take hands to legs. Now arms by ears, circle and close. The goal is to stay lifted.

Stay in your contraction of the abdominals, and your back is on the flat, on the mat. One more. Hold. By the ears, around, and everybody take it down. Hands behind your thighs, rolling up to sitting. For spine stretch forward, place your hands on the mat, lift your hips back sitting up tall and stretch your legs out.

Alright. Arms forward. Imagine sitting right up against a wall ankles flexed and that your sitting bones are just pinned into the floor, and your pelvis is also right up on top of those sit bones pinned in. The work is about stretching the spine. Forward. Take your breath.

But I want to lift my back up that imaginary wall and peel off the imaginary wall without coming off my pelvis because my pelvis was pinned on the mat. But I do wanna stretch myself forward. We roll back up to sitting, ankle stay flexed. Your shoulders come down. And again, so lifting. Now, lifting your spine up.

Like there's a wall behind you. You're sliding your ribs up that wall and you're trying to flex and bend and stretch forward. Rolling up your shoulders will slide down. One more like this, lift. You have to imagine one more thing for me.

What about the legs? Give them a a little energy toward the midline. Don't move them to the midline, but as if you had a big magic circle, between your ankles, you're gonna see that in a minute, and that you're using we have one more actually. Let's go for it. That that whole connection to the center, your stomach, your waist, your legs, bending up and over that spine gaining more mobility, and then roll all the way up. Okay.

One more in the basic eight. We're gonna come back down and work a bridging, a shoulder bridge. Okay. Later in your mat practice, legs will be together in shoulder bridge. Very challenging.

Right now, we're gonna have our legs separated, heels in line with sitting bones, arms by side, remember how we had a stable torso for shoulder, the circles. It's the same thing here. Now, I want everyone just simply lift your hips up and set your hips down. You could articulate, but I'm just gonna ask us to go right up and right back down. One more. Lift back up. Okay. This is challenging.

Probably the hardest one in the basic eight. Press your arms into the mat, please. Pick up one leg right above your hip. Flex it and move it up and down a little bit. We are not doing big movement.

I want you to feel stable. Down and up. Later it can be bigger. You're teaching your body stability. Now change legs. You may need to rejuge the pelvis.

Sometimes it drops. Take the opposite leg up. Flex the ankle. It's going up over you a little, down a little, up over you a little, keep the frame of your shoulders actively pressing down. The standing leg actively pressing you up And the inner thigh, like it's pressing toward the midline, and then everyone plus your foot down, I want you to roll down now. We have one more part to that.

Please take a breath. This time, roll yourself up. Press your arms down, get on the karate chop side of your hand, press down to activate more of your upper back, and one more leg we're holding for three counts. Two, one, and press it down. Second leg, and imagine the magic circle in your hands and you're squeezing it. That's coming next.

One more each leg. Press squeeze an imaginary circle in between your hands, last time. And then we're gonna put all of those images to work, but we need to roll down, articulated bridge, My spine just did a decompression sound. I love it. Hug your knees. Ready to grab the circle. I'm gonna Alright. Where does the circle go?

It can go in lots of places. We're gonna place it right between those ankles. Get centered. Now, even here, please squeeze the circle with your inner thighs. The sense that both legs are coming to the midline, stretch your arms breathe in. Lift the head, neck, and shoulders, extend those legs, pump your arms.

I have a light activation of my legs to the circle. You can increase the activation of your legs if you wish. 50. Please come down. We'll take another set.

Breathing in, press, connect to the center. That's your abdominals, pelvis to the midline, legs to the midline, and Concentrate on that connection to the midline. Three. One more cycle. Very, very nice, everybody. Now, before we roll up for the roll up, stay down, bend your knees, place your hands on your circle.

Bring the circle above your chest first. Press the circle with your arms. Take your arms overhead without arching your back. We're just gonna do the sit up part. Press your arms firmly into the circle, pick up your head and chest.

And as if you're reaching up toward your knees, and lower yourself down. It's not as if you really are. You're reaching the ring towards your knees. Reach. Now on the next one, let's see if we can get a little bit of a roll up.

Remember, it's okay if you need to kick your legs a little bit. Completely fine. Round forward. Press the circle. Press your legs with the intention we're getting into the center of the body.

I want you to get onto your sacrum, hold. Come forward. Crown of head towards your circle. Two more like that. See if you can keep the connection of arms to circle, center of body in and back, and round forward.

One more, and then it's time for single leg circle. We're gonna go all the way back from there. Okay? Single leg circle. You have choices. One of the choices.

Keep the circle in your arms and hands. Press it. Bicycle one leg up to the ceiling. External rotation and flex the bottom ankle. This upper body is stationary while the lower half is also stationary on the pelvis and leg, but then you have the mobility.

Feel centered. Feel stable. Ready? Cross. Down around up. Can you keep the bottom leg glute active? Can you keep pushing your leg into the mat?

Stable pelvis. One more and squeeze the arm bones to the center of the ring, hold other way. It's amazing what a little prop can do for a connection. And leader, like I said, when you take the prop away, your body remembers these elements, okay, bicycle, bring it up. That leg is a little turned out. Bottom ankle is flexed and press that leg down.

Stable upper body, cross, down around and up. Cross, don't make it too big. Focus on your strength and stability. With this one place that's in motion, other direction for five, concentration. Control, centering, precision, fluid, movement, all part of our principles. Oh, take a little rest.

Come on up. Now, this next one's tough. We're going rolling like a ball. Here's what I have planned. I want you to put your heels on the circle and the other pad of the circle on the back of your thighs. Okay. Now, squeeze your heels. I should say it this way. Pull your heels into the circle.

I'm holding on the outside edges so it won't go out of my legs. Contract your deepest abdominals, everybody. Try to roll again off of the sit bones to the back of the sitting bones and now add more heels towards sit bones. That should deepen things. Come up of it a little bit.

Breathe. Go again. Start from the inside of you. Pull in and back. Then out of you, the heels coming to the sitting bones. My body wanted a balance.

I'm gonna let it. That's what it said. Try it balance, see me. See, the connection made it happen. Place the feet and lift.

Couple more. That could be the way you do the rolling like a ball with this prop, this first go around. Okay. Let's add on. Stay looking down. Roll. Try to keep your heels coming to your sitting bones. If you wanna place your feet fine, If you don't need to, try not to. Heels to sitting bones.

Come on. Heels to sitting bones. There they go one more. It's a tough way to do this exercise. Is everybody? We did it. We did it.

And let it go. Hold it in your hands. Roll yourself down for single leg stretch and double leg stretch. I want you to bring your knees to your chest first. Raise the ring above your chest, arms actively held in, take a breath, held in toward the center, head and chest come up.

So we did it earlier, extended one leg to the diagonal. No, your hands, I want you to reach your hands to the long leg, your ring to the long leg and change and change. Reach the ideas that we're bringing the chest toward the legs arms actively to the center, stomach to the center, you get the idea for four more. Three two One tuck that other knee in and rest, double leg stretch. I want you to put the ring between your ankles.

We're gonna do a few versions of this double leg stretch. Like we did without the prop, the first part you'll take your hands and just reach them to your thighs. Deep breathe in. Before we come up, ab, activate your legs to the ring. Feel how your seat has to engage.

Your inner thighs engage. Here we go now. Bring it up. Hands the thighs. That's the double a.

Come back in, not keeping your head up. And again, squeeze the circle, engage your legs. Bring it in one more that way to your midline. Now take the ring out of the ankles, put it in your hands, put your head down. Put it back between.

We're gonna do a little coordination. Take a breath, up you go. Now, hold the body design, bend the knees, take that ring in your hands, reach it behind you, legs forward, bring it to your ankles, bring your head back down. Two more patterns. Up we go. Hands on thighs. Bend the knees.

Reach for that circle. Arms and legs extend. Come back. Give yourself a little rest. One more.

Are you engaging the circle? Try to try to engage and close its legs to the midline back in the middle of the thighs and come all the way down. Take it away, rock yourself up, We're going for spine stretch forward two ways, stack your circle. It's tall. You're against that imaginary wall.

Hands are side by side. Ankles flexed, shoulders are easy and down, breathing in. We could push with the arms. You can use your arms a little. I want you to bend your spine a lot.

The bend of the spine is gonna put pressure on the circle. Yes. Your arms are helping, but it's the idea of rounding forward. Bend. Squeeze the air out of the lungs as he said. Inhale, bring it back in.

Again, and get rid of that air. Bring it back in. One more like this. Breathe out. So you're lifting the back up that imaginary wall.

Okay. Now let's put it between the ankles so that you can feel the relationship of how the legs engage to the center, how that helps the hips get ready for some harder things next time that in that we really need this connection. Basicate really builds all of it up. Arms are out, engage your legs to the midline. Hopefully you're feeling a little more something. Right? I feel like I want you to cue, lift your hips up, lift your spine up.

Do you see how I'm sitting a little taller? Thank you magic circle, and round over. Oh, There's my missing inch. Thank you magic circle. Thank you Pilates, and round up. So it wouldn't have happened really without the resistance here.

I have to work against it and really use it. There I go up and over, up and over, up and over. My sit bones are pinned into that mat. I can go a little more. One more.

Use those legs. Bring them in the middle. Bring your stomach to the middle. Grow up that wall. And up and over. Up and over.

Up and over. Shoulder bridge. Oh, You're gonna love it. Okay. Come on down. Two ways. We're putting in between the inner thighs. Like I said, shoulder bridge later, we do it with legs together.

We need to build strength in order to have that happen. Okay? We're doing it in basic eight. So we're taking a breath. Sholders are centered. Back is engaged on the mat.

Engage your legs to the center just a little bit. Lift your hips. We've done these for years. Right? Take a breath. I want you to press the circle with your legs. Three hold count for hold.

One for three. Two, three, undo that engagement. We'll do a total of five. Hold for three, two, one, control the release. Your arms are a bit of a platform, everybody. Your upper back is like a platform.

It's stable. You're gonna need that later. You need it now. Press one, two, three, let it go. Last two. This is preparing for when those legs actually do come to center Now there's one more option.

We're going to set the hips down. I prepped you for it. You're going to put this in your hands. Lift your hips. If you would like to try legs closer together, be my guest. You can also have them where they were a minute ago, heels in line with sit bones.

Raise your hips, place this on the mat, place your hands on the pad, and press in. You should feel a very empowered sense of upper body, exercise and strength and stability for the leg up, flex, little up and down, little up and down. Are you pressing that circle? It's very hard to do. Three more. Do more.

Last one and step down. You may have to relift your hips. Press your circle, lift your thigh, and over, and down. Over and down. Three, four, I did six, Five pinky finger pressing that circle, and step down. Now, I want everyone to take it away, put it in your hands, roll your spine down.

Massage your spine down. Ben your elbows rock yourself up. Amazing. How do you feel? I'm a sweaty mess. I hope you had a good time. I hope you see how you can add a prop that has clear intention to build your regular mat practice with a little more zest and bigger.

I'll see you next time.