Class #886

Fletcher Mat

65 min - Class
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Description

Jenna Zaffino joins Pilates Anytime with a Fletcher Mat class. Based on the Classical exercises, with what Ron called "goesinta" (transitions from one exercise to the next that help to maintain flow), this class will have you touching all parts of your Mat and your body.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Nov 08, 2012
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Hello, my name is Jen is a fino welcome. Today we're going to be going through a Fletcher Mat class a that would be categorized in the intermediate advanced area of movement. Um, a couple of things that you should know about the Fletcher Mat is that it is indeed based on the classical exercises. So many of the exercises you'll see hundreds roll-up rollover will be known to you. But we also add in things called into, and when Ron first heard this word, he heard it from Martha Graham and thought it was a Yiddish term and kind of went around researching what does this word cause into me? And I have no idea because she had told him, your exercises are wonderful, but your good centers are not.

And finally someone said she means your transitions. So it was the way he went into or goes into one thing goes into another. So our goal with the [inaudible] is to create a, an environment of flow so that we're never stopping and that we're touching every area of the mat. So hopefully you will experience that today. And, um, let's get started. So I'd like you to start in the center of your mat, standing with your feet side by side, facing inward. Yes. And just for a moment, taking a bit of inventory. So feel where you're standing on the bottoms of your feet, feel where your weight is tending to shift and then seeing if you can bring attention to the three points of balance on the bottom of your feet.

So if you lift your toes up, you should feel weighed into the ball of your big toe weight into the ball of the foot behind the fourth and fifth toes, and then finally weight into the center of the heels. And we call these the foot centers. You can spread your toes out and try to maintain that weight as we stand. Good. And then the second thing I want you to feel and am go ahead and place the toes down, is that three points on the inside or the inner thigh of the leg. We're going to feel that the upper inner thigh right where your thighbone comes up into your hip socket is connected right at the top and then directly above the knee. At the flesh, you're a part of your thighs, also connected.

And then finally the center of the ankle bone. And if they don't touch, just pretend as if we're thinking about three very strong sets of magnets drawn towards midline. And then also up through the center from the front to the back. Just image that your pelvis is narrowing to lengthen because of the connection of the front of the pelvis to the back and the back to the front. So it's almost as if we've placed a strong bolts there that will not be let go. And then finally bringing the ribs directly over the hips and the shoulders on the back and the head over the shoulder so that we're creating one vertical line that can translate to when we're laying on her back, our side and our front. So let's take a few breaths in. As we inhale, breathe in through the nose and as you exhale, breathe out making a shushing sound.

And we want to think about breathing into the sides of the rib cage as you inhale and as you exhale, empty the all the way out. And if you feel like the ribs can press the arms open, go ahead and allow them to open a bit more. And as you exhale, everything reconnects to midline grounding through your feet, finding the inner thigh connection, breathing in and breathing out. And on our next inhalation we'll bend the knees, keeping our vertical alignment. And as you exhale, stand a bit taller. That's it. Breathing in. And our goal today is to stay as one orchestra of breath with many instruments playing the same tune, but we will not take points off if you come out of sync one more time. And exhale. Let's reach the arms all the way up overhead. Take your focus up.

Inhale, reach your right arm up to the ceiling, stretch the right side of the body, and exhale. Draw the shoulder blade down onto your back. And then the same on the left, stretching the left side and bring it down onto the back. And the right lengthening all the way down to the outset of your foot and ground. And then the left and ground. We'll do one more each side. See if you can lift up out of your hips, out of your pelvis and pull that shoulder down. Last one. Inhale and exhale. Reach both sides up.

Breathe in and press your arms out to a t shape. We're going to roll to the ball of the right foot. Inhale, roll. Exhale, place, and the lab. So we're just challenging our ability to come away from and back to midline, which is a simple act here, but we'll be more complex when we go into things like single leg stretch. Let's do a few more. Lifting and lowering. Notice whether or not that hip wants to lift with the ankle and see if you can keep your hips level as your knee, hip, and ankle.

Articulate last one. Now let's take a head turn. So as we lift the right heel, look to your right, come back to center. The left heel moves. Integrating some simple coordination and look and center. We'll do two more and the left and center. Inhale, reach the arms all the way up. Exhale, round your spine forward and take one more breath to come all the way down towards the Mat. Reaching your fingertips in front of your toes. And in this moment, if you need to bend your knees to get your fingers all the way down there. Go ahead. But it looks like we're all good. All right. Inhale ple, a bend your knees deepen and exhale, straighten the legs. Get a little hamstring stretch as we go. Inhale. Then exhale, stretch. Inhale, bend, and Exhale, stretch. Let's take two more. Continue. And as you bend and stretch, start to feel that weight through the balls of your feet, listening to each other in hell. Bed. And exhale, stretch.

Now from here, engage inner thighs a bit more and inhale, rise up to Relevate. Lifting your heels off of the Mat. And then we're going to contract down wrapping the spine, reaching the heels or the hips towards the heels, right? And we're in a position. So look up ladies right here. Oh, there we go. Yeah, so this position is what we call the Fletcher Ball and it's much like rolling like a ball.

Let's feel the spine in a nice curved position and we'll pulse the heels towards the hips, towards the heels. Excuse me to wrap the spine deeper. So we're going, inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. [inaudible] know as we go through the two count, breath, breathe in, and then breathe in. More exhale. And then exhale even further. One more time. Breathe in. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe out. Let's lower the knees, do the math, untuck the toes, and then take your hands right on underneath your shoulders. Excellent. All right, let's take the knees just slightly apart and find a nice flat back position.

