Class #926

BASI Reformer Flow

55 min - Class
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Description

Workout with Kristi and Meredith! This is a filmed version of their weekly workout. Following (basically) the BASI Block System™, Kristi and Meredith take turns choosing and teaching exercises like, Short Box Series, Breaststroke, Long Spine, Side Overs and a small amount of stretching. Join us!
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box

About This Video

Jan 03, 2013
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Transcript

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This is mine and Christie's weekly workout and we're just going to film it this week. So what we generally do is take turns choosing exercises and we follow the basket block system and just see what fits in ready Christie. Perfect. Okay, so let's just start with a couple of roll down, standing your feet just under your hips and inhale and exhale, allowing the head to go forward, letting tension go. Taking a moment. Inhale at the bottom, bend the knees. Exhale, stretch the legs. Press the chest towards the thighs.

And in here and XL we're building the spine back up over the hips, stacking up bone by bone, standing tall, eyes forward any and heal one more. And exhale, just feel tension draining out through the top of the head through the tips of the fingers in heel to bend an excess stretch and come up. Okay, Christie and I have our spring set up to do foot work, but we're gonna warm up on the box. So sitting on the box with your feet hooked over the foot bar and a prehensile like position. Reaching forward, breathing in as you breathe out. Feel the pelvis move out from underneath you. Round the spine down. Find your way just to the tips of your shoulder blades in your arms up. Exhale, arms around Anil spine comes up an inhale and exhale, rolling the HEC.

Press down into the bar with the feet. Inhale arms and exhale, spy. [inaudible] left and in here. And exhale, rounding back. Feel that there's an energy between the arms. There's energy in the upper back of the arms.

Press through space and inhale and exhale, look good. I just gave us another breath. Good thing that's yeah. And inhale arms and exhale. Push the arms around and roll up. Exhale and now anyhow, rotating towards the right.

Exhale, roll down the right side of the spine. Inhale, rotate through center arms go up across the opposite side, XLR and any ultra return. Uh, there's more breath in there somewhere. So we're going to roll down as we exhale. Inhale arms up and around. Exhale to come up and continue excelling as you do. Rotate. One more. I need excited in here. And come on Christie. Rolling back. [inaudible] been over here rolling up and center and last time rolling back and Oh, all the way up to across. Keep those feet pressing down and up and finding center. Inhale. Exhale.

Find your way down to the tips of your shoulder blades. Again, get ready, get prepared. We're lifting the legs, both of them at the same time. Pick them up, hands on the knees. Inhale, we take the legs out and exhale back and in her reaching out and keep powerful energy through the arms. We press the arms through space as they circle around and they press down onto the knees. Here's for drawing deeply in three, two, and one. Stay right here. Stretch the right leg forward. Press down on the left knee and switch. Reach and reach and reach and reach.

We do three more like this. Two, two, one, one second. Set. Reached Bolo the box with your leg, warming up those hip extensors, looking for a little bit of opening through the front of the hips. Here's three. Keep using your arms. Three, two, two, one, one both knees in. Good, good hands behind your head. Sort of sneak attack, but it's still good. Left leg forward. Rotate to the right and across. We're going to do the same thing here, Christie.

Okay, sue three. So five of each too and one. Here comes the hip extension. We'd go down and down, but as the leg goes down, keep lifting the body. Ah, three, two, one, one both knees in. Reach for your legs. Curl up just a little more. Almost there. Almost there. Hands behind your head. Stretching the legs. We take the legs down as the legs come up, I want you to think pressing your chest towards your thighs.

We're going to do five for us. The chest into the thigh, down and up and down and up and last one and and bend and just gently rock. Okay. Pass, pass. Move to box. Take it to the back. Set your foot bar up for fitting like work. And since she started the tone, we're going to stick with the little, maybe a little pumping. I'm not sure yet. Okay, so I have three red and blue. I need Terry just to line down, feed in parallel on your heels situate. I'm going to take a second just to find my position.

