Class #806

Reformer on the Mat

55 min - Class
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Description

This class is essentially a Reformer on the Mat class. Kristi uses light hand weights to highlight the opposition of the extremities to the powerhouse (Weights are actually not necessary for this class). You'll do Foot Work with an emphasis on the arms and their connection to the back. The Hundred, Coordination, and hip work on the small ball are also a part of the fun. Scissors, Bicycle on the ball allow for a good stretch and the Short Box with the small ball feels fantastic! We hope you'll like this change of pace.
What You'll Need: Mat, Hand Weights, Overball

About This Video

Aug 10, 2012
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Transcript

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Okay guys, let's start. Let's just keep the weights near nearby, but we're not going to use them yet were I tend look out the front window here. Give yourself a bit of a view. I feel like working, it's going to go a little quicker since I'm starting a bit late, but Jim's here for the second time in a row and canvas is wide awake back there. All right, let's start with the feet. Uh, parallel. I'm going to do a little reform on the mat. I know I, I was like that. Just shift your weight forward, shift your weight back and change your state.

It doesn't have to be better. It could be worse if you want, but I would change the quality of it just so you know. You can at any point. Okay. And I'm thinking, go for it. The better. Okay. From here, take the entire body to the right of it all. Don't let the outer edges of the feet come up though. And then center and the other way.

Hello, that center. Let's just do that again just to kind of feel where you are and maybe we can check in at the end if we remember. So rather than leaning over to the side by the waist, it's like a, like you're being blown in the hole at the ankles. Okay, that's cool. Alright. Just with your arms hanging heavy, rotate the whole arm outward from the shoulder joint without letting your arms go behind you. Go as far as you comfortably can and then reverse that. Go all the way in. Shoulders or collarbones. Don't change. Let's do it again.

Open around, just feeling where you are. I'm trying to remember what Karen Sanzo says. She says something like, where's your gps? But that's not it. One more time. Turn it out. Let the, our shoulders become heavier. Float the arms up. Take a deep breath in. Exhale. We'll do a couple roll downs. Let the arms come down. Let your head go folk. But you don't lean forward now. Now it's a sense of almost a conveyor belt of pulling up in the front, lengthening the back, and then when you're down here, whether you're touching the ground or not, you can put your hands on your knees or shins gently shift forward.

But as you do barely draw up on the belly and let your head hang, gently shift back, tucking the pelvis, keeping the back rounded. Find what feels like neutral. Shift your body to the left center. Yeah, it's the same thing we were doing a moment ago. Using your hands either on the floor or right on your shins and then back to the center. Bend the knees, find the whole foot on the ground. Start to roll up, but do it from the tailbone. So it's not that you pick yourself up right under the chest. You Cutie, you do round the spine to then eventually lengthen your spine. Ah, when you get to the top, do one more deep breath.

We'll grab our weights and we will grow. Big, deep breath up and exhale. Okay, take hold to your weights. You don't really need weights, but sometimes I think if you can put something out at the extremity, the opposition that is going to be back at the powerhouse where we really want it, so we're on our imaginary foot bars on a reformer. Most of the weight for this particular one is going to be a little closer to your heel for the moment. Just sit back and let the arms hang for just a second and then check things out that you didn't shift so far forward. Some of you are going to have longer shins in relation and you don't want to build a lot of resistance or attention.

You can just either stop the knee bend or sit back and hinge more that way so it's not too much pressure in the shins and then come back up. I do think of driving the heels into the ground as I go down. All right. Just taking both arms out, their palms are facing each other and then hang out here. Think about where's your neck in relation to your spine, right? I'm kind of more upright simply because of my proportion.

Some of you will be more like, so don't necessarily look forward, feel the line. And then when you come up, press back like you're pushing against a wall so it's not just as high as you can get. You keep the collarbones wide and you're actively squeezing those triceps, not just behind you but close to each other. Here we go. Let's go a little quicker. Now. Inhale down, palms always facing each other and back. So it's almost to swing down and press up.

Your feet are rooted to the floor. You're lifting off of them so you feel grounded. You might feel oppressed down. But from that point up it's nice and long reach thinking maybe about the midline of your body. If there's not, don't go so far forward that you have to change your head position a lot. Um, it will change definitely.

But don't get so high that your arms are buried. How about five more? One and her. And to add on Kent on the reformer. Don't you worry about that and now can you feel your lats though? Push back one more. We'll be fine. Even if it's six. And there we go. Stay here. Squeeze the upper arm into your lat right. Feel that, but gently reached downward to elbow. Straighter Gym. Trust me. Yup.

Okay, good. From there we rise up and get that upper inner thighs. We're just squeezing in maybe slightly back and slowly down. If your feet aren't up for it yet, you don't have to do this part. I'm just going to do three. Here's two. And as you go down, think of stretching your neck to the ceiling or your head last time and heels together and the plotty stance, right? Shift your weight forward a little so you could lift the heels, but you don't let them come back down and press the heels strongly together.

If your knees get in the way, I'd rather your knees be smoothly touching rather than having to bend. All right? Instead of rising on the toes, what we're doing is coming forward. It's the same thing with the legs. Okay, so from here, check your arms. Get them lower than your shoulders. For sure. Now act like you're holding something. So Jim, you can look down a little with your chin.

Now let you're squeezing inward to a ball, right? Then you're going to come up and if it feels okay to push the end of the into you, and if, if you're bearing down, that's not going to be good. It's more like I'm lifting up in using the hand pressure to really get tall. Here we go. Inhale down. Exhale, press. Inhale to exhale, press up again. You don't need the weight, so don't hurt yourself with the weight.