So we're in the quadro pad with support and take a full breath. We'll come into flection. Round your spine, curl your tail under, feel your shoulders, reach away from your neck, and then take a full breath and come back to your center position. Nice, long, flat back. Let's do that again. Inhale, exhale. Round the spine. Yeah. And then from the tailbone, reach out. See if you can feel the articulation back to center. One more time here.

Rounding Xcel deep in the belly, lifted up towards the ceiling and then full breath to come back. And then let's go into extension. So this time, full breath to reach the chest forward. Tailbone ups are on the Sitz bones. And then full breath to come back to center, feeling the engagement of the belly and again, stress the distance from your pubic bone through your chest and recover back to center. Finding a connection from the front of the rib cage towards the back. One more time. Reach [inaudible] and find center and hold center. So from here, let's take our right arm directly out to the side as we breathe in and we'll thread that arm right underneath the left side of the body. Placing the right shoulder down to the math.

Let's take one breath here to feel the twist and then a breath just to recover. Placing the hand underneath the shoulder. So reach the left arm out and thread it underneath. Reaching all the way down to that shoulder. This is one of my favorites. And then come all the way up and back to center. Let's do it one more time. Right out to a tee. Threaded under, we'll hold for one breath.

Inhaling into the lungs. Exhale, empty and come all the way back up. Last time to the left. Reach it out. Stretch it through. Well breath here and come all the way back up to center. Excellent. All right, last little warmup exercise. Draw the shoulder blades together to allow your chest to reach towards the ground and then press the mat away to separate the shoulders so you feel a nice, wide back and draw them together, engaging those muscles and then press the mat away. Start to feel the connection from your inhalation through the chest to your exhale. Engaging the belly to support the spine.

One more time and exhale. Press. So holding that Nice, strong back. Let's reach the right light back to a plank position. Nice and early. Bring the left leg back to meet it and start to feel those same standing and centering cues. So continue staying right here. Find those balls of the feet underneath your toes. Find the inner thigh connection. Good.

Press the Mat away from you as much as you can to feel the connection through your center. One more breath. Nice and long. Let's bend the elbows and lower the shape down to the mat, to our ballets. Beautiful. Taking the hands right underneath the forehead. And let's separate the legs about hip with distance apart. Take an inhale here and as you breathe in, reach your legs further off the mat as if someone was giving them a gentle tug behind you. And when you exhale, we're going to try to just slightly lift the belly up off the mat, stabilizing the pelvis. So as we breathe in, reach the legs out further and then as we exhale, the belly lifts up. Just finding a little bit of support. Good. And Inhale, reaching nice and long, creating space in the hips. And exhale, lift the belly to stay. So from here, let's start to lift the right leg off the mat. Inhale, reach out to lift up.

Exhale, reach out to lower down. Inhale, the left leg reaches out. Exhale lower. Bring the leg longer, reach out the right and lower down. Good everyone, check in with your shoulder blades. Left leg reaches out and lower. We'll do two more. Inhale the right and lower in how the left breathing into the back. Exhale lower. Take one full breath to lift both legs up off the mat.

Good. Now finding those magnets. Inhale, close the legs towards midline. Exhale, open them out. Inhale, engage to close, nice and strong. Exhale, open. Inhale, close. Stretch behind the knees. Exhale, open, staying together. Inhale, close. Exhale, open to more. Breathing in, breathing out. Last one. Inhale, close. Exhale, open. And one more. Inhale, close and lower the legs back down to the mat. Excellent. All right, let's all roll to face me and we're going to come into sidekicks quite early, but I think you'll enjoy. Let's take the arm that's underneath your body and support yourself by placing it directly underneath the shoulder.

So if you use your other hand underneath your rib cage, remember that we want to imagine that the Scapula here is almost like a shelf that we're setting the rest of our torso up onto as opposed to sliding the torso off of it. So once you establish that upper body position, this is going to come up later in plank and bring your elbow right underneath your shoulder a little more. Yeah, and this, and find the center of the body lifting. Then bring the legs forward. Only as far as you need to hold your balance. Okay, and we're all going to take the challenge of the hand behind the head. We'll flex the feet actively here and find that nice alignment. And then inhale, lift the heel. Exhale, point and lower. Try for the most articulation you can get through your foot. Inhale, reach out, lift up, exhale, lower, good.

And whenever you feel pressure on that underneath shoulder, remember that you can use your breath to engage the underneath side of the ribs and lift yourself up a little higher. One more time. Lift up point and lower to hover. We're going to flex to inhales, kick forward. Exhale, press back behind you. Good. Now let's be really honest about shifting or not shifting the body as we do our sidekicks. I'll try to do the same for, for pressing through this space or really reach forward and press behind you. Two last one.

Good. Keep the foot pointed. Bring it right back onto the bottom leg and hover. Let's reach it out a little longer as we rotate to turn out. Back to parallel. Inhale turnout. Exhale, parallel. Inhale, turnout, exhale, parallel. Breathe in. Long. Inhale and parallel. One more time. Turn out in hold on the exhale.

Good. From here we're going to pause, say x stent and flex to lower all the way down, so we'll take a long breath. Inhale. Exhale. Full breath. Reach the leg longer. Press up and out of your shoulder. Pos. Say Extend, reach, passe, extend. Reach it out and reverse. Full breath on the long part. Inhale, exhale up. Pos a point. Engage your inner thighs. Good. Full breath up. Passe and extend to more. Full breath up.

Posse. Extend last time. Reach out to lift up passe and extend. Rotate the legs back together. Let's come up into a side set. Thanks mark. All right, this is going to be choreography. Are we ready? Let's have everybody take the arms overhead. Lift up and bend away from the center.