Press all the way out initiating from above the knee. That doesn't mean anything to you. I'm gonna give us a couple before we actually start any kind of count. But for now, make sure that it's not all in your legs and you're not driving the knees through the floor. But rather there's a sense of almost like your heels were attached, your Achilles tendon were over the bar and you're gonna pull yourself back.

It's just the idea. So your hamstrings kick in. Let's go back down and again, try initiate from the back of the legs. Let's press out just for five. There's one and pull yourself back. There's two. Feel the back of the arms into the mad. I'm exhaling as I go. One more like that. We inhaled to go down, starting a double exhale, double pump, so it's exhale too and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale all the way out to straight. Get along. Lengthen that space between your hips and ribs. Pull yourself in.

Change to the balls of the feet. Exhale, lengthen. Full extension. Pull yourself back. It's almost as if the feet are just stuck on the bar and back. You can start paying attention to the bones of your body. Resting heavy into the mat. Is that three Mary? That's four. Here's five.

And let's pump it. Starting with the exhale out, out and yeah, yeah. Exhaling for two n n two. Exhale all the way. Stretch it out. You're still working. It's not arrest. Bring it home. Swivel the legs so the heels touch toes apart. Put your fingers maybe somewhere where the leg and hip meets.

Initiate from their toes. Relaxed. Exhale, lengthen out. Press the thigh bones together. Resist coming in. There's one. Exhale, two [inaudible]. There's energy in your feet, but if you can avoid just energy in your feet, that's good too. There's a subtle difference in those cues. I'm gonna give you one more. Sorry. One mark. Go, go, go. We inhaled down. Here's our axial for pumping more on and inhale, exhale and inhale.

Last set. Exhaling all the way out. Get along. Resist coming home both feet. Move two heels wide. Exhale, pressing out at as if you're drawing those inner thighs together. Then you resist and push away. Exhaling out, leaving those feet flexed with intention. Here's three. And resist work through the inner side, not just the quads.

You'll get that part. Is that five already? It goes quick. Here it is an exhale. One, two, inhale, one, two. Then exhale. Inhale, exhale. Although a, uh, almost over, come on down to the balls of the feet. Still in that external rotation. Let's do one a little wider unless that's just super easy for you. Uh, I'm going to go. You think about it coming from the hips, it'd be very easy to do it from the heels like I'm trying to show.

But instead it's the whole leg and yes, the feet will follow. Here it is. Exhale, push out, squeezing inward. Resist getting wide, no tucking. Two. And here's three. Okay? It's a great chance to really let the air in and out and here comes pumping exhales to start one. Pan. Inhale, work at both way.

So it's push and pull in here and all the way. Can I keep going for just the, yeah. Yeah. Good. We call it a hammer. Yeah. Yeah, but a progressive progressive person. Yes. Okay. So what that means is your parallel balls of the feet. We push out, we stretch the heels under. Turn out to hyperextend. We lift up, feel the hamstrings. We pull back in number two out of six, down and up. Twice down, up one. Can you feel the whole back of your body to pull in?

Number three, inhale. Exhale. One. Here's two. Feel the whole foot. There's three Andra in number four. You're halfway there. Get longer. Don't let us. Russia, two, three. Here's one more. Four pull in. Number five, can you connect to the back of the leg all the way up to the glute? Two and 30. Oh, I need this for five.

Last set of six push out and no one get longer through the front. Very easy to, you'll hope you'll tell me when six is, Huh? Four, five and six. Bend your knees. Come on, Huh? And let's just do a quick stretch and then you, and then I'll pass left one, one, heel down. Make sure you're not just dropping into the knee. If you are one of those people. And I am. That's why you keep hearing me say it. I know you could even just think of softening your knee on this one, but I think it's some benefit to not just release, softening it, lift and change.

Play with the position of your foot. You're going to most likely, we all would go to the path of least resistance. So I'm gonna take my heel out a little bit. I'm going to roll in on my big toe. And you may find doing the opposite is a good idea for you too. All right. So he married single, like five single excited with this resistance? No, let's go to reds in Ebola. Okay. And starting in.

