Class #680

Movement Awareness

45 min - Class
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"Squeeze the juice out of every exercise" with this class taught by Monica Wilson. Monica takes the time to prepare each exercise and helps you become aware of all the ways you can focus on lengthening throughout each movement.
What You'll Need: Mat

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Today we're going to focus on lengthening, or I prefer to say squeezing the juice out of every exercise. Okay. So we'll stick to a basic intermediate format, but we're gonna really take a moment to not tense every muscle, but instead use those muscles you're going to engage them to lengthen. And that's really, really tough because when, especially when for feeling stiff after a weekend, so maybe we'll do a little bit of stretching to start off. But then afterwards, I really love to get us to dig a little deeper and get a little taller or lengthen those legs a little bit more. So I suppose you'll need to wait for my queuing a little bit. Instead of thinking we're moving right onto the next exercise, maybe holding that for just a tiny bit longer and seeing how much more juice we can squeeze out of the exercise.

So really taking it to what Palladio's is instead of just regular workout exercise. Okay. So let's go ahead and lie down. Taking the full length of your mat and just stretch. And I love to start off reaching your arms one way and your toes the other. So you can reach your arms up and stretch, beautiful and really feel like all the energy is going out your fingertips and all the energy is going out your toes and stretch. And you can even like move one arm more than the other.

Lengthening them out and lengthening the legs. Exactly. This is the only time that I allow you to reach out of your center, out of your powerhouse. And now I want you to pull it all back in by inhaling up to the ceiling and here thinking about your back and exhale, imprinting it onto the mat as you bring your arms down by your side. Great. Let's go ahead and stretch a little bit by bending the knees and placing the feet flat on the mat and bend the right knee into your chest and give it a hug. Great. Good.

And then put that foot down and then we're going to bring in the left knee and put that foot down and we'll move on to stretching the back of our legs. So I want you to pull in your right knee to your chest and then straighten your leg up to the ceiling and try to turn it up just a little bit and stretch behind either your hamstring or your cap to give yourself a good stretch, however it feels good and breathe with that. Squeezing the juice out of the exercises requires a lot of breathing. So instead of holding your breath and the exercise you want to give yourself a moment to just breathe, relax, relaxing the shoulders, relax in the spine, and allowing yourself to stretch and then hug that knee into your chest. And let's do the same thing with the left leg.

So we're going to bring in the left and extend the leg up to the ceiling and a little bit of a turnout and stretch and even point and flex and let that foot and or circle the angle. Just let yourself really warm up there. Great. And hug that knee into your chest. Good. And then put the foot down. So most of the ladies is working the whole body. Sometimes our upper body is going to be working. Sometimes our lower body, I should say, sometimes the upper buy's going to be moving and sometimes it's your lower body or sometimes it's both, but that doesn't mean the other part is not working.

So right now I want to really isolate the pelvis and I want you to pretend your pelvis is a bowl of soup and you're going to dump it into your chest. So you're just tilting your pelvis towards you as much as you can and you feel that the lower back is really flat. And then I want you to dump that bowl of soup out. So go ahead and stretch it out and a little mouse can crawl under your back. Great.

Really stretching and I want you to pull your stomach in to bring that bowl suit back into your chest. Great. And I'm doing this just to give you some awareness of what your pelvis is doing and when your legs are reaching out long away from your center, I want you to have some hold with your powerhouse, with your stomach of your pelvis instead of letting that go completely. And using your back and going to go ahead and dump it out completely. So this would be completely letting go. Keep going more and more. There you go, completely letting go. It's more of a lower back stretch and you're not really able to engage your stomach.

Maybe you can find somewhere halfway between now where your bowl of soup isn't completely dumping into your chest, but if you do need to tilt a little bit more so that your lower back is flat, that's what I would like. I'd rather you not be in halfway land if you can't get your back flat, trying to use your stomach and your bottom to get there. All right, let's talk a little bit about your ribs. Those are the hardest to relax. So let's take a big breath and exhale, and as you inhale, it's like your bottom of your shoulder blades or your bra strap float up and as you exhale, it really presses those vertebras down into the mat and you become seamless. Very nice in with the air and exhale. Good. Keep doing that. So I talked about how when you lengthen your legs away, you're going to be thinking a lot about your pelvis.