Sure. Good. All right, we're going to pulse here to open the side that's closest to the center. Breathe in, breathe in, breathe out, breathe out. Breathe in, in, out. Inhale, grow tall. Exhale, fall, but with control, catching yourself.

Now we're going to lift up using the side of the body. Suspend and reach all the way over pulsing two sets. Breathe in to lift up, grow tall and reach over. Lift up, press off the arm and stretch. One more time and pulse up to go over last time to fall all the way up. Reach over, lift your body up, find that midline stretch, reach up a little further and then press the arms down to a low V and we're going to transition back onto the hips. Extending safely our legs to teaser and flex and point.

Flex and point. Good. Flex and point. Last one, flex and point. Bend the knees. We'll come on to the other side facing front, see how that worked out. All right, so we'll take the elbow again underneath the shoulder. Bring your legs as far forward as you need. Balance, take the top arm up. Let's take one breath to just set ourselves in the shape. Flexing our feet. Sorry. Let's inhale. Lift the top leg and exhale lower breathing in.

Breathing out [inaudible]. There's a nice opportunity to find the balance on the bottom leg as you reach out through the top leg. See if he can really feel the side of your hip touching the mat. Good. Here's two last one, and lower flex and kick forward. Inhale. Inhale, press it back and [inaudible]. Good. Broadening the collarbones in the front.

So this is a really proud stance of the upper body. Nice and connected through the center, but open through the chest for two last one. Bring it back on top. Breathe in and turn it up. Turn it in and turn it out. So be aware that it's really the thighbone that's moving and not your pelvis that's making that happen. Let's do that one more time. Turn it out. Lift up everyone, including me. Paul say extend. Reach out.

Flex and lower. Full breath to come down. Paul say extend. Reach out and press through this face. Two more. [inaudible] reverse lift and passe and reach. [inaudible]. [inaudible] last one up, Paul, say and reach.

Let's come all the way up. Bending the legs. Excellent. Reaching up and over this time we've been towards the center of the circle and I'm just going to even my cell phone. There we go. Two sets of pulses. Breathing in in. Keep lifting underneath so we're not crunching down, but we're lifting up and then we take that lift to go up and over, catch ourselves and lift, find the suspension, and then reach and pulse. [inaudible]. Inhale, grow. Exhale, reach, lift up and stretch. Good. One more time, Paul.

Lifting up and out of that outer hip. [inaudible] up to the center. Reach over, coming all the way up. Finishing the reach to the center. Go ahead. Let's come up. Place the arms down and we're going to turn to face the center of the aisle, reaching our feet straight forward. Excellent. Okay. Let's take a point of the toes. Let's reach the arms up to the ceiling.

Bend the spine forward over the legs and take two breaths to roll down to your mat. All the way back. Let's reach the arms up to the ceiling. All the way back overhead to stay. We're going to take the arms up straight over your chest and then press out to a t shape. Yes, making friends as we go. Okay, so feel that same vertical alignment, although now we're horizontal, so see if you can place your feet. On the same plane in space so they're not rolling apart and the magnets are working to hold you against your midline. And then of course we have our pelvic placement almost as if that front of the pelvis was bolting the back to the mat. And from here, without changing that position, let's draw the legs through tabletop and we'll extend them straight up to 90 degrees. So find the 90 degree angle at the hips.

Everyone reached further out through your sits bones and then activate your hip flexors to keep those legs up at 90 a lot of us are prone to going a little bit beyond 90 holding the position is what's called the Fletcher moment and we'll enjoy many of those. So this is your first Fletcher moment of the day. You're welcome. Let's flex the feet. Inhale and point. Inhale, flex and point. Just imagine that your breath is the fuel to make those little bones of the feet work in both. One more time. Inhale, flex and point. Let's separate the legs, hip with distance and bend the knees to lower and place the feet onto the mat.

Good. So we'll warm up the spine with a pelvic press, which I think is the perfect marriage to the hundreds before the hundreds. It's like the engagement of the hundreds. Here we go, roll the hips back into a pelvic tilt, deepening the belly, and then continue to roll up through the spine, pressing your hips towards the ceiling. Let's stay here for a moment, finding a nice long line from the shoulders through the hips, out to the knees, and then even beyond. So reach the knees away. Feel the stretch of your body. Take a deep breath in. As you exhale, let your chest slide down to come forward. Rolling through the rib cage, rolling all the way out to the tailbone. Beautiful. Let's do that again. Rolling up in two breaths. One breath, tonight's deep curve. Another breath pressing through the soles of the feet to lift you up and let's have everyone take one breath to establish those foot centers.

Make sure you're still in the ball of the big toe as well as the heel and the outer edge of the foot. Excellent. Rolling down in three. One breath to let this sternum slide, finding the flection in the upper body. One breath to roll down through the rib cage and really articulating through the lower lumbar spine all the way out to the tail. Reach out to that tail last time. Full breath, curling back. One more breath. Peel the spine up and find length at the top.

Everyone take a breath to open your throat. Lift your chin, just slightly find face. Now as you inhale, breathe into the chest and as you exhale, slide the sternum away from the Chin and feel the length of the body. As you roll down into more breaths. And the last one reaches out and you set your bolt, you set your tailbone down. And Lyn, let's draw the legs up to tabletop, keeping them separate. Take another breath and sten.

Extend the legs up to 90 and they're still a part. And we're going to internally rotate the thigh bones in towards midline and then externally rotate apart as much as you can internally rotate all the way in x, terminally rotate. Excellent. Keep checking in with your tail lengthening out to the very edge. So your back is long but still connected and you can feel the edge of your pelvis. Last one, rotating in and out. Good. Come back to center. Bring the legs together, engaging your magnets.