Okay. So we're gonna land our sides. I like to just lie with it on my bed to elbow. Okay. My headdress is down so that I can put my arm on my and I've, okay. So we sit in a squat like position.

You're so sit back more Chrissy and put the right heel just right in front of the edge of the foot bar. And here we go. We press into the heel extending like fully feel that the spine is long and resist. Pull yourself in and reach out long and pull in. So the work happens from the hip joint. We're pressing and pulling right where the hamstrings and the glutes meet one another. And here it keep reaching long through the spine. And last four here and Paul and three and Paul and two and pull [inaudible].

We're gonna pump now. Let's use the same breath. Exhale and inhale and exhale. Exhale in here, in here. Excellent. And all the way out. And stay out externally.

Rotate the hip and bend and reach out with the hip in external rotation and bend and wrap the hip open as we straighten the leg and and continue. Yeah, so last five and don't forget to pull in and for reaching along through the waist as well as through the leg. Here's number three. And in and to and in. I don't want you want to pump Christie and here we go. Down down is our focus and down as a focus. Three four, five, six, seven wrapping the knee backwards.

Nine 10 [inaudible] all the way. Yeah, come and sit up and switch. [inaudible] so now the left foot or the top foot goes right to the front end. The body goes over the back edge and you're ready Kristy. Oh and we press out and Paul [inaudible] and a big long x as we reach focusing the energy right and not happy. Letting the neck relax, feeling that the neck is long and not forward of the spine. Last four here and three and reaching along every time the leg straightens. Remember to keep the spine long. Here's number one.

Here's our pumps on the down. Exhale. Exhale, inhale and exhale. Exhale. Inhale. Inhale, Xcel and out saying out, we externally rotate in the hip joint and we bend in and wrapping backwards in the knee and the hip as we press out and pull back and reach out and pull in a work in both directions and n back last for and reach and checking in with the pelvis. It's aligned. Checking in with neck. It's relaxed. Last one and now it's Dah, Dah, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and all the way back. And Christie, it's all you.

Hmm. Come on down. Help yourself up to change the springs down to probably one and a half for abs or do we want to do shorts? Fine. I mean short box for that. Okay, let's do the hips then for now. So for hip work, strap work, I'm going to a red and a blue. Two reds appropriate as well. I wouldn't go much lighter than a red and a blue. So lay down your head rest is up to you. Of course. I tend to just, well I'm kinda going in midway and that's pretty much how I've always done it. But now that I'm on to computer a little more, it's absolutely necessary. You may enjoy it. Flatten. It could be a good idea. Okay, so just getting a little more into the hips, we're going to try and use as little as possible.

So if we are starting in the frog, give it yourself a second to be heavy in the bones. From there. Exhale, use as little as possible. Full extension. Now when the legs touch, even if your knees come apart because of just structure, really draw deeply into the inner thigh and then resist income and push out. So the quads are quite relaxed basically pulling in ribs heavy Perez and it's like an infinity sign of resistance pulling in. You change your mind and you push out and it's hard to know when the springs are getting tension, there's two about three more. I'm three. Let the legs come up and go into a soft point. Take a second here. When try for 90 and then peel the hips up a little draw back down.

Keep it 90 and really reach. So you almost going for arch, but I don't want you to actually arch to do it again. Lift and back of the arms are working for you once more like that squeezed through the inner thigh. Same thing but go parallel. Now very little going on in terms of the legs, you're just feeling and down. You're feeling the low back. Get some pressed into the mat via the abdominal contraction, pulling the pelvis off one more time.

Then from here, put some read like you're going to actually push into the straps but try not too much just yet. Just to the point where you feel the hamstrings working because you want to make sure they're engaged. Then the carriage will move. You're going to just bend to 90 degrees or sorry to tabletop. Then let it back up. Minimize carriage move them, but it is going to move and as if it were heavier, the pelvis doesn't move at all. You're just kind of trying to get the little hamstring curl here to tap into that. Before we go any further and up to Paul and up last one here from there, keep it in parallel for now.