It's more about the upper arm connection. Connection to the lat pants are too light for the mic. Pulling them off. It's not because they're too big. I can tell you that. All right. How many words do you want Jim? Jus I'm going to go with you. Looking at here. You're going seven and down.

A little apple at all. So you're watching my hand. Don't change it. Look right in the middle of my palm. I'm not looking at it. There you go. See how you don't have to change your head match. You could sit your hips back a tiny bit, I think sort of fields. There you go. Good one mark. And there you go. So again, I'm gentle, gently, but firmly with my upper arm as if the weight, we're right here. Okay.

From their horizon. Oh Man. Keep those upper arms working. Now it may be come down if you touch with the weight of your hand, it makes you bend. Don't, don't bend the elbow. So I'd rather the way weights, not touch, get as much of your upper arm into your body. Even if the weights don't touch you. That's the idea. One more time. Oh and all right. Separate your feet. It's the width of a foot bar. Don't get crazy. Not Too wide. They Tozer there turned out but not maybe you will, but for now kind of 45 degrees. All right. This time, same thing. Basically palms face forward. You're going to sit back. I'm going slow again. Good. Could you lift your toes? Good.

Put them back down and feel the big toe or the big toe area at the ball of the foot. Good. And they come up. This time they're going to come just behind you. And, and so focusing again now on the upper back a little. If the arms get too far behind you, it's going to change it. I don't know if you could see it, but it's become sort of something else. You want to feel like you can get those arms right next to your body as they slide behind you. Let's go five more quicker.

One and press and two and press slightly and forward. Makes sense for most of us. Oh, hold it there. Hold it there from your, take the arms out to the side and just see how far can you reach. Nice. Aaron, I thought for sure I was going to correct us. Hyperextension well done. From here, pick up the inner thigh guys to raise up the heels as you lower slowly, slowly easier. Just opposite your shoulders. Start with a late call and take them out to the side.

Only reach longer. That's where I'm going. Now we arise up. Try to bring the whole leg into it. Nice. You don't have to go super high school to the middle as you lower down and bring it down one more time. Arms first. Watch the knees if they're not taking the energy rise up. Can you feel them? The back of the leg and the glute meat? I can.

That's what happens when you sit all day. Okay. From there we are, bend the knees hindering forward. Let their weights just hang right below your shoulders. So kind of apartment. Aim for the back. So if you're too far up, you're going to feel it in your neck. Trapezius, so let's get a little more over. Yeah, good. From there. Simple. Just leave your legs where they are. You should, oh, that was, it's really good.

You just kind of almost feel come out to the side with the arms hold. Remember how you reached before. Can you feel the long neck and then squeeze it back down and keep the legs there. If you can, reaching out and hold like you're pushing up against something but also at the side of the room and and reach. You don't need a weight to create the resistance. It's absolutely true. Whether you have a two pound of, well you don't want to a whole lot more than that.

You want to be able to create it yourself. Let's do one more here. Reach retreat, and then just stand all the way. Walk the feet in these at any point you can skip the arms. Otherwise we're going to, uh, I've got my feet basically together. They could be slightly apart to take the arms out again, reach and rise up on them both feet and come down.

Oh, it's up to you. Rise up. You're going to bend your right knee and set the left heel down. But don't show me the hips. Come up to both again and down and up and down. Yep. Up.

And you're pointing that knee straight ahead when it comes down and up and up and down. Bring your arms down. Keep going with the legs. And I'm going to go a little quicker here. So up and down and up and down, both up, both one down, both up, one down, hit it high, then drop it at high. There you go. High. Keep that going. If it's too much for your feet, keep it smaller or stop. And then we're going to start with CSMs here. Boom, boom. You at your own pace? Just crossing the arms. I know I can't. I can't do it. I can't say it. I can do it. La, la, la, la. I'm doing one cross for each step.

I think you'll never know if you're trying it. I'll tell you what, full feet down, arms down. Take both arms up from here, reaching first in the Wii and check out your shoulders. Okay. How do they feel that you're tall to the back of the legs? I want to make sure that nobody's really ripping at the hips. Let them go. Release your tail. Thank you. Reaching me so your elbows are straight but not locked. Right.

Then pay attention to what happens in the space between your shoulder and your ear as you gradually bring them in. Everyone's different if you start to get it forced forward or if you start to bend, you've come into far. I don't want to add tension. Correct. Can you move your upper arms back a little, Deborah? I'm not sure I can go slightly wider because your arms are nice and straight and good. All right, so from there we're going to bend. Try to leave the upper arm in place and straight get that stretched to the Latin ice and oops and straighten if you can. Oh, I just got a major stretch. Try not to turn the elbows out.

It kind of takes a little coordination with the weight. Sorry. I am supposed to be parallel. Good. Okay. So that's cool. One more time just to feel that full length of our body. Bring it down and let's have a seat on the mat and just set the weights nearby. Huh?

And I am going to get out the ball so you just stay put. It's just one thing I want to do with them. Okay. So we pulled out the balls, um, just to do something a little while. I might use [inaudible] some for other things too, but just kind of stack them off to the side. All right. And from here we rolled down. Now we're not going all the way yet.

Go to where you feel like you can hold it and then start to walk your feet in a little bit. You hold on if you want, but it's going to get tough. You want it to get tough, get the scoop of the belly. Really get the scoop of the back. And by that I really mean round your back. Sorry, I just have a thing digging in. Can we go down anymore? Hold on when you need to. We're gonna walk your feet and even closer. Okay, now pick up one knee. Pull it right into you. Come on you.

I'm holding mine. I don't know about you. It's not really doing anything. And if you do, you push that thigh into your hand. I do eventually. Yes. Yes. Thank you. That's great. So now come on down, Jim. You're doing great. Keep going. Bring the knee with you though. Yes, you can. Straighten out the leather leg if you need to. Keep going down. Keep going down.

Keep going down. Switch legs. [inaudible] but why you didn't, you know I'm touching mine. You can pick your butt up. I don't care. Go ahead and go a little bit lower now Jim. That's great. That's so good, Jim. Challenge Yourself. Bring that foot and closer. Now you're perfect with your upper body, the one that's straightening out away from you. Bring it closer.

[inaudible] yeah. No, no. The hard way. There you go. Okay. Don't now. Don't move your body. Good, Helen. Oh, you can put your head down anytime. Switch, switch, touch, touch, touch. Come on. It's okay if you're, I'm letting our butts come up today. I want you to feel that. Okay. Both knees up. Pick your butt up.

Touch it. [inaudible] let your head down. Keep your knees with you. Butts up. Yeah, no big deal. From here. Reach the arms. Inhale. As you exhale, you're going to start bringing the knees to your nose first. It's okay. I know, and pick up your head. Butts are up. You're okay. And we're going. Inhale two, three, get close and exhale tier three. Squeeze the glutes. Nice. Inhale. Now can you guys drop your feet and do it?

Let your feet not do anything. Pull into you and in now try to keep the knees where you are. You got it ever. And allow the say come to start falling. But keep the knees where they are. If you can, Andy will tell you. Okay, good. Bring those knees close, but reach the tailbone down into the mat. Start to let the legs drift away. Just the shins are drifting away. Thighs are drifting away.

Let's do one more breath cycle. Let's go. Inhale, it's around three, four, five and exhale whichever way or is working for you. Put the feet down. Keep your body their head down. Hi. Pick up one. You bring it in close. Press the back of the arms into the mat, pickup the other knee. Bend the elbows and um, how do I want to do it? Okay, lift the elbows up.

Just a little off the mat and I'm going to say press the elbows into your body, but it doesn't really work for everyone. I don't want you to crowded at the shoulder blade. I mean, what are these collarbones there wide palms are forward. Great. That's great. It's coordination. It goes like this. Sorry. Curl up first so you can see what you're doing. Look at your elbow so that the shoulder is not higher than the elbow you're going to inhale. Push away, open. Close the legs, bend them, pull them away in today. Then exhale, bend your elbows.

Upper body doesn't move because Ian Hill, Perez, open, close. Exhale, bend, and then the elbows reach out. One. Inhale, open, close. And Ben. Now exhale, scoop. Keep those elbows close. Two more ENL out. Open, close. Exhale. Jurek and pen. One more. Reach. Open, close. Use the breath. And down we go. Nice. Huh. Okay, let's go down. Yeah, let's play with the ball. So just rock yourself up.

Grab the ball, and then place it. I did get wind tonight right underneath your sacrum, so you're gonna roll back down and we're gonna place it right into the sacred. This can be done without the ball just slightly changes the effort to a different area. So if you don't have a ball, you're going to do but down and it's going to be a little more ab dominant. Your your legs would go higher than what ours are going to do. Picking those legs up again for the moment.

Relax your feet and let the heels drop to your butt so you're not holding up there. It's just hanging out, lazy there. Then squeeze the heels together pretty strongly. You can let the knees come apart. Funny how we all go into flicks. Strong feet. It's good. Feet are good, but for the moment can you just press the heels, press the inner thighs and the feet at the same time. It's not so easy. If you're used to working with the straps from their exhale, extend the legs long for the first to keep the legs a feet relaxed. Inhale, pull them all the way back in and the exhale prs out.

Now as you're doing it, you're trying to stay nice and stable on the ball, right when you reach out. It shouldn't feel like your back is going into an arch. Now let's go ahead and flex the feet, push and then pull back in. We'll go a little quicker for four press out or one if it's easy, go a little lower to pull it in. Here's three last one for four point the tell softly, squeeze those inner thighs. Press strongly through the legs.

Pick the legs up to 90 and by the way, this is not nineties where they fall forward or straight up and from here, first tuck the pelvis. So it might feel like you're pressing your low back into that space or into the ball to almost lift off the ball and then release it. Your legs won't move much. Tuck. Don't worry about seeing it. You can put pressure in the arms as long as your shoulders don't pop up. One more reach long legs, and as you lower the hips back down, keep the legs that high. You inhale, I have my legs turned out. If I didn't say, I'm going to exhale and push the legs away as I get long in the torso.

Don't go far. Open. 'Em Up and circle back to where you came from. So that was the inhale. Here's the exhale. Press down. Inhale around, up and touch. Hold. Exhale down. Inhale around, squeeze touch. Make that part Precyse down around, up. Last one, down around, up. Reverse it so you open. Push the legs away. Exhale down and around them up. Inhale, open. Exhale down around, drag back up, not just from the hips but from high into the chest or maybe not the chest, but pretty close. Last one, happy and they're not talking full lecture feet for the first few. You can bend your knees too. I'll try not to, but if you need, you start to stretch the legs away.

You may want your hands on the outside for support and to give him a little help to come back up. You gotta let the hands go though. Reach them out long now. Here it's okay if the legs drop forward towards you a little bit. Okay. Don't, don't let them get too far away, if anything. All right, let's go together. Now we inhale out. How about flexing? Come up. Articulate the feet. Point to reach. Long. Exhale, continue reaching. Try carefully not to take the pressure in the knees.

I don't think you'll feel it there, but energy gets released. That's good. Keep it up to the top. Legs. Turn out. Bring them back to parallel. Turn them out. Bring it back to parallel. One more time. Turn them out. Hold them out. Weight. Yeah, hold them down and then we're going to just reach the right leg only towards you. Okay. Don't let the other one drop. Just it. Just let it fall almost.

Then if you can imagine reaching from the back of that leg rather than pulling it like gravity do that part in you almost reach the back of the leg through the heel and through the sit bones. Obsessive. Don't move it like didn't I? Now let the other leg not just drop it. It's reaching. It can reach. You can work. That one you can effort that one as it starts to head toward the floor. I'm not super interested in what the feet are doing.

Am concerned about how your back feels doing it. If you can touch the ground with that lower leg and not move the top like you do, you cycle it through and the sh bring it up to match the other beautiful left leg falls forward. Let it fall initially. Try to keep the right leg there. Let this, you can even hold the leg if you can. Keep your balance and kind of press the leg into the hip joint so you kind of get a release there and let it fall. Let it fall. Think of reaching it. Now let the other leg reach along.

Get along right out of the hip and right out of the waist. If you touch the ground. Great. Don't worry if you don't bend the knee and bring it up. Alright, now we're going to scissor. So go ahead and split them both right, like coming forward and reach. Reach. Bring them up right there in the middle. I'll cycle them in a minute. I just wanted to get that one stretch. And we scissor, scissor straight like center. So I'm scissor, scissors. Straight like center. There we go. Scissor, scissor.

Try to scissor enough that you feel the glute on the lowering leg or the lowering side. La La, one more set. Check your shoulders. Low Up. One more time. Since I gave us that little scissor, we better do once a split again. Right? Legs split. So it's front cycle through and spine. The opposite split. So then you're in a split again, right?

Like Benz cycle through hit a split again, cycle through. There you go. Alright, so you're being kind of precise. It's a gigantic bike, a gigantic bike. Hold the next split wherever you get. And if you, I just caught myself kind of far over. I kind of let the backfill a little, I'm going to bring it back. We're going to reverse it, Ben and leg closest to you. Tuck that heel right into your butt. As it starts to go to the floor, right next to the ball, the other leg goes towards the ceiling. That's right. And then it slides down, bent, left leg Benz or whichever one to the ground and cycle, keeping the back still cycle. It doesn't matter if you don't touch the Raj, it's harder to balance. Good for you. Next time up, hold it up. And from here, feel your upper back. Or at least if it's contacting the ground parallel feet, roll yourself over.

Flex the feet. Just keep them together for now and roll down. Okay, so that, that's, you know, the rollover. But let's turn it into the short spine. So what, how it goes as you're gonna bend your knees like a frog. If you're newer to it, you're gonna just take your legs on a straight up level. But most of you know it. So we're going to go out on the diag. I think that's an inhale. Exhale, fold the legs over. Here's the trick.

Did you not lift yet? Now I want you to really bring those knees as close to your body as possible. From here, roll up on the diagonal. You don't go into roll over. You're on a diagonal. Now feel the back of your legs a little. You do not move your body.

You're going to bend the knees right to your shoulders and I mean right to your shoulders. Brinkmann come on from here. Keep this shape. Don't spread it out. Keep your heels close to you, but start at the throat. Keep it closed. You can use your arms. You have to find your ball. If it's not there, it's okay. He'll just fix it when you get back. Here we go. Flex. Yeah, caress it out. There's an inhale, I think. Exhale. This part, the good part. It seems like it's not going to do anything, but oh, come on. Keep pulling, keep pulling, and then when you can't go anymore, rather than going horizontal, wherever your toes are currently pointing, that's the diagonal line.

That's the bottom of the diagonal line as you reach up. Okay, hips about over shoulders been no further. Body doesn't move. Bend, hug those knees in. You've got to dig deep for it. Easy on your neck. Keep the shape. Can you bring your heels any closer to your body and take it down? Come on each vertebra. Keep grounded, keep grounded, and let's go again. Fix The ball if you need to. [inaudible] exhale, folding over.

Oh, I don't know what I said. Anyway, up we go. I think if you haven't exhaled, now do and then inhale, bend to frog riding close home on. Exhale. Keep the frog shape coming down and atlas. Exhale their last set. Inhale this time folding over. Exhaling up. Inhale, pull the knees in. You are so under control. Exhale, we roll down, roll down, roll down, and then set the feet on the ground.

Lift up off the ball and just roll yourself up. Nice. Who's got the other little ball? Just me. Oh, don't God. All right then you guys got it easy. What you're going to do except the deck, Deborah's got the mushy ball. We're going to come to its new stretch. So I'm gonna show you without the ball first, but I think this crowd will like it.

So what you're going to do without your ball is to bring your hands right next to your knees. Everyone will be a little different. Um, if your weights are big enough to fit your fingers under there, you might like that. I'm not sure that they are though. Okay. So your hands are close. Press the tops of your feet and shins into the ground. But I like Deborah's position better than Martin. I'm going to do that too. She's just got her hands closer. Now as you look at, say the middle of your size, start to pray. Don't lift up in your body. Don't lift your chest up any higher. Right? Right. Yet. Um, Aaron, I think you're going to need your arms forward. Yeah, that seemed really hard.

So instead of lifting up to clear space, Tuck your pelvis. I'm imagining. I'm not, I'm not imagining. I'm pulling my upper arms backwards as I try to press my hips forward without getting any taller off the ground. Does that make sense? Okay, good. Head down if it's not already. Most of you are okay. From here it's the same thing. My upper arms are pressing backwards. My head should be down. It's not, and we're going to just press into the floor to keep tucking and hover the knees. Did you stick your butt out to do it? No. And float them back down.

Same thing. Get those shoulders going at, it should be hard. It's supposed to be hard. Keeps Tucking your pelvis is going forward to your face. Lift the feet, not the feet. Sorry, the knees and good one. More like that. Exhale to hover and down. Either. Keep that by the way, you can be doing that on your fist or you take the ball and you place it under your shins. Hoping that you, if you're using a small ball like me, you maroon out like this at all. It may just be too small. I'm not sure yet.

I thought it had more of my over. I mean my others. Okay, good. So Deborah's got the idea. So for those of us who have Ameren placing it is rate. It's a comfortable spot. So it might be a little different, but for me it feels like put it on right there. I don't feel like I'm putting pressure on my toes or overly forcing weight into the feet or ankles. All right, go ahead and do the same thing.

You're going to exhale to curl up. Now lighten up on the ball, but keep your shake right from there. Drag the ball forward by rounding your low back is tiny one. Let it go back. Inhale, exhale to and back. No more hinging at the hips. Three to bend at the waist out of five. Here's number four. One more time for five and take it down.

Move your hands forward. Separate if you can, the feet and place the ball at your ankles or in between your ankles, I should say. So you're holding it. Curl the toes under. Nice. Start to walk your hands back again. Can you just, I'm having a little brainstorm. I'll figure it out later. Okay, so go ahead and stick your tailbone out and get long, Huh? Yeah, that's what I'm trying. I was thinking of it. It wasn't my intention right from here. Float the nice. Then you're still squeezing that bottle a little bit.

You're going to lift your hips. Keep the back long. Set the heels down as soon as you can and let your body hang in that sort of forward diagonal like situation. Okay? At this point, if you need to bend your knees, I would actually rather your heels be up a little rather than bending your knees for now, hug that ball from the inside line. Do not drop more weight back into your feet if you can. If you can help it. Take weight out of your arms by pulling up in the belly. Don't pull it. Don't back up though. If you can help it now. Exhale, squeeze the ball, but pull the abs up to your spine.

Try Not to change the feet either. May Not put pressure on the ball. Exhale, squeeze. Whole inner steam head is down almost between your arms hanging. Easy. Inhale, you might see it. Exhale, pull weight. Like you're just being picked up off the ground. One more time. I know it's a lot of armor. That's all right. We're all right with that. And Dan from there, bend your knees, come on down. Take the ball out.

Okay. For a stretch I'm going to take that must take the left foot forward and just placed the ball in front of your thigh on the ground. Okay. And again, it's been, we've been on our hands, so again, if you want to balance with something, what I'd be careful of is that you're not right on top of the kneecap. Rather get in front of it a bit. So yeah, move your ball forward Jim a little and then bring your [inaudible]. There you go. Is that okay? You just got to watch that. The forward, um, foot, ankle or lower leg would work good isn't too far forward. Okay. And so what I like about this, I think Anthony let did some version of this, but he probably did it willy more intricately. I'm just thinking of, I feel the ball right with the thigh.

So can you think of pushing into it a little? I, I'm not interested in moving the ball so much, but just that you can feel it at the same time. A sense of the knee that's on the ground, kind of going the other way and then tuck the pelvis. So pubic bone coming towards your chest. Again, you may not see it to get more of a sense of like you might just push that ball forward. Then either stay there with your hands down or balancing wherever. But now let's extend the whole back. So you're stretching the ABS, the back. Feel free to use the arms. I'm going to keep my here and just when you thought it was over, let's bring both hands inside and you may want to be on your way to your fist. And here's what I'm doing now. I'm not gonna be able to say, so I was straight ahead. I'm going to walk that left leg out a little. Okay.

And then either stay like that and kind of start to bend the elbows. But remember, we're not just going to drop her. You're going to kind of be extending through your spine too, or you can pick that back knee up by letting the uh, top of the foot be in the ground. So the top of the foot, my toes are not curled under. That's just one option. You could adjust the ball too and not have your foot on the ground at all.

That's a little harder though. It's a lot more work. [inaudible] okay. Help yourself out of that. And let's just change sides. So the right foot forward ball just in front of your left hip. Okay. I didn't, I didn't mean him. I'm at thigh.

I might just do anatomy every year and I still don't. Good. So Jim, just move, hop your right foot for your forward foot more forward. Yeah. Yeah. I get it out of your way. Good. And I'll give you a good stretch on that glue too. All right. Keeping that left knee down. It can be on the ball too for padding.

It's just going to be a little squirrely. So be careful you're thinking to prs the ball forward and maybe even up. You're not sinking into the ball at all. Just making contact. Beautiful. Beautiful. Almost there. Ha Ha. If your chest is lifted, so then are your eyes probably a tiny bit. Okay.

Hands down on the inside. Walk the right foot over to the side a little. You can even turn the foot out. We're going a little more adductor magnus. Woo. I got one. And then you can either just bend, you know, don't, don't fully collapse. You can just bend your elbows or you can keep them long and straighten the back leg. So the knee kind of comes off or totally on the ball one way or the other. But that it's a long leg.

Need a little more that in my life, I think [inaudible] right. But before I lose, yeah, let's come back. Have a seat. We're going to do a little short box with the ball behind your back. For the first one, I'm going to ask that you try and wedge the ball into. Wow. Yeah.

That wasn't going anywhere where there's good news and bad news with that. On this sixth, this set. Okay. So, so here we are. We're just starting chilling on our balls, right? Legs are straight. Nice. Firstie and you're going to sit up as much as you can, but still make contact with the ball. I didn't push it away. You bring it back in, but there's a a little sense of a curve there for him over farm for the first bit. You're gonna put like you're pushing your feet away. Yeah, exactly. Press into the ball to roll back.

Keep pushing your feet in the opposite direction. Keep going, keep going. Keep going. And it's not meant to hurt your back. Plus with a feel good. No. All good. Okay, so from there, press into the ball. You noticed to come forward. Maintain the contact, keep the curve, keep the curve, keep the curve. Don't come off that ball. Do not come off that ball until now.

You can come up really tall and if you have a really firm, you may have to bring it back. Let's do it that way again. Here we go. You're pushing your feet in. That sends the curve. Good. Keep those toes firmly. Pulling back. Flex a little bit more, maybe, maybe not. Maybe just me. Okay. If you want, you can go a little further, but it's totally dependent on your how big the ball is. Let go with your arm. Put them on the ground right by your side.

Only if you feel like want to arch back, your butt must stay on the ground though. So if it's a small ball, it's too big of an arch. You know you don't want to do it. Use your elbows. Push him down. Tuck your Chin first. Press the back of the body into the ball. Look right down your chest. Curve your body. Pick up the arms and you're coming forward again and sit up tall. Did it work for you? Okay, I'm going to change it. If you're going to go again all the way over, just bring your arms down so you're closer to the ground. When you let go, here we go. Roll back. Just like hugging you when it's time to let go, they'd go to the ground. You know they're there. You keep reaching the feet.

The glutes are still a little tight. Not a lot but a little, and you get to arch back. You Inhale, pick your head up, don't lift up, don't lift yourself. Roll. You can fill your head slide on the mat until you're looking at your chest. Use Your hands as needed. Recross and epicon. But any version of that we're doing just one more round back. You can stop at any point, right? If you can get even to level, that's really hard. But if you want to go all the way, put the arms down, you're gonna want that to, I feel better with you having that support than roll up restacking or re rounding, I shouldn't say. And then we count. All right.

When you get tall again, make sure your wedge and what you feel. This one is called flat back. And let's take the hands behind her head, hand over hand. Okay. And then I want you to be able to see your elbows in your peripheral vision as best you can. Now you can bend your knees, guys. That will not take away from anything. So you might want to do that. Okay? From there you can see your elbows. If you look straight ahead. Okay.

Push the back of your head into your hands, but don't lean back at all. Length your neck. Now from here you're going to lean back everything. It's a subtle little tilt to the pelvis, but it's where it should have started. Then push into the ball without rounding to come back up. Inhale, get longer. Keep pressing your head into your hands, pulling your hands forward and come back up. This time bring the feet together straight or bent is up to you.

I'm going to say bent for just in case and he'll get along. There you go. Chin down a little bit and ribs down a gym there you chin down with it. There you go. That's perfect. Do you feel the tremor? That's good. That's good. Look for it. How about one more? So we'll get into that arch. It takes it away. Good. Just keep thinking. Chin down. Andy and ribs. Just like he had it.

There you go and come back up. Okay. Stay there and I'll come get ya. That's good. I mean you're perfect. I just want to stick. Go with you. This next one. Just real quick, Cindy just show you cause it applies a gym and Andy primarily is you guys start out really straight and then you get going and then somehow it ends up just so I'm not severely arched, but some all we're looking for us. It's like it should feel like you're shooting out that. Okay. But the next one is twist.

I skip tilt coming towards the window so you can see you rotate. You're going to lean back. I'm actually pushing my heels down into the ground. Just a little. That same flat back lift up and center. You right. That was the exhale. It's an inhale to rotate and lean back. Fine about leaning into the ball. Beautiful. Exhale.

Stay long and center. Beautiful in how? Wrote lean. You're evenly weighed. Xcel. Keep rotating even as you come up. And then center. Inhale. Good work. Last one, leaning back. Beautiful. Nice. Candace. And exhale up and center. Okay, so I was playing with this next one. Climate tree. Hmm.

I'm going to do the Bassey version. So take the ball. I don't know what this little one. Alright, I'm not sure it's going to work here, but I'm going to do my best. All right, so we hugged the ball. Yeah. A everybody's got right leg. So I can say right, you're sitting tall. And for most of us that's going to mean we have to lean back a little to be able to do it. We're gonna hug or pulse once I'm squeezing the ball. But I'm thinking more about linking my back. There's three, here's the fun part. We're going to, we are going to straighten the leg, but I still want you to hold the ball.

So you gotta bend the left knee or my balls. Dinae and squeeze the inner thigh to straight the other leg. Yep. There you go. Right? So you can feel that connection. So Jim, uh, I want you to straighten the leg that was holding the ball. How do you do that? To switch hands. Yup. And you're going to bend the leg in the air, put it on the ground.

Your right leg is gonna straighten and you're going at the way. You're going to hold the ball as squeeze the inner thighs. So squeeze the ball into your left leg as well. Bring your left leg much closer. That's right. And straighten the right leg, the one you're touching. Yep. You're gonna adjust the ball now you'll know. That's right. That's right.

You just had to know what we were doing. So just squeeze it like that. Oh yeah. It's still kind of under it. That's good. Okay. Happy enough. Which leg is that? Right? Alright, from there we tilt it back. Now at some point, you may need to drop the leg a little, but you can't much. We're going to hold the ball walk down. Once we use the ball, two, three head goes down, reach around, curl back up.

Squeeze the inner thighs so you can pull on the leg. One, two, three. Lovely. Refold you can let go with the other leg and pulse one. Pulse tis. Make sense? Now kind of, here's the tricky part. Squeeze inner thighs. We always want to have that sense. Not you gotta be in the right leg. I mean, straight in the right. Like Jim, we never, there you go. And walk down one, two, three. I know. Who Cares, right? There's other ways, but I wanted to play with it. Inner thighs. Here's the train. Call everything closer. Bring that leg in more.

Squeeze it as you go down. One Oh boy. Two three, reach back. Keep it there if you can help it. Big Squeeze. Oh boy. Pull back on the ABS. Watch the collarbones. Big stretch up. You got it in until it can you flex the foot without losing the shape of anything. Good. Lovely, lovely, lovely Wendy. Gorgeous. Everybody looks good. I'm going to ask you to challenge yourself, Jim.

You look great. I wouldn't change a thing actually, but everyone else, you've got a little squeeze on the ball. Most of you have bent. Well, doesn't matter. Lift only your chest. Don't change your arms. Don't whatever you have. Just your chest. Lovely Change Legs, Huh? Chop Chop. So I'm going to face you somewhere together. We got the ball under the left leg now. True. Great.

Might as well just start with the right leg bent. It's kind of, we don't know where we're going to end up needing it, but since you know where we're headed, you might take that ball not perfectly underneath you, but a little off side. All right. Hold on in joy and squeezing into the ball and lengthening your back. Three exhales. A one, two, three. Get that right like close to the ball so you can straighten it and still hold on. You straighten the left leg. That's right, that's right. And bring it back. Oh One and two and three circle round in.

Exhale, bring it up. One, two. And if it's just really hard to hold it, you can adjust the ball or it's just meant to help and re squeeze. Let's go bend and squeeze one and two. It's more about the back extension of performing and extend it a little higher. This time when you bring the foot in closer, maybe. Ooh, Nice. And roll down. Feel every bone in your back or at least down the middle.

It's our blow around and now we come to really good chin down, slightly. Ever chest up to match it. Gorgeous. Oh, that's good. Whereas the camera and one more squeeze one get along to three big stretch. Can you bring it closer to challenge it and now from the so pretty so pretty. They get down and we don't lose the connection at the bottom.

We're gonna make our way up. Taking our time breathe as meany to challenging it. This was where we all kind of kept the arms the same we lifted not just forward but up into it. We did flex the foot. So be careful it doesn't have, you can hold onto it if you can hold onto it. And these right. How are we doing? Good. Okay. I got all that. Pick your ball. Face me. You're on your side side. Um, initially Debra, you might want to overhaul for this one. I think you're going to be okay.

Just in case. Just in case. That one's too squishy. Alright, so you've got the ball and I think it's going to be pretty much right at your hip. Yeah. Cool. And then we're going to just come down. Will you leave that the outside hand? Oh, which one is that for everyone, but Jim, it's and that's fine. Keep going. It's going to be your right hand on the guns. Perfect. Wait.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So from here we're going to look straight in the top leg. Actually put that home down. Sorry. That's where I'm building to that. Keep the leg on the ground and help yourself up right in line. Yeah. And down and now proportion does matter. So like Jim, I'm seeing you have to work harder than I do and I'm a lot shorter.

You might need to move the ball up your ribs a little more. That may be true for a lot of you. It's not necessarily about tall. Yeah, right. Then if that's just too easy, take that arm that was on the ground right in front. Not, not that one. The other one, the one that's holding you up. If you can see that one and oh, it's going to be small and we go back to him. You can touch your head a little stretch, lift up.

Can you come as high? Right. Cause you don't have that help. One more time. And Dan from there. Take the buck. Come all the way down. Take the bottom hand down. Tell you what, come up a little and everybody move it up. Your ribs a little closer to your armpit. Yeah. Good. Alright.

From here you're going to want that lower leg. Very strong from here with sliding the top arm down to lift the arms. So unsatisfying isn't it? And that's it. And lift. If you can help it, you're thinking to go long, but in fact you're definitely shortening, right? Just try not to let the hip come up. Right. So the, the long leg is continuing to reach. There's three already.

Let's do four and here's four and great turning. Well just switch sides. How far, okay. There could be a good transition there for some talented instructor. Sorry. Okay, so we've switched sides. That front leg is bent. I went right into the, eventually that top leg straight and we, I had it close to the hip initially, so we went down. So there's going to be a bigger curve. You're going to have to get up more. All right, good. Good. When you're down, stretch out the top leg. Yup. And now start to lift up, sorry. And [inaudible].

So since it's a little slick, okay, that's not gonna make it easy. And uh, I s oh good. So the [inaudible] working. Debra's got a nice idea. I like the sense of going over the ball. This is the last one. Um, from there you wrapped that hand in front. The bottom hand, the hand you want to use and you did three. You went down, you came up close, you went down, you came up. Oh, the easy side. I should have started there. Then we went all the way, didn't we? Oh, we moved up the ball to the ribs a little higher. Yeah.

So here's the thing, we're only doing three w for this particular version. Anyway, what I'm trying to do is keep us straight. So if you find yourself rolling back at changes it, let's try and keep right in line and be okay with our tiny left. For a one. It's almost like you feel the ribs pressing down into the ball. The range doesn't matter last time, or did I do four?

I did. I did do for here's four, Huh. Alright, good. Help yourself up and um, to see your heads in the middle. Let's turn onto our stomachs and stretch the ball out long. Cool. Yeah. Um, yeah. Good. Okay, so you're down arms as long as they can be. You may decide that you don't want the ball maybe too narrow. I think it's good for one here.

Reach your legs to the point where they hover the knee, the straight leg, knees hover, but that you still feel the pelvis or the frontier body level. You didn't rock into your low back. All right, from there, just start swimming the legs, but don't move the arms and see if you can feel relaxed. Lower legs in terms of muscular tension, not bending. It looks great, but that you can feel yourself lifting your hamstrings rather than even your feet or your legs. They are lifting of course, but get those legs close together. All right. Borrow, borrowing, stealing from Michael. We're going to keep the legs going. Start to curl the headphone. We're pulling his shoulders down to arise up.

Did you do it? Not La, la, La, La, and downtown. How about inhale up? Two, three, four, five, two, three, four, five. Going to lift yourself up. You don't have to go high. You do want to arch. One more time. The legs matter. Don't let them bend. I ride and take your release and take the ball in one hand. Bend your knees to help yourself up.

Almost there gang. Let's just have a seat. Um, I'm wanting to go this way. You can face which just face each other. That's cool. But um, that's my theater doing, what do we call this? We used to call it butterfly, right? What's it called? All right, diamond, right Fletcher. Hello? Sorry, I forgot. Okay, so we're in diamond. Okay, we're almost there. It's going to be a stretch. Then you can go, just take the ball over wherever you can. So the right hand over left side, there you go. And push away. And if you can get both hands on, push away, just rolling it away.

And as you do, so if you're pushing it away from your left Shin, you're pulling the right hip back into the ground, right? Oh one more thing. Of course, get the shoulders to stay on your back so they don't get to make your arms under. They're still on your back. You can reach with the spine. It'll become more abdominal, which will end up working, not working, but stretching that opposite side. Help yourself back up. Pick up the ball and change. Try to get a good rotation there and feel even on your sitz bones, but the ball down, wherever turned to get soup. I shouldn't say wherever. Let's not get too turned about it so it's in front of the knee rather than on the other side of the knee. And let's go. As you pulled up, push forward to sh collarbones.

Remain wide as much as possible and the opposite hip is resisting it. Pulling back. Try not to let the knees lift or the opposite knee lift. Go. Just when you think you've gone as far as you can. We take another inhale. We dig deeper into the abdominals knowing that when one side contracts, it allows the other side to stretch and help yourself up. Next one. I'm going to separate the feet as wide as you can and then sitting right upon the sits bones.

Okay, you're good. Cool. All right, so from here, right hand again, inside left thigh, there you go. And other hand behind you, it's just going to end up reaching back and you're just going to scratch where you can adjust the ball to figure out where you want it. Reaching the left hand behind you. Again, leaving the right hip on the ground. So try and press the right inner thigh or the hamstring I should say into the mat. Keep reaching and then bring it up. Switch hands so it's close to the right thigh.

Left hand is doing the pushing and reach. It can end up where the balls on your upper arm. It doesn't have to be your hand and bring it back. All right, so if it rolls out of your hand, that's okay. That's all right. And switch. Okay. And pull it in and have not much pressure.

It's just sort of the sense of reaching. Oh, can we do just two more big exhale and last. Bring both hands to the ball. All right, take it to the middle and let your balls on the ground. It's allowing for a stretch. Again, still wide with your legs. I'm just going to let my drop plan, maybe not a beach.

It feels better to have your arms bent on the ball. That's okay too. You can bring the ball in closer to you and just stretch from there and then help yourself up. Bringing the ball into your lower belly. Just likes comfortable at this point, diamond or straight or bent, however, but just comfortable and it's low. Okay. And just press into yourself, kind of getting a little action in your back and let yourself around over that. So I am, I'm supporting myself truly by holding the ball there. And then you use it to help you lift back up. Let's just do one more. A general press of the whole arm, not just your hands.

So you feel that curve. I have a subtle sense of reaching my legs forward, but not from the need is from rounding. And then bring it back up and with gentle pressure, just so you can feel the ball. Let's inhale and let the belly push into the ball. Okay? Just keep your hands there so you feel it and get tall while you do it, and then as you exhale, just whatever happens, just don't shrink. Okay?

Still about a firm pressure, Ian, how let your belly push into the ball. Just feel that so you can feel a three dimensional expansion, hopeful and let it go. Let's do one more. It's kind of weird. We're so used to holding our gut and we just don't want to do that. Let the ball just be with your hands, resting wherever and see if you can allow yourself to remain tall, remain strong, and to become fill up.

Take up as much room in your body as possible with one or two more deep breaths. Exhaling, letting [inaudible] skinny, heavy. The bones are just upright. Last one for us all together anyway. Sure. Pay. Appreciate you being here till next time.

Comments

Thanks for the class. Fell good.
L
Excellent Class, my lil 11yr old enjoyed too. Couldn't believe it was already over.
CJ
Kristi Cooper. I loved your class. I will do this again. thanks. blanche.
Wow! An 11year old liked it?! That is a high compliment indeed!! Thank you all for letting me know you liked it! More to come!
1 person likes this.
Hate to ruin the party but I did not think this was one of kristi's better classes....
Thank you Antonia ~ I'm always interested in improving. Would you mind letting me know more specifically what you didn't like so I can potentially make adjustments in the future?
1 person likes this.
Love any way to take equipment exercises to the mat-thanks for fresh ideas!
1 person likes this.
Loved this class Kristi! Such a perfect workout!
1 person likes this.
Enjoyed the different methods with the ball. Thanks Kristi Suzanne
1 person likes this.
I really LOVED this class Kristi! Loved the tree,swimming,diamond, the saw ,the reformer work with weights was a nice surprise too. It was a good balance of strengthening and stretchy goodness! Just what I needed today.
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