Take a full breath to bend your knees to tabletop. Reach the arms up to the ceiling over your chest and reach them back. The hind you overhead. Good. Take one breath to ground the ribs here. Inhale and exhale. Pressing the ribs towards the Mat. Use the breath. Inhale the arms. Reach up to the ceiling. Exhale, upper contraction or right into your curl. Reach your hands by your hips, curling off the mat. Inhale the arms. Reach straight up. Exhale, the whole body rolls back, reaching your arms by your ears. Beautiful.

Inhale the arms. Reach straight up. Exhale, lift your back off to come forward. Reaching forward. Breathe in as the arms. Reach up. Stretch yourself all the way back. Reach longer through the sides. Last one. Inhale, arms up. Exhale, curl forward to stay. We're going to count breath in the hundreds to inhales. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale.

So listen to each other and stay together and I'm going to cue you through some progressions. When you're ready, extend your leg straight up to 90 and keep pumping to reach through the fingertips and broaden your collarbones as you exhale. Excellent. Now you have one count to lower the legs, one third to the mat. So wherever you think your Max distances, we're dividing that into three. Here's your second chance to lower a little further. Good. And if you're used to doing this in parallel or in turnout, rather try it in parallel.

One more chance to lower any amount or stay good. Here's four. He pressing, reaching the legs longer and the neck longer. The crown of the head reaches up. Last one, stay with it. Take a full breath to press your legs down to the math straight. If you can, deepening the belly, inhale the arms, reach up and exhale, reach all the way back overhead. Excellent.

Take one long breath to stretch the center line of the body. Inhale and exhale. All right, into our roll up on your inhalation. Flex your feet and reach your arms overhead over chest. Full breath to curl up and all the way over the legs here. So we'll take two breaths to roll down. You're going to point your toes, roll down to your upper contraction, lift the arms challenge, and then stretch back without losing your connection. Inhale, flex and reach.

Exhale, curl up, lift up and over the legs. And one more breath. Point to roll down. Arms lift and stretch. Let's breathe it together. Breathe in, curl, breathe. Ouch. [inaudible] peeling back. [inaudible] reach up and stretch and flex and reach. I'm rolling off the Mat.

Lift up and over. Points are all down deep in the belly. Pull back through the low belly. Lift, arms up and stretch last time. Flex and reach. Inhale. Exhale, curl lifting up. Reach past the toes, rolling down. As you point, place the waist and lift and stretch. Good the arms.

Reach straight up over this over chest and then bring them down by your sides. Excellent. All right, going into the rollover, we'll devil a pay or take the legs through table top towards 90 degrees. Good. Excellent. And we're going to keep the rollover very simple today. So feeling your magnets, the legs will stay together the entire time. You have a full breath to lift the hips up and roll over to your shoulders.

Inhale, exhale. Okay, excellent. Let's make sure those legs are nice and connected. Take a flex of the fee. Yes. And then as you roll down, press the hamstrings away from you.

So we're going to try to keep the legs parallel to the floor and then maintain that position as you roll all the way through and point the toes. All right, so full breath. Inhale, exhale, rollover. Inhale. Exhale, flex. Yes. Roll the down. One bone at a time.

Reaching all the way out to the tail and a full wrap to 0.1 more time. Rollover. Full breath to flex. Reach out of your heels even further. Roll down through the spine, pressing through the length of your arms and point. And let's do one more for good luck. Full breath to rollover. Full breath to flex.

[inaudible]. Press the legs away from you as you roll down. Excellent and point and stay deepening your belly. See if you can lower the legs all the way down to the madness. Straight, long line, opening the hips without letting the back arch and once you're down you can let them stay. Excellent. Bring your arms up towards the ceiling. Press them out to a tee again and we'll go into single leg circles.

So are, let's take the right leg to devil pay, so passe and extend. Now feel the left leg long and pulse the right leg back with the two count breath. Inhale. Inhale, exhale, exhale. Good. Now flex the foot and keep pulsing without letting that left leg. Leave the mat. Take a full breath to point your foot up towards the ceiling.

Now we're going to stay together. Inhale, cross your midline towards the left leg. Exhale, circle down and around to come back up. Very succinct. Cross and around and lift. Inhale, cross around and lift. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in and reversed to the right, around and up. Good, open and good. Let's really stabilize that supporting hip open one more time in this direction and lengthen. Take a full breath to lower the leg down to the mat. Finding the magnets. Excellent. Bring the left leg to passe. Extend at 90 without going into a pelvic tilt.

So we're still reaching out to the tailbone. Nice and long and pulse back one. Excellent. So you can imagine that you're breaking a pencil at your hip fold that's flex the foot with each pulse that takes you back. You're deepening that action of the hip. Take a full breath to point, crossing midline to the right circle down and around and cross around enough. Let's see all the legs move together in the room.

Nice community leg circle experience. One more time. Cross and reverse. Open to the side, around and up and open and lift for two and up last one and beautiful. Lengthen all the way down to the mat. Okay, so we're, we've taken this to our single leg circle. Now we're going to go into Ron's leg circle so it gets everything that is entitled Ron before it's just a little more fancy with some more pizzazz and who's, ah, all right, let's take your right leg to t to a posse and extend up to the ceiling. Good. Now thinking about the pelvis is one unit.

You're going to lift the right hip off of the mat to cross the body and allow your leg to reach over to the right. So make sure that the leg still has energy and that the legs hovered off the mat. From here, draw a straight line down. Replace the right hip to the mat and turn out the leg. The left hip. Stay stable. The right leg reaches all the way out to the side and then bring it right back to 90 beautiful to come back to the center. So let's do this in a full breath.