Press all the way down with the straight legs and I do have a slight bend in my knee with it. Hamstrings externally rotate, bring it around in up. You can just leave. It turned out now and I'm just doing five years too. I think I have a leg sometimes as the action of really inhaling with it. Exhale down there. Gonna reverse it after this one, pick it up as if it came from right under your chest. Feel the rotation in the hip, push apart, exhale around and big squeeze together and uh, and if the action of the legs were forcing the air out of the lungs, make it come from higher up. You're in charge of that.

That's where you start to play Palladio's games with your body. Let's do one more circle all the way around. And then my favorite on that doesn't look like anything. So where are your feet? Or maybe not quite as high as 45 you're turned out and we're opening. We take a look at where your feet are. You're not to push down or up, but then it's hard to do. You're, you're thinking reaching through the straps to bring the feet back together.

I almost Trimble right away. We'll just do five opening. Why don't lower don't lift. It's an absolute add action. You'll know. Well you won't really know. You have to kind of watch for it, but you'll know if you're doing it right. If you almost instantly get into the inner thigh. I keep reaching beyond the strap is what I'm thinking in my mind. Again, open, go wider. If you feel like you can.

That was probably five I think. One more. Yeah. For a long spine, Mary. Yeah. Okay, so going back to parallel for the moment. Let go of put your head rest down. If it's up, take your legs to 90 we don't the extension straps. Usually I am going to do my little thing. Think of using the hamstrings here so I have a little knee and repeal up.

No motion of the carriage. Get along. Start to see the front [inaudible] your hip. Get longer. Use the back of your arms. Try not to look down much. Look more towards your feet. Separate the feet as you get even tall or you can feel the glutes here and then we exhale down. Keeping that subtle knee bend, no emotion to the carriage.

Find the tailbone circle round. It's so important when you do things like this. Of course you know this, but go ahead and [inaudible], but to find a way that you know you're working through the hamstrings to support what your abdominals are doing. It's not enough to work the ABS. Grow Taller. Feel that space in front of your hips. Feel the glutes working and from your throat melted down. Paint dripping down a wall. Noticing what you notice.

We'll circle around one more like that and inhale tonight. Exhaling Open. Can you be any taller without just additional pressure on your neck, but more from the legs or spine and down [inaudible]. Oh, oh, and around we're going to reverse it. Come to the V position. It's really not quite well. I guess it is a v. It feels like it's not.

From this angle up. We go little knee bend, a little pressure into the arch of the feet of the strap. Taller, taller. Where are your arms or your wrists? Doing? Close it up. Get a little taller still and from your chest. I'm here. I back. I'm kind of relaxed. The feet there. As long as the hamstrings are working, push away. We get two more. Here we go in here.

Make sure you haven't already tucked here. You're just kind of sticking your butt out. Then you spiral up the legs. Just kind of wait for you to move them up. Oh, squeeze. Close and down.

You get all one more. Push it away. Don't let the back of the knees take the work. Here we go. Take it around. Exhale. Growing to the ceiling. Growing as if the legs and the spine are going to become one there at the top. I'm almost done. Stay up here. Externally. Rotate.

Bend the knees. Try not to move a carriage. It might mean you have to move your heels away. That's okay. Take them back up. Big Squeeze. Bend them again. Big squeeze inner thighs together. Just one more time. We'll go back to straight parallel feet. Keep them together.

Rolled down and I, I'm totally aware I'm being a hog, but here we go. Last bit. Tailbones down. Knees slightly bent. Once again. Finish with five of the hamstring curls. One, try not to move the carriage now. Nah, you got to, you have to a little bit but minimize it. Right? Right near the, what is that? I don't know what angle that is. Near the full knee bend. You need a little bit. One more and Europe, my dear. Oh Chrissy.

Take your feet out of your stress. Let's roll to our sides and come up. I'm going to save the short box for you. We're going to do some art. Okay, so one red spring or one full spring. Let me come onto the knees. The knees up against the shoulder blocks, hands on the ropes just above the buckles. Organizing your body so that your shoulders are just over your knees.