But when you lengthen your upper body, your arms away from your powerhouse, I want you to think a lot about your ribs. If you're disconnected with your ribs, you won't be able to squeeze more out of the exercise. So you want to be able to exhale. Feel those. Now think about those shoulders. Let's do a little bit of shoulder rolls. Just circling them up and down. Good. And so that you're aware of, okay, by no where my shoulder blades are and how they're circling.

Maybe go the other way. Circling forward around. Good. And then let's go one more the other way. So they're going to go up by your ears, back into the mat and down by your tailbone. And then keep them there and see if you can connect your shoulder blades that are lengthening down towards your tail bone. Connect those to your ribs. So make it a solid connection. Okay, so if we inhale up to the ceiling with our arms floating up, when you exhale, I want you to feel the power of as you drop your ribs into the mat and there's some strength there.

Inhaling up and now stay there and drop your ribs as you start to exhale, but reach far behind you as far back without releasing all of that great, long through the fingertips, little bit more connection in the ribs. There you go. Inhaling up to the ceiling and exhaling back down. Really think of Nice, beautiful, open clavicle. Collarbones. Inhaling up good and Xcel. Drop down those ribs, connecting your center more. No puffing out your belly. And then inhaling up to the ceiling and exhale back down.

Really angering. Great. We're going to leave your arms down and bring your right knee into your chest. Thinking about that waistband. Extend the leg up to the ceiling. Good. And now I want you to keep your lower back anchored on the mat with your powerhouse and reach. The leg is high up to the ceiling as you can, and then sweep it down towards the floor keeping how low can you go with your back? Staying flat and then reset leg longer out of the hip as it comes up. Beautiful. Helen to more reaching out.

So your upper body is working hard to stabilize and come up, but your leg is really working long. Lengthen. One more time. Really try not to take over with the quadricep and up a feeling the rest of your thigh muscles and hug the knee into your chest. And we're going to do that with the left leg. So put the right leg down, hugging that left knee, straighten the leg up to the ceiling and you're going to now keep your lower back anchor. Turn it out just a tiny bit more in length and up to the ceiling and reach away from your strong powerhouse that's working to keep your back flat and pull it up so the leg shouldn't feel stiff instead of just feel like it's engaging your muscles, the length and out, and you're pulling it back up from your stomach. One more time. Pulling it up and hugging that knee. That was great.

Bring in the right knee as well. Great. Think about your ribs. Engage them in. Lift your head up as you inhale. Exhale, keep your shoulder blades down, but lengthen your arms really long by your side. Great. Now think about your lower back. Is it anchored? If so, I want you to extend your legs where you can keep pulling in your belly turnout. Those legs. You can squeeze your seat and let's pump. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. Good. Inhale, two, three, four, five XL.

I want the bottom of your shoulder blades touching the mat to come back a little bit more. There you go. Good. This guy down. There we go deep. Both of these bones need to touch the map you to fall. That's it. And exhale. So your whole center is seeing really anchored while you're working on an upper curve in your back. You're really reaching those legs. Yeah, out long, long, long, good. Big Breath. And exhale polling in. Think about reaching those legs. How long can you make them turn them out?

How long? Oh, that's beautiful. That's what you're going for. You're trying to get a little more out of the a hundred today by really reaching your legs long, long, long. We're going to do one more set, a big inhale, big exhale, reaching the arms, long legs long and hug in the knees to your chest. Beautiful. Hug them. Good, and I want you to go ahead and sit up. Bend the knees. Feet are flat. Good. We're gonna feet, knees together, feet together. Round your back. Okay. Rounded as round as you can get it. Keeping actually your shoulders right over your heels. Hips. Good.

And I want you to try to stretch your lower back as much as you can. By rolling back your waist bend, your legs will stay there. You're going to roll back your waistband onto the mat. Great. All the way down to your waistband. Once it touches, take a big breath and exhale. Pull your belly into your back to come forward. Really opening up the spine.

Nice. We're going to go down to your bra strap and take a breath and exhale. Pull back your belly and really take one down. At a time. That's how you're going to squeeze the juice out of this exercise. Go all the way down to your bra strap all the way there. Take a breath, squeeze with your bottom and exhale, pull in and try to lift one bone at a time.

That is fabulous. Great stretching and again, pulling back. We're going to go all the way down to your head. Scoop it in so you want to get this bone, this bone, this bone. That is wonderful. Keep it going. Good. Stretching all the way down to your head. Take a breath as you lift your head and look at your belly and really think one bone at a time. I'm not going to lift every bone up off my back.