Find the first shape crossing, lifting the right hip show, then find the next shape. Bringing the legs together. Place the hip down. Find the third shape. Reached the right leg out to the side, and then come all the way up to center. Excellent. Lower that leg back down to meet the other end. We'll set up the left side Pos. They the left leg, extend to the ceiling. Lift the left hip off. Cross the body, your left shoulder stays grounded.

Press the legs to meet. Open to the side, then bring it up. So we're trying to be very precise here. Show each shape. One breath to cross, one breath to come together. Great. One breath to open. Stabilizing the right one. Breath to come up to the ceiling and lower the leg all the way down. All right, moving back to the other side. We're going to use the two count. Breath, hip, leg, hip, hip, leg, leg. Alright Devil, pay the right leg posse and extend. Inhale, cross. Inhale, place the hip. Exhale, open. Exhale, center.

Inhale, cross placed the hip open. Stay with me. Inhale, cross place the hip. Open and center and Cross and place and now we reversed directions open to the side. Bring them together. Cross and center, side and together. Cross and center. Move the leg and the leg. Then the hip and hip in four, three, two and excellent. Reach to like out of your hip socket.

Lengthening it all the way down. We have one whole other leg to go. Devil, pay the left leg. Extend up to the ceiling. It looks beautiful. We're almost rocket ready. Here we go. Crossing midline. Inhale, cross legs together, open side and center. Cross and together. Exhale, shied. XL Sensor. Breathe in. Breathe in. Exhale, good. Last for three. Ready to reverse.

Open side and together, crash and place. Side and crush. That's it. Make sure the inhale has as much power as the exhale in four, three, two and one. Lengthen the leg all the way down. Beautiful. Flex your feet, reach your arms over your chest, curl contract up, and take a full breath to roll all the way up over the legs, reaching past the toes. Good. And come up to sit tall. So let's move into rolling like a ball. Drawing your legs together.

And this is just a fun variation that I like to do to remind myself that this is about the abdominals and not momentum. So if you take your fingertips and gently placed them on your now sunburned shoulders and then find your elbows and place them at the top, not on your kneecap, but at the top of your or the bottom of your thigh. And then find your balance here with the small pelvic tilt. So the game is don't lose the connection between your elbow and your knee. As we inhale, we'll roll back to the shoulder blade, lifting the hips, and exhale, come back up. Not Easy. Inhale, roll back, exhale and lift. Good. Continue. Inhale back, tailbone up to the ceiling, tailbone down to come together. Inhale back. Exhale, curl. Good as you go. Go back, squeeze the cits phones, just a little to lift and come forward. One more time. Inhale, back, cramp, the foot and all the way up to the top. Good. So I would love, now if, and this is just the choreographer in me, if we could transfer to the right hand to the left ankle, left hand to the right wrist, find your ball position and we're going to try eight in a row in unison.

So that means the smaller people have to stay longer and the taller people have to move it. Okay, so we have to meet each other at some point. The center, here we go. Find your balance. Round your spine deep in the valley. Ready and inhale back. Exhale up and back and lift. Good. Roll back. And up and back. So far so good. Hold onto it for the last four and back and up.

Last two and up. Last one. And up to stay. We're taking this show on the road. Very good. Let's extend the left leg nice and long. Hold on to the right knee with the left hand. The right ankle. All right. Testing where articulation is.

Four breaths to switch legs and roll down to your upper contraction. Inhale. Exhale. One, two, three or coming up. One, two, three, four. Good. Rolling down again. Four and three. Nice and wide through the chest to add one up. Four.

Beautiful lifting little by little to get it what it deserves. One last chance. Let's go down. Four and three. Reached the legs to each other. Balance Yourself with opposition and one rolling up and four and three and two. That's it.

Gathered in from the center one and I kind of lied because we're going to go down one more time to stay. Here we go. Four, three, two and one and good. So we're down there. We're going to bring both legs in, a little teaser variation, a law. My former tape. Inhale, reach the legs out. Double leg stretch, arms and legs. Exhale, circle the arms up. Find your teaser deep in the belly curl contract and solo lay with control. Come down into a nice ball shape. Inhale, reach out. Find your shape and oh through center as you lower like someone is pulling the plug and the belly. Inhale, reach. Exhale, circle around by day.

Deepen. Beautiful. Roll down all the way back. Last time. Inhale, reach, circle, and lift. Hold onto it and full breath to roll all the way down. Let's rest the head on the mat for a moment. How are you feeling? Are you loving the Gazintas yet? All right, we've got a couple more in the app series and beyond, so let's take the leg up to 90 again. Establish that position.

Take a full breath, upper contraction, cruel your head, neck and shoulders up off the mat. Reach for your right ankle. Press your left leg all the way down to the mat. Good and reach out. Let it let it hover. Excuse me, reach it long. Alright, full breath to switch. Inhale, exhale, switch. Inhale, exhale, switch. Good. Breathe in, breathe out. So think of these more like hedge clipping, heavy scissors that have powers they cut through the space.

Not your plastic kindergarten kind, but a nice sharp blade that presses through. Good for four and three and two last one. Excellent. Both legs reach to 90 in the hands. Come behind the head, flex the feet as you lower any amount towards the mat. Point an exhale. Lift. Inhale, flex and lower point. Deep into lift. Good. Inhale, flex and lower point. Deepen and lift. Last time. Flex in lower point, deepen. End Lift. Take a full breath to bend the knees. Tabletop. All right, we're all going to twist to the right. Extending our left leg long. Yup. Think about it.