Pelvis is in a neutral position. Maybe a slight bias towards the Tuck. For those of us who like to overarch our low backs, here we go. Inhale, arms are just in front of the thighs. And now we xon press down to pull back. And anyhow, reaching forward and exhale, reaching out and back. And inhale. As the arms go down and back, the spine reaches up effortlessly. [inaudible] just stays broad. The body stays stable.

So we're going to go four more times reaching back, reaching back. And last two, you good? And last one. Okay, so here is a something fun. Glue your upper arms next to your sides. Sit back and bend your elbow so you're in a flat back with your elbows at your sides. Straighten your arms for five tricep extensions. Here's number one, number two, number three. Oh, I got stuck on my reformer. Number four. Number five, hold the arms back. Starts your roll back towards thigh stretch. Keep the arms back, keep the arms back, reach all the way back into the thigh.

Stretch and come up and keeping the spine flat. Sit back, bend your arms and press back what? And connecting to the upper back too. And here's number three, keeping the abdominals working. Last two, last one. Here we go. Press the arms next to the thighs, roll back, pressing the pelvis in front of the the ribs. Oh, an everything. One more. Let's go bending then bending at the hips, bending at the elbows. And last time working from the upper back and three and two. And, and now breaching forward with the hips, reaching back with the spine and come all the way.

Yes. Set the straps down. Adjust so that you're at, um, the lighter spring community. Use a half a sprain. I'm going to teach two more exercises and then I'm going to give it back. Okay, so we're still this way. I'm gonna do the reverse. Any stretch. So we have our hands on the frame of the reformer.

And now finding a flat back. First, just simply pull with your back muscles and with your arms to bring your shoulders in front of your hands from that position round the lower spine, but try to keep the upper spinal region relatively sto. And now from there we work on attempting to do deepen the curve of the lower spine to move the knees and in here. And it's not a leg movement. It's a spinal movement, so that's what I want you to think about. It's not really truly in reality a spinal movement. The spine should be fixed, but I feel that if you focus on the creation of a deeper curvature and the allow the legs to respond to that feeling, then he'll get good solid work. Then we're going to do three more.

Well exhale and exhale and one more and back and now walk all the way up to the risers with your hands. I keep my knees underneath my body a little bit. If you want it to make it harder, take your knees just underneath your pelvis, but that's a little too tough for me. So I'm an ab here. Hands are on the top of the rises and now we're going to bring the Elvis to the sides of the body, pulling the heads through the rise. Inhale as we allow the arms to straighten, creating resistance from the upper back, and exhale, drag with your scapula to move the aunts.

Hmm. Yeah. The scapula moves. The head reaches through the two risers. Maybe one of my favorite exercises at the moment. So we'll do four more. So it's too tough. Don't let your arms go all the way straight.

It's a little easier to hang on that way. The last two times x and last one. Exhale. And now reaching back. Just gently walk yourself back. Well, I think I want one more. Now I'm going to be a hard, do you know the one that the pike with no springs? I'll teach it to you. So okay, so take the springs away and be careful. There's no spring.

So your slippery. You may want some stickies for your hands. So what you do? I'm good. I'm good for a change. And so you want your hands to be pretty far forward in front of your shoulders. Because what's going to happen is we're going to step into a plank position. And when we straighten our legs, the short shoulders are going to go over the hands. You Ready? Here we go.

So we straighten the legs, bringing the shoulders over the hands. Good. And now we're gonna bend the elbows, lower yourself towards the shoulder blocks. Press up and exhale as you lift into a peck. Sorry, late call Christie, reaching, reaching. Bring the carriage all the way underneath you. And inhale as you return to your playing position. One pushup in here, an exa and in here and excellent.

Dig into the abdominals to bring the carriage again. And let's do two more for us. Pull and back. Bend for us. Yeah. Cool. More and more and more and more. Try to go all the way until the feet are flat and then reaching back and bent. Oh, nice. All right, let's get our box here.