I'm going to let him one up at a time. There you go. You got it. And again, all the way down. Don't lie them all down flat at the same time. Go one at a time, all the way down as a hard inhale. Head up and exhale the ribs. Pull in so you can curl more. Stretching your spine, articulating as you come forward. This time, straighten your legs and reach forward for your ankle. Stretch. Continue this stretch. Good. And start rolling back. Now with straight legs, you're lengthening your legs away from your tight stomach, pulling back in your belly, pulling back. So your lower back, middle back, upper great head goes out. Inhale, head up. Exhale, curl it up.

Upper stomach, middle, lower could reach your legs away from your belly. That's it. And Roll right back down. Lower back. So legs are reaching one way. Stomach is pulling the other. That's it. That was better. Head down. Inhale, head up. Exhale, scoop it in. Keep reaching your legs long so you can scoop. Good and rolling back down. Pull back your stomach. Squeeze like crazy. Your bottom. Where's that bottom? There we go. One more time.

Up and down this time. Inhale, arms up. Hold it down with your head and inhale. Arms up and exhale back with your arms as your center stays glued to the Mat. Inhale, arms up, head up, and then exhale coming all the way up. Scoop one bone at a time and reaching and then going to roll back down. Rolling down. All the way. One bone, the next bone. Great job.

Lengthening those legs. Inhaling, arms up and exhaling all the way back. Okay. Arms down by your side and we're going to do single leg circles. Hug the right knee into your chest. Good. Straighten that leg up to the ceiling and we're stretching it again. We did earlier. Put your hands behind your thigh and stretch, so if it's easy, you guys look all pretty good here.

So we're going to keep that leg long on the mat. The one that's down, arms press by your side and imagine you're doing the splits, but that image in your head, you're splitting and we're going to cross the body to the left, cross around and up and cross around and up. Good tight center, but you want to really reach out. So we want to cross and stomach pulls in and reach. That's beautiful. Two more length in the leg, away from the top center. One more time. Cross around and we're going to go the other way now. Down around and up. Good. Now lengthen this area more.

It's a Aha. Beautiful. It was pulling up on you. Cramping. We don't want a grip we want to reach and it reaches away from your top tight center. One more. Reach through that hip flexor and pull it up and hugging that knee. Good. And lengthen that leg down. Wonderful. Bring the left knee in. Hug It in, extend the left good. So turn it out a little bit. Really helps so that you don't keep cramping in here.

As leg goes up and we're going across to the right shoulder, down, or reach out to the hip and up. Good. So your stomach's pulling way up into your chest. It's like pulling up here as you lengthen out that leg. And one more. This Russian cross around and up. And then the other way, go ahead. Oh, open around him. Lift a little more tempo. Open around it up.

Keep reaching out from that hip. Don't grip in that hip. Reach it out one more time. Give me rural big link. There we go. Hug in that needier chest. Both legs are long on the mat and they're like, you're in a mermaid tail. They're not just hanging out. They're working, they're wrapping around, they're squeezing your bottom like crazy.

They're lengthening even through the toes so that you can pull your stomach in, lift up your head and look at those long legs that are working and curl up one bone at a time. Pull it in. It's hard once we're down to keep all that energy, but with energy lift and then put your hands by your bottom and lift it forward so we can get ready for rolling like a ball. That's right. Grab onto your ankles. All right, now you want to balance with your feet up off the mat and without your lower back. We talked a lot about your pelvis. We don't want your bowl soup dumping out right now. Instead we want it really dumping towards your chest.

It's tilted towards you and keep tilting it towards you until you basically fall off balance and you roll through your lower back cause we're massaging our spine. Roll back and exhale. Roll right up. Hold. Good job balancing. Inhale, roll back through that lower back and exhale up. Good. Try not to support yourself with your lower back. When you come up, inhale, roll back. The head is always looking at your belly. Always looking at your belly. Now stay here. Balance. How much rounder can you get? Can You keep your pelvis like it is, but your head between your knees, that's where you're trying to go.

So we're squeezing a little more juice. Now also, look how your shoulders are right over your hips. It's beautiful, but you know what? I want that when you're back there too. So that means your bottom has to wake up and it has to lift using your stomach always all the way over your shoulders. So let's try that. Here we go. Inhale, roll back and use your bottom to lift at XL up. I got to get a little higher there. Anyhow, roll back and nice exhale and two more. Anyhow, roll back. I probably just said that and ala so, but we will do one last one in how? Roll back. Lifting your bottom up. Fabulous. How in good effort. Rest your feet down. Nice.

Now put your hands behind you and think of your nice sculpted arms you want and use them to lift your bottom back. Good. All right, so we're going to do the series of five-year. I want you to go ahead and lie down onto your back and just stay there for a moment. Bend the knees and put your feet flat on the Mat. Make sure you're nice and centered on the mat. There you go. Good. All right, so on the series of five, I want your lower back to stay glued. I want you to imprint your spine into the mat while you do it.

And I want you to challenge your stomach. Your powerhouse with your upper body and lower body is the reach away from that tight center. Okay? So I want you to pull in your right knee right now with your abdominals and bring in your left knee as well. Great. Good. Put your hands behind your head and I want you to just inhale and look at your belly and exhale, pull it in more to come up higher. Anyone feel their stomach yet? And I'll come down.

We're gonna do that one more time. Inhale, look at your belly. Look at it. Xcel. Pull it all in like an hourglass figure and keep it there. Now use your arms to help pull your right knee closer to you. Right hand on your ankle and the left hand on your knee. Now keep that really tight center that you have and reach your left leg as long away from your Cerus.

Squeezing the heck out of your left cheek as you can and use your stomach to switch legs and hold it there. Pull in that left knee. Lengthen and squeeze your right leg. Let's switch again from your tight center. Pull in your right knees, stretch and squeeze your left leg and switch again. Pulling in all the way in. Pull in more lower stomach. Crunch more pulling in that left knee. Now it's a tempo right, left still squeezing the juice outs.

Don't make lose anything just faster, but pulling in from your center, scooping and reaching through those thighs. Use those muscles to length and not to cram. Last set right left. Grab both ankles. Great job and now tight center and almost reach up to the ceiling with your legs and your hands. Arms. Inhale, look at your belly. Can you get it in more, a little higher, good in more. Reach those legs longer. Touch the ceiling, touch your ceiling with your hands more and more and reach, reach, reach, and pull it all together. One more like that. Go wherever you want. Inhale, reach however low you want, but the stomach is scooped and saw you. Reach those legs longer. Arms longer, no flex feet and pull it in.

And now to tempo. Inhale, reach. Show me the length and pull it in in how reach and pull it all together. Inhale, squeeze that seat and pull it in in how? Reach long and pull it in last time. [inaudible] and pull it in and rest your head for just a moment.

Give your neck a little break. We're going to do single, straight leg, double straight like and crisscross right into each other. So again, I want you to put your hands behind your head because I think it really helps you guys to see your stomach lift up. And now really pull it in as you exhale and come up as high as you can, feeling that upper abdominals. Keep all those muscles supporting you and the legs. Go Up to the ceiling. Grab your right ankle if you can both hands good. And now keep that tight center and stretch your left leg as long away as you can. So it's reaching not on the floor though.

And switch. Good switch. Hold and bring up the right leg now. Good. When you switch, that's your opportunity to reach out even longer. Don't let them shrink into your hips. Reach out of the hips as you switch. Gorgeous Helen. Reach out of your hips as you switch.

Now let's double time that tempo. Left, right, left, right switch and switch and tight center. No rocking in the spine. There you go. I love it. Beautiful reach, reach, stretch, stretch. That's that right left and both legs are up. Hands behind your head. Reach for the ceiling and go down as low as even reach out and pull them up and reach up and reach out and pull up. You gotta have your bottom working.

Reach out. Squeeze like crazy and pull up. Two more. Know lying down the shoulders on the mat. Keep them up and hold them up. And now bring the right knee in. Just the right knee and twist to it. Hold it there. Hold it. Pull back your left elbow. Pull back, twist more, and switch. Come up high and go pull back your right elbow more, more, more. And I'm sorry and switch. I will say the wrong elbows.

Pull back your right elbow here and this needs to come in and switching. Reach long through this head. Squeeze like a one last set. Pull it in, pull in this knee, reach out that leg and last time bring up that right elbow. Pulled back that left knee. Hug in your knees. Give yourself a break. Good job. Nice work. Sit Up for spine. Stretch forward. Legs are opening.

This is one that I can't really tell you I can see personally, but it's something that you want to feel, not me tell you. Yeah, you're doing that right. It's something that you want to really get this connection. So I want you to sit up as tall as you can and try to feel one bone stacked on the other and arms up at shoulder height. Now with their statute on top of the other, they're also touching, but now I want you to use your stomach to pull in and grow so tall that there's like space between each vertebra and with that space. Now exhale and touch your head down to the mat.

The crown of your head would be great. Reach, reach, reach, and then inhale up, keeping that space between each bone rolling up, up, up, and take a little break. Inhale, lift, exhale, go forward. So you're pulling your belly into your lower back. You're stretching your lower back, the hamstrings, and inhaling up, rolling up, up, up, and take a little break. Now let's do it to the real tempo. Okay, so you, what you want to do is take a big breath right here to start and you're going to exhale until you can't exhale anymore. Squeeze all the air out of your lungs, all of it. When you can't squeeze anymore than inhale up, up. Once you can't inhale anymore, you have to exhale to go down, down, squeeze out that air. It's a breathing exercise. Then inhale up one bone at a time, um, time and exhale last time going down, really lifting with even off your seat head crown of the head, down to the mat all the way in, all the way up and take a little break. Good. Sometimes it's hard to do that breathing, but if you think of the a hundred we inhale, two, three, four, five and exhale two, three, four, five.

So you should be able to exhale two, three, four, five and then inhale two, three, four, five on that exercise we're going to see it again in the swan. So let's bring our bottoms forward just a little bit and our legs together. Good. And bend the knees. Let the knees open. Hands on top of the ankles. If you're good and flexible, if you have really tight hamstrings, you can hold behind the knees, but balance with your feet up. Good.

Great. So this is one of those again where you want to really pull into your back and lengthen it. Not just have your stomach in, but pull in an up, growing tall and a beautiful posture. And now we're just going to work on balancing. To start, I want you to extend both of you guys, extend the same legs. We're going to extend that leg going up, God [inaudible], and then bring it down. Great. And extend the opposite leg. Good and down.

Now I want your body to be more still. So let's let our shoulders drop instead of tents. And really if the leg goes out, your belly pulls in that much more, the opposition. So let's extend that leg as your belly pulls in. Wow. What an improvement. And bring it down. That was beautiful. And now the stomach pulls in even more fantastic and down.

And we're going to extend both legs actually and grow taller and bend. Beautiful and pulling in and use that stomach to grow taller as your legs go out. Bring your legs together, bring them apart. Now hold up as high up behind your ankles as you can. And we're going to go into the open leg rocker. So every time you come up, you're going to hold this position a little narrower so that you're not just not, you're just a little wider than the mat, but as you roll back, you want to look at your belly and roll on back, roll back and come right back up in your stomach in, and you're going to lift up your sternum. Inhale back and exhale up. Lift good and rural through that waistband. Beautiful Anna and two more. Roll back and your arms are long, your legs are long, everything's reaching from your center. One more.

Inhale back and roll. With that exhale now squeeze your legs together and keep them reaching away and you're going to roll down. Gesture back. Leave your legs up, roll down your back, legs directly up to the ceiling. Now heads on the mat. Legs are directly up and we would be ready for the corkscrew, but we're at a hugging your knees for just a moment. Great. Giving them, you can bend your knees and hug them in. Great. All right, so this is a perfect example that your lower body is moving, but your upper body has to work just as hard. So keep really nice open collar bones, really work the back of your arms, depress into the mat and scoop in your belly. Let's get a little awareness here by lifting the legs up and wrapping those legs and squeezing them. Before we go into corkscrew, I want to see you lower the legs a little bit and really pull them back up from your stomach. Let's do that one more time. Feeling your lower back.

Stay flat and squeeze your bottom and pull them up. Good. Now let's have the legs fall towards the ocean a little bit over this way. [inaudible] and back up. Good away from the ocean this time so, and when you bring them back up, you're squeezing in here, good and towards the ocean. No legs falling heavy in our hips.

Reach them out and pull them in and away from the ocean. Really reaching those legs and scoop into come home. Good. Now let's go towards the ocean. Full Circle, down around and center. Beautiful, tight stomach. Reach those legs around and pull them centered. Good. And squeeze your seat as they go down and try to keep squeezing your seat.

Good job and into your belly and reach around. We're going to do one more set to the ocean. Reach lengthening. Good. One more time. The stomach stays flat and you circle around. Good work. All right. Use those legs to sit on up. You just go. So instead of bending and adding an extra step when they're here, you look like this on your back and then you just go whoop.

You just sit right up. Okay. And you're going to straighten your legs cause the next exercise, they're straight. They open a bit wider. All right, same breathing that I was just talking about. Arms up at shoulder height just in front of you. Okay, so then your peripheral vision stack up your spine and you're going to drop your shoulders a little bit. Beautiful. Good. So tight stomach. Can you grow any taller? Can you lift off your bottom anymore? It's like you're on a bed of nails and you don't want to poke yourself.