Hold the shape and pulse for eight in Hale X. Hail for three, switch sides in Hail X. Hail for three, switch for four. Breathe in, breathe out and switch. Breathe in. Breathe out now to switch and two and switch and two again, switch and to slowing down for singles. Breathe in, breathe in, breathe out, breathe out, breathe in, breathe in. There we go. Breathe out. Breathe out. Last four and three and two and draw the knees in how little UJA and roller your head down. Very good. All right. Rock the knees in towards your chest. We're going to rock ourselves up to a seated position. Nice easy transition.

Let's point our feet and we'll try to engage the entire back line of the leg against the mat as much as possible. And then sit nice and tall. Miss Sitz bones and we'll have the legs about hip width or mat with distance apart. And then we'll take the arms directly in front and we'll come into spine stretch. So as you inhale, lengthen, feel the breath, lift you up and as you exhale round forward, reaching past the toes, but keeping space through the lower part of the body. Good. And then roll up one bone at a time, articulating to find the length at the top. Inhale, lift. Exhale, deepen. Bend your spine forward over the legs and take a full breath to come all the way up. Now without changing the weight of the legs, let's try to flex the feet, which is my challenge here.

Keeping them down. Breathe in, breathe out and round forward. Finding the reach through the heels and the fingertips in a full breath to come all the way back up. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, contract forward, and a full breath to come up. Opening your arms to a team so everyone rotate towards me. We'll take a breath in. Three exhalations. Go over three to until you're completely empty. Inhale, roll up. Exhale, center, twist away. Inhale.

Exhale. Three, two, one. Rolling up. Keep the rotation and find center again. Breathe in, breathe out. Two, one, coming back up, back to center. Breathing in. Exhale, three, two, one, rolling up and center. Excellent point your toes. Gather your legs. We're taking the hands underneath the ankles.

We're going to go into seal variation, so find your pelvic tilt, your balanced behind the sitz bones. Inhale, lift the legs up. Two claps, no breath, clap, clap. Exhale. Lower Clap, clap. Inhale, lift, clap, clap. Exhale. Lower, clap, clap. Try not to think too much in heel lift, clap, clap. Exhale. Lower Clap, clap. Inhale, lift, clap, clap. Exhale, lower clap. Two more. Inhale, lift, clap, clap, and lower. Inhale, lift, clap, clap. Exhale. Lower Clap, clap. When you breathe, you roll.

I know it's a brain teaser, so it looks in, sounds like this. Try to hold your shape. Yeah. Ready and rolling back. Clap, clap. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Suspend, breathe out. Watch the head on the back of the Mat.

We want to keep it lifted and up last time and up to stay. Take your hands on the front of the ankle and we'll move into open like rocker. So I have a little frustrated cheerleader moment like that. I like to get out on this exercise, so we're going to reach the right leg up. Inhale, exhale, bend it back in. Deepening the belly. Inhale, reach the left leg up and you can use your feet on the mat to anchor.

Then we have inhale both legs. Inhale, both legs connect. Inhale both legs open and exhale bend. Let's do that again on the left. So inhale the left up. Exhale, bend. Inhale, the right exhale. Bend. You have three inhalations. Reach. Close the legs open. And Ben, so think raw. Ross is spoon bar. Okay. Sorry. It's just my thing. All right, reach the right leg up. Breathe in, breathe out. Left flag.

Breathe out. Three in hill, Rah, Rah, sis. Boom. Oh, that's great. Raffle. I got a little bit of corny right leg up. Reach it up. Close it up. Open and down. Last time, right, like up, left leg up. Both legs, up. Inhale and how close. Inhale. Open. Stay there. Oh, ready for anything? Ready for anything. Ready? Inhale, roll back.

I'm not going to do it off the table. Exhale, come up. Reach your legs to the center. Make a nice arch in the center. Yeah, practice holding. Ready to go back. Inhale back. Exhale. Come up. Lift out of your waist. Reached in the legs up. Inhale, roll back. Press the hamstrings forward and lift. Inhale back. Exhale, press. Inhale back. Exhale, press up. Beautiful. Last time. Roll back, roll up to stay. Find your balance. Bring your legs together.

Find your best teaser position. Reach your arms forward, keeping the legs at 90 roll down to your back, pressing your arms down by the side. Lift the legs up towards the ceiling. Good. And then bend your knees into your chest for a moment. Arms down by the side. We're coming back up to 90 and we'll start to work the corkscrew. So think about circling around the sacrum.

Inhale shifts your weight into the right side of the sacrum. Exhale, draw a small circle down and around to the left and come back to center. Breathe in to the left. Exhale down and around and back to center. Breathe in to the right circles, down and around and center. Breathe into the left. Circle down. Let's slow it down for the last four right. Circling a little further away if you can, to the left, to the right. Breathe in and out. Very nice to the left.

Breathe in and out. One more time to lower the legs, all the way flat to the Mat. Pressing your legs away from you. Feel that long line of support. Excellent heels, touch, reach. There's a breath in there someplace. There's a cramp in there someplace. All right. Bend your right knee. Reach your left arm up and overhead there. Let's see if we can figure this out. And the right foot is flat to the mat and we're going to roll onto our left side. Excellent. Good. Um, and all the way on to the belly.

And then we are going to gracefully in four breaths, turn ourselves around so you can see me ready. And one [inaudible] senior head to the center too. Okay. Three just this is your own personal [inaudible] into it was fabulous. And we'll be on, we'll be in a prone position. It was great. We'll try it again towards the end. Okay. Yeah.

Don't think about, don't start planning now though. Let's take the hands into a w. So a w has the thumbs just off the off the shoulders and the elbows down a little lower than you would normally go. And in order to prep this swan, what I'd like you to do is flex your hand. Like you might flex your foot to lift your fingers off the Mat. So if you're not sure what I mean, you can look at me here.