You can catch your breath. We're going to go into short box. They'll load up this spring. So the courage is not an issue of moving. Um, foot bars don't need to be up. Straps are on, foot straps are on and tight and secure. Yup. And let's do the what is normal for us, which um, we typically don't deal with straight legs and we're not going to today unless she wants to go ahead. For me. I do like to bring the box a little more forward.

It works better for me. Um, feel free to, most people would probably want it right against the shoulder rest, maybe even over the top if you're going to do the traditional versus version, both feet under and back. On the hamstring theme I said to put them all on but didn't [inaudible] and with your feet securely under that strap, do you leave the bar here? You do. I was just thinking of that. I don't either. That's better. So we just got our little stuff out of the way and then now from me, I don't quite reach the foot bar easily, so that's cool. I'm just going to leave him on the wood and I'm sitting tell where I can use my hamstrings for round back or have I done with this sitting tall? You can follow Mary on an exhale. You draw the pelvis out from underneath you, your spine follows that accompanies that.

It's not necessarily a given that your back is going to move right here. Before we go any further, push the thighs down into the box. Inhale, exhale. Keep letting the thighs press down as you round forward until shoulders are over. Hips. Inhale, let the arms just fall. Exhale as if your hip bones were just pulled out. You eventually start to fall feeling the backs of the legs supporting.

You can go further. You can go all the way. You can just hang out. Inhale, exhale, Chin toward chest. If you did go that far, shoulders will stay or end up over hips. And inhale, we like to straighten up. Exhale, let's go reaching, keeping your head with you. It tends to want to reach forward if you want. Let's reach back. It's like you're going to reach for the floor. Oh, how nice. And then I'm refolding my arms, my chin rolls to my chest. I have my thighs pressing down.

You can even press your forearms into your ribs to help and up. Just one more for four, I believe. Exhale up to you if you want to go all the way. If you do stay committed, stay strong with or without arms. Inhale, arms forward. Head forward. It's not just an upward pull of the strap and then sit. Okay, I'm skipping. Tilt today. Hands behind head as if I don't always. Sheesh.

Okay. Press your head back into your hands. Shoulders are easily down. We hinge back. Inhale, exhale, come up more secure crystal. Here we go. Inhale hinges back so it's not really neutral. It is more flat here. Exhaling and squeeze. Lift as you go back. No roll to come up and rotating to the right for twists. We inhale, rotate, leaning back.

It's just like that flat back. Exhale, stay rotated or rotate more. Center other way in. How do you stay aligned to keep the pelvis coming with you so it doesn't become this big arched back. There may be a small arch but you minimize that. Just one more. Reach longer and uh, right.

Climb a tree. So right like out holding onto it. Think more of the back extensors rather than just drawing mulligan and we pulse it in for three. Getting Taller. One here's two, here's three from that place. Extend the leg, trying to keep your back long. Even if you don't fully extend it, hinge back, taking the tree or the leg to 90 from there, walk down. One, two, three. Before going any further, check your hips, line them up and press that other side out. If you want to go further, do arch back. I'm gonna put my headdress down. Shit up earlier. No it is, and look forward to climb the tree. One, two, three. Sit Tall. Get right up on the sit bones and fold. We go.

Exhale to exhale. Three. Adding a little stretch, roll it back. Walk down to three optional arms or just hands on the box. There's your inhale. Make it a big one. Exhaling up, get closer, get closer, enjoy it. Then sit up tall. Inhale one more and then I'll change it. Exhale. It's almost like the knee sliding up the ribs. Three and extent. Bring it back.

Walk down. It's like you're reaching the leg through the ceiling. Take it back. Optional Circle of the arms. If you want chin to chest, make it come from the ABS, not the arms. Only do three. Get Tall. Bring it closer as you do. You up for open. Okay, so we'll change it to, I don't know what to call it. Right hand inside, right arch, a foot left-hand, cradling lower leg, and open the hip. You can get a little stretch here. Same thing. Get sit tall. Three pulses. One, exhale, two, three. You extend it up. It's an external rotation.