You want to really lift off and flex your feet if you can. There you go. So twisting your tiny waist, it's both twist away from the ocean. And now exhale for five, four, three, two, one. Inhaling up and twisting towards the ocean for five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. Inhale up, twisting two, three, four and exhale down. Exhale, exhale, exhale. Inhaling up. This is completely a breathing exercise.

You're pulling your ribs into your lungs right now to squeeze that era. Inhaling up and twisting tall and I love to see you kiss your knee more. Allow yourself to go down more. Beautiful. Inhaling up, twisting towards the ocean for the last time and the arms are really reaching in both directions. Reach, reach, reach, and inhaling up and relax your arms. Good job, Swedes, your legs together. Flip over onto your belly so you have long legs all the way down on your belly. Yup. Reaching, reaching, reaching long things. Helen, your foreheads on the Mat and your hands I want right under your shoulders.

And then you can bring them a few inches forward and a few inches out if your back's tight. But again, we want to have the image of the mermaid tail. You're really wrapping and squeezing into end length in that tail away from your back instead of seizing into your back. Now use your belly to try to pull in and support your spine, but reach all the way out your crown of your head. You're lengthening your spine so much and we're going to start coming up for neck roll. Start coming up your head and your chest and you can use your hands if you want and you can come up as high as it feels good on your back.

Still trying to reach your legs in the opposite direction are pardon all the way if you'd like. Yes. Now it's all about these shoulders, so pull them away from your ears. Look as far over your right shoulder as you can. Then circle the chin all the way to the chest over to your left and look forward and look left. Circle the chin all the way around and look forward. And as you come down on your stomach, Lang, then your spine all the way out the crown of your head. One more time.

Squeeze those legs together. See how long you can keep your heels glued and lengthen them away. As you pull up in the head and the chest and stretching. Come all the way up. Look over your left shoulder this time. Circle that down, down, down, around to your right and forward.

Look right. Circle the head down around to your left and look forward and then come down one bone at a time. Really reaching long. Good. Quickly come up onto your elbows and bring them your knuckles together. Pushing the knuckles together and could, all right like so good because we want to really push with our four arms. We're going to tighten all the underarm muscles. There you go. And good.

Push your forearms into the mat to lift up more. That's even nicer stomach in. Squeeze your legs together and how long can you get them? Reach them out of your back. Okay, lift 'em both up nice and long, still reaching. Now keep your left leg reaching like that, but use your right hamstring and seat to bring that one in all the way to your bottom. Bring in two and then reach it long as the other one's pulling in. They pass each other one to reach out, one long as the other ones.

Really one to reach and feel good. And as you're kicking your bottom, if you can get that thigh and knee up off the mat even better. So you're trying to lift up the knee as you kick your bottom and pull in the right lifting that knee and last time right two and left. Two and legs down right facial cheek on the mat. Hands behind your back as high up as you can. Elbows down on the mat. Long legs for me. There you go. Now from your bottom, squeeze like crazy ratios, legs long and keeping them long.

How high can you lift up your thighs without taking it in the lower back? Don't take it in the lower back and three pulses to your bottom. We're going to squeeze in one, two, three. Reach the legs down the upper body. Up Legs are on the Mat. Upper body up and switched cheeks. Good correction, Helen, bring your hands all the way back up and lift the legs first.

I want to see that length first, length and lift, and then Pullman for one, two, three and reach 'em out and pull up. Legs are nice and dense. You can really pull up in the chest and switch cheeks and lifting the legs and pulling them in. One, two, three. They go down, they're still reaching. You're pulling up, come up higher, kind of liar. That's it. Switch cheeks last time and lengthen. One, two, three and use your belly to pull them up and up and up and relax. Round your back and sit on your heels. Really great shop. Fabulous.

Stretch our right now. Let's flip over onto our back again. Just turn around and it'd be great if you want to just keep your head this way for our sidekicks. I'll make more sense in a second. All right, and light right on down. Let's get ready for our neck roll. So our legs are going to be hip with the part. Flexing your toes back. Good. All right, we're going to have to start off with our hands right by our side. Inhale, lift up your head to look at your belly. Exhale, pull it in and slide up your legs like this.

As you curl up until you kiss your knees. Good job. All the way. Your knees cause your knees. Now you look at your belly and use it to sit up tall, tall, tall. Feel your stomach in and lifted off your bottom. Wake it up, bas off your bottom. And then go back six inches like that. Go back, go back. You pull back your lower belly more. Yes. And then roll all the way down. Good. And again, inhale up.

Exhale all the way up til you kiss your knees. There we go. And inhale, sitting up tall, good and tall as you go back. Now problem with tall is we sometimes think arched is tall. So that's why I was saying move that be you. Did it gorgeous. And again, inhale up. Exhale all the way forward. So as soon as your head goes down, next time we're going to come right back up. Inhaling, lift this and put your hands behind your head and exhale, go down. Good. You can let your elbows kiss the each others you come up. Inhale up. Exhale all the way forward. Good job. Hell.

And that's what I like you to do. And inhale, sit up tall and XL back. Lengthen those legs away. I want to see those heels pushing away. Push. Push. One more time for me. Inhale up. Exhale all the way forward. Keep pushing your heels away. Yes. And he'll sit up tall and exhale back length in those legs. Bodies pull in the opposite direction. Very, very good effort.

Let's all lie down on your right side and face this way for our sidekicks. Good. All right, you want to line the whole body on the back edge elbow too. Good. And bring your legs a little forward. Good. All right. And we're going to lift the left leg up just a tiny bit. Turn it out. Good.

And all right, so we have a tight center and the whole thing is how long can you make this area the whole time? Sweep it forward for little double poles. One, two and then squeeze it back to and forward to, let's hold it this time as it goes back. Stay here. Okay. How are your shoulders? Are they stacked or is that top? When rolling forward, make sure they're stacked. How's your stomach? Is it supporting your lower back? Now use your bottom end hamstring to reach out more notes. Keep it back. Sorry Helen. There you go. A little turnout and how far back can you take it back and back and back.

That's what I want to see and yeah, to tempo. Go forward one, two and take it as far back as you just did and forward to reach through that foot for me. Rebecca, don't flex the foot. Yes, reach and back. And as you come forward, keep this long if you can and back and to more forward and back and last time. Forward and back. Good legs together. Good. Why don't you to imagine that you have this huge heavyweight right here and I want you to push it up to the ceiling. Push it up, but you're, it's a bad, bad analogy. Bad, bad visual. I want you to go up quickly but with strength. So I want you to push up all the way to the ceiling and then squeeze me down, squeeze me down. That's it. Push up and then squeeze me down. Great.

And up and squeeze me down and up. Now pull your belly in tight and really reach out and up and pull in and reach. One more. That was great. Up and stomach and length and even your lower back. Hold it there. And five little circles. Circle one, two, three, four, five and reverse it. Circle two, three, four, five and relax. Great. Now we're going to do bicycle. So bicycle is very important that you really, this is an epitome of squeezing the juice out.

Would you like a pillow for your ear? Good. Okay, so we're going to lift up your left leg a little bit, turn it out so I can always see your inner thigh and really reach out how high up we're going to do. One slow. How high up to your nose can you go bringing it forward, forward, forward, forward. So I want that every time. Now bend the knee all the way onto your chest. Yep. All the way healed to your bottom and now need a knee. Good. Now stay right there. Keep your heel more glued to your seat.

Use the back of your leg. Good. Now keeping your box perfectly stacked. How far back can you take that thigh? Take it back. Take it back farther. Further, further. Great job. I'm going to stand right here, Helen, and I want you to reach. Extend the leg without moving that five foot all the way through the foot, reaching gorgeous. Now forward to your nose. Bend the knee to your chest. Need a knee. Take it back, back, back, and reach out. One more forward to your nose. Bend the knee.

Take it far back, back, back, and extend. Now legs together. One slow for the reverse. Take it as far back as you can without changing the shape of your box. Using the back of the leg and the seat. Now keep that thigh. There is you. Pull the yield to your bottom. Need a knee.

Use your stomach to bring the knee to your chest and see how high you can keep that leg. Good as you extend as you extend Rebecca. There you go. And two more. Reach back. Good toe to head. Need a knee, need a chest and extend. One more. I really mean you're trying to think. I'm going to touch my toe to my head and need a knee. Need a chest. There you go. Hook. Stand in legs together. Wonderful. Good. I want you to bring you, sweep your legs over this way so we can lie down on our left side. Great.

And bring your legs forward now. Make sure your left elbow is on the back corner of the Mat. Good. All right, reaching Lom. We're going to lift up that right leg now and it's going to be at a turn. Turn out, reach all the way through the foot and how forward can you get it? We're going to do double pulse and take it back to good and forward to and back.

Don't move these points and forward too and reach and forward and really reach out. Let me see that stretch. There you go. That's what I like to see. Reaching it and three and back and two and back and one more and back and legs together. And we're going to push it up and squeeze down. When you push up. Don't let your hips false. Keep them stacked. Oh, now all the we're talking. That was great. Job Up and squeezing down. Two more. Let's go up and really reach out. One more time. Up and reaching out. Stay there. And five little circles. One, two, three, four, five and go the other way.

Don't forget to go behind your leg. Two in, little in front, a little behind. That's it. And rest down. Nice bicycle once low for forward, lift up that right leg a little. Turn it out and really reach it. And how high forward can you go? Bend the knee. Good.

Need a knee and now take it as far back as you can and then extend from there. Reach all the way out. Beautiful. To more forward. Need a chest, need a need. Take it all the way back and extend one more forward need. And that's it. All the way back, legs together for the reverse. Go back one slow. Really keep that thigh there to pull your heel to your bottom, knee to chest, knee, all the way forward and then extend. Reach out to go back. Okay.

Bring your heel to your bottom. Need a knee, keep that foot relaxed if you can, all the way to your chest. But don't let this all roll in. Keep it turned out as you extend for that stretch. Good. One more back. Good. Need a knee. Need a chest and extend and legs together. Very good. Alright, Rebecca, swing your legs around so they face Helen and both of you lie down on your backs. Hug your knees into your chest. Nice.

All right, we're going to go into our teaser one. Hug your knees into your chest. Great. Extend your legs up to the ceiling and reach your arms back and just feel a tight stomach. So with your stomach engaged, reach your legs as long to the ceiling as they can and you want them to lower down to a 45 degree angle. Wrapping in, squeezing. And now roll right on up and touch my shoulders rolling up. That's it. And rolled in great.

And scooping it up all the way up to touch my shoulders and down. One more time. Scooping in. And now rob, drop your shoulders and pull me down with your stomach melting. One bone stretching. I love it. Hug your knees into your chest. Great job. Sit on up for seal. I'm sure it looked beautiful over here. And now we're going to drop your hands under your ankles. Good. All right, so we want stability in our stomach as this is our last exercise and we're going to cool down with it. Dropping your shoulders a little bit.

Always a massage for your spine when you do a rolling exercise and we're going to breathe, but let's see if we can add our clap back there. So you always clap right here. One, two, three. But it's hard to clap back there without rolling around on your hips and everything. So it's strong hips, strong stomach. Okay, so clap two, three. Inhale, roll back, clap two, three, exhale up two, three. Inhale, roll back. Two, three XL. Up to three. Inhale back to three.

Exhale up to three from your stomach. Try not to let your shoulders get out of control. Good. And two more for me. Rolling back. I loved and standing up forward. We have healthy knees last time. Rolling back and you're going to let go of your ankles, cross them and Ollie up all the way to a standing position. Good job. Nice.

Anchor your feet into a good foundation. Nice philosophy stance. And I want you to pull your ride, lean it a little forward, like the leaning tower of Pisa, and Exhale as you reach your arms to the ceiling, palms out and inhale as you use your body to lift. And you push the earth away, belly in and up, and exhale here and you're all finished. Nice job, ladies. Good work.

Comments

1 person likes this.
I love this class and I love the way you teach Monica. Fantastic cuing.
1 person likes this.
I love it too! Thanks Monica! :0) You´re a great teacher!
Eddie
Monica u are an inspiration !! Do u have A instructor training program ?
Eddie
Monica u are an inspiration !! Do u have A instructor training program ?
This was great for me, and the cue to squeeze my bottom during certain movements gave me much more power. Thank you for a great challenge of a class, I feel strong and balanced!
Monica is a wonderful teacher. Thank you so much!
A L
Great class...the slow deliberate pace really made me work .
2 people like this.
I'm so glad I discovered Monica. Her cues are so engaging that I felt absorbed in the movements. I went further with some exercises than I've been able to before and felt less resistance about my least favorites.
Monica Wilson
Wow! Thank you for all the wonderful feedback! Please let me know if there is ever something you'd like to specifically work on. Didis, I am a Teacher Trainer for Romana's Pilates:)
Really clear and helpful explanations! Liked it!
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