And then as you do this, the way that I like to think about it is that my fingers come up and it's like I'm pulling my sleeve up the forearm and feeling the shoulder blades come down into the back. From here I'm going to rotate my palms up to feel that engagement of the shoulder blades down into the back and the opening of the chest. I'm going to come up to baby swan just to the rib cage and then I'll roll back down, replacing the hands. So we have an inhale to lift the fingers up. Exhale, continue to lift the spine up, reaching out through the legs and turn your palms over to face the ceiling. Good. Then lift up a little bit higher and then lengthen all the way down and the palms [inaudible] turn to come up.

Coming to your baby salon. Alright and then full breath to come all the way down. One more time, lift the palms, turn over and lift up to your baby swan. Now in this position, keep this shoulders where they are. And take the hands down and continue to press up to your full swan. Finding that nice long extension, creating more space between the pubic bone and the breastbone. Inhale, lift a little higher. Exhale, press your chest forward as you roll back down along the Mat.

Let's lift the palms again. Flip them over to come to baby swan. Full breath. Turn the palms over and come up to your full swan. Good. Find that length nice and long, and then reach your chest all the way down. I'm going to challenge everybody to find their baby toes touching the map behind you because most of us like to hang out and turn out in this position. So roll your legs open and see if you can feel the baby toenail. Good.

All right, so we'll go right into fall. Swan Palm. Stay facing down. Now lift the chest. Inhale, exhale. Press up to the top. Okay, take an inhale here, stretch out and come all the way down. And then on the last one, let's come up and rock the salon. So we'll take a full breath up. Inhale, lengthen a little higher. Exhale. Just let yourself roll forward. Inhale, lift up, exhale forward, never dropping, always roofing from the back, lifting from the legs. Good.

Keep those legs in parallel if you can is a different challenge for three and two and one lift up. Inhale and exhale, lower all the way down. Excellent. Press yourself back to arrest posts. Reaching forward, mutable. Let's come back around to face the center and we'll bring our legs forward with the feet flexed and just a little more narrow than we did before so they're not quite as wide as the spine stretch. We're going to go into neck pull from here, so hands are behind the head and we find that long line of support through the center. So if you're like me and you like to arch your back, press your chest forward to make it feel like straight. Try not to do that, but instead feel that sense of a course center, the girdle being stitched up in the front. We'll start this with a backward hinge. So lift up, spread the sits bones apart and lean back in a nice long diagonal. And then from here, take a full breath, a little pelvic tilt, curl the tailbone under, but keep the chest where it is full of breath to round forward.

This is our prep and then a full breath to roll up through the spine. Back to vertical. Good. So reach back into your hinge backward. Exhale. Good. Keep your head where it's at and wrap the hips back. Full breath to round forward and then roll all the way up. So watch this moment for one second.

So if I'm back here and I have that nice hinge line, hopefully, and I take the lower belly and I tear to open it up as opposed to collapsing the upper body so that we keep working for length instead of just compression. Okay. So let's try one more time. Inhale, exhale, reach back. Find the hinge now from the waist an under deep and roll back. Ooh, that's beautiful. Now contract over that to come forward and roll all the way up. Let's take it into the full neck pole. Take a full breath to hinge back. Find the contraction, deepen and roll all the way down to the mat.

Excellent. So you know when you look in a book or your manual and you say, is it really written like that? And then you realize it really is. So inhale contract up off the mat. Exhale, come all the way past your toes to the top. That's just nasty. And then take a full breath to roll up through the spine to the top. That's it. Inhale, hinge back. Exhale, contract. Rolling down, lengthening out through the hips. Inhale, upper contraction.

Exhale all the way up and roll up through the spine. One more time. Breathe in and breathe out. Contract all the way down to the mat. Excellent. Inhale, upper contraction x, helpful contraction. I did it with you. And then roll up to the top. Excellent.

Lower your hands down from here and we will move on to the side. Twist. Okay, so we're going to cross our legs. Let's face me and you'll take your top leg in front. Yeah, perfect. So we can all be on the same leg. So this is a little, a different foot positions for, for different teachers. So we're, we're going to actively stand on this and actually I'll come down to show you. We're going to actively stand on this foot, so we start with it in a good stable position. With the three foot centers down, we're want to find some leverage or hovering up off the mat first.

Then we're going to carve out the space by deepening the belly, lifting the hips, shifting the foot if we need to, and use the spine to press the arm through. And then from here, bend the knees open and recover and gesture. And this is just a wonderful moment to realize that I have a beautiful hand and now it's going to range around. So let's lift up again and exhale, reach, twist for us through, and then a full breath to come back down. Yeah, let's do that two more times. Lift up, contract, reach and press. Now hold here and reach further. Show your back to the other side of the room and come all the way back down. Last time, reach up and contract through reaching forward.

Press out of that supporting hand. See if you can lift your hips a little higher. Find that stretch. Oh, I like to hold you here. Yes. Good. And then come all the way back down. Excellent. All right. Keep those legs crossed. We're going to come back to our low v Binder, a little teaser, and just because we can beat the legs. Inhale. Good. Can you let go?

[inaudible] four, three, two, one, and it perfectly ends up so you're on the other side. Looking at the other hand and the sunsets. Gorgeous. All right, here we go. Lifting up. Inhale, send the body through and a full breath to come back down. Inhale. Unweight the hip pressed Russ. Stretch, gorgeous and full breath to come back down. [inaudible] inhale, lift up, stretch through. Let's hold for a moment, see if you can turn your spine any amount more. Twisting your chest towards the front end. Then come all the way back down.

[inaudible] one more time. Lift and stretch through deep in the crease of your hips. Reach your sits bones up. Take your weight out of your left hand. Excellent. And then come all the way down. Beautiful. Let's take those legs together. One last time. We're just going to reach them up. You're going to swivel to face the center of the aisle and place them all the way down. Okay, so we come, we're almost there. We come to boomerang, and as in many Fletcher exercises, there's a certain dynamic and choreography with this that I hope I'll get right.

So we are going to lift up the legs. Actually, let me just show one time without talking yet. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] now you do it. Yes. No. All right. So full breath to rollover. A quick switch of the legs open. Close a full breath to roll up to the teaser. Reaching around slowly and there's a wonderful moment of opposition as the legs and the arms reach, reach, reach away from each other.

And that's how you stop the flop from happening. Okay? And then you indulge in the stretching. Come back up. I'm excited. Here we go. So hands next to the hips, by whatever means necessary using the lowest part of your belly to lift those legs as well as the inner thighs. Inhale, lift up. Exhale, rollover. Open-Close criss cross. Exhale, come all the way up. Find your teaser full breath to reach the arms around, stretching out to come forward. Inhale, release.

Exhale, roll up. Inhale, lift. Exhale, rollover. [inaudible] Chris, Cross roll up to read. [inaudible] beautiful. Open the chest. Gather the arms, stretch and release. Rolling up. Inhale legs. Exhale, roll over Chris. Cross roll to the teaser. Circle the arms.

Exhale, stretch to come forward and release the arms and roll up last time and lift and over. Chris Cross. Roll up to teaser. Circley arms. That's it. Your best stretch all day. Stretch and release and roll up. Excellent. Draw the knees in and let's see if we can just gently roll up and over.

Beautiful. Okay. Finding our last leg pull slash push up. So we'll take our quadro pad position. Reach the right leg back, stretch to the heel, bring the left leg back to find your best plank. Keeping the body in one long line. You're going to inhale, lift the right leg up. Exhale, shift back. Inhale, shift. Yeah, forward. Exhale. Lower the leg. Inhale, left. Exhale, shift.

Beautiful. It won't be very high because we're keeping the body in that long line forward and lower left. Shift. One more each side, right and shift forward and lower left. Shift forward and lower everyone pike their hips up to the ceiling. Let's take a full breath in. Lower the heels down just to find that stretch. It's lovely. [inaudible] and then walk the hands and slowly going. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, and everyone roll up to stand. Beautiful.

[inaudible] almost there. We do have pushups. Inhale, reach up. Exhale, contract, all the way down. Using your two calm breath. Walkouts, your plank. We go. Inhale. Inhale, exhale, exhale. Now hold for a moment. You're going to think of your Max push up. We're going to lower one quarter of that Max on the inhale. Exhale, press lower. Halfway of that Max on the inhale. Exhale, press three quarters down. Exhale, press full. Push up, and again, full push up. Three quarters, halfway, just a quarter. Hips to the ceiling. Lift. Very nice. Lock the hands back in and go. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. Roll Up. Find the center.

Should we do that one more time? Let's do it. Inhale up. Exhale, round forward, walking out in four, three, two, and you're there. Inhale a quarter. Exhale, press halfway down and press three quarters all the way. Got a little dog there all the way down. Full. Push up and press three quarters and press halfway and press just a quarter. Press pack the hips up, stretch back. Beautiful. Walk the hands in. Four, three, two, and one.

Let's stay here for just a breath. Let your head hangover. Yeah, let it go. And then slowly roll up. Placing the knees over the ankles, the hips over the knees, ribs over the hips. Finally coming all the way up. Good. Let's stagger just a bit. We're going to finish with four energetic, explosive, powerful breaths to let us know that we did something today. Inhale up. Exhale, press and pass. Nice work, everybody. Thank you.

Comments

This class is fabulous !! Thank you, thank you, thank you Jenna :)
5 people like this.
"Gazinta"
Generally. any device that goes into any other device. An electric plug goes into a wall outlet, a light bulb goes into a socket. The plug and the light bulb are "gazintas". An example in conversation might be:
"What's THAT?" "I dunno, I think it's a gazinta of some sort." Also used in mathematics when discussing division. Example: 4 gazinta 8 twice.
3 people like this.
Thank you so much. Sharing lots of this in my sessions this week and credited Mr Fletcher during it. I love the transitions, the variations on 100s breathing, sgl leg stretch, dbl leg stretch, swan prep....love the magnets...breath is fuel. And especially love "because it (the exercise) deserves another chance". Thank you thank you thank you!
Jenna Zaffino
Thank you Jennifer! It was a great joy to teach this work and play with some variations! Joni- this is so interesting - we usually spell it "goesinta" as in "one thing goes into another" I love the different definitions to the word - I think there is a definite metaphor in the plug and socket idea. Ron spoke about "plugging into your spirit" to gather up the energy in the movement. Thank you also Deborah! Stay tuned for barrework coming soon!
3 people like this.
Thank you Jenna! Great flow and rhythm! Really liked your baby swan prep with wrist flex and palms to ceiling on lift!
1 person likes this.
HI Jenna, i just took your class, it was great to take a Fletcher class !!I feel so lonely in France !! looking forward for the barrework. Thank you :)
Jenna Zaffino
Isn't it great that we can connect this way Corinne? Merci pour regarder ma classe, je l'espère vous voir à la Conférence Fletcher en mai!
Jenna Zaffino
Thank you Bonnie! So nice to meet you at the PMA!

3 people like this.
holy mother of gazintas, batman! do I know that I just worked! whatta class! thank you, Jenna!
Jenna Zaffino
Thanks Miriam - I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
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