This time you're going to bring it back to 90 find the box or the handle with the left. And as you roll down, you let the light come out. You either continue holding or you could support it from underneath. Oh Yay. Chin to chest. They come up simultaneously. Give it a little stretch. Just one more bend and lift Hu two, three, stretching it up.

Bring it back to 90 and reach out to the side as you go down. Support yourself with the box opening, lifting the chest, not just arching the neck, bring it back. And when you get to the top, take a big inhale, bend the right knee just a little and make sure your back is as long as it can be. Keep it like that. Draw the ribs back a little maybe. And then extend again. Change legs. [inaudible] ready? Sitting tall. We post one, two, three. Stretch it out. Oh, I'm going to need a little more time on this leg.

We will roll it back. We'll walk down. Light hands to think of the spine. Optional going over the top of course, but if you do, it's not reaching from the neck. You should be able to breathe and talk and up we come. One, two, three. See about a little bit deeper stretch. Get on the sit bones if you're not, and bend one, two, three. Stretching is, can you make any closer? Bring it back and walk down. I'm imagining I'm reaching my like upwards as I go back.

My right hamstring or thigh is really involved in pushing down. Roll forward and up. One, two, three. Big stretch and more like this. One, two, three. Stretch up. Bring it back. Walk down to three. You decide if you're going to use arms or not. If you do make it kind of graceful. Oh, that didn't feel graceful. Oh, one two, three.

Say and fold. Left-Hand inside, left arch cradle with the right. I'm just going to take the stretch here and Mary's going to gently pulse up one, two, three, and we stretch. Oh, poor baby. My poor little leg needs a little attention. All right, we're going out to the side. Hold that box. Oh, cat support you. I'll hold from the underside this time and shin treacherous and it's like everything closes up, right? And we've been gentle. Enjoy.

Stretch it up. Lean it back first. If you're going to dig it out to the side, now is the time supporting yourself extending. Oh, there we go. That's all we needed. Chin to chest. Draw from the middle, not just the inner thigh, the middle bringing you up and relax. That's all you can do. Science, if it's my turn side, reverse. Yeah. So I'll just fix that. Toxic.

So let's start on the right with the left leg on top, bringing a leg up onto the box. Bring the hand down onto the head rest so you can organize your body and tell your body's in a straight line. Lifting just the littlest bit up into that strap. Feel the outside of the hip supporting you. You're ready to go. Christie ahead. Okay. Bringing the top hand behind the head, being ready, being sure, and then bringing that bottom man to meet it and we inhale over the box all the way. Keep the head still in the hands as we reached back out.

Straight and hail as we go over the box and the Hep C so as we reach Ya, feel that I pull my head forward on the diagonal. Know that I want to take my spine last to be aware of the bottom side ribs they're involved as well as the bottom side waist. Here's number one. Lifting. Oh, that's enough for me. And then we can just reach over for a stretch. I like my hand on the floor. You can put your elbow on the headrest, taking the left arm overhead, pushing actively away from you with your left foot. Breathe. And to get out of that, it's a good idea to help yourself up with your hands, in my opinion. Oh yeah. He just skipped that line. You'd go, yeah.

Just real quick. I'm going to rotate. All right. Yeah. If you're not already there, but it's just the best. So I'll all I'm doing, I'll give it back. All I'm doing, straightening my arms, I'm still reaching like Mary said, and then reaching the chest to me there is not a better stretch. Okay, thank you. Can you write that up into this um, strap, body and alignment. Right hand behind the head, spine, long left-hand behind the head. We're here. We go. Reaching down and reaching out. It's not about up in my mind.

It's about the length, the evenness in both sides of the body, the stillness of the neck, just to more make them count. Last time and now all the whale, right arm reaches, right foot reaches. And now for Christie, we take the ride on forward and the left arm around and we reach out and how that way he was in the arms to gently pull the spine forward and coming up. I'm going to take over again. You want me to keep going? Okay, so let's take the boxes down and set up with one spring, one full spring. I set the foot bar up on high.

No, there's one in just the high bar. So the item is in the middle. Okay. Do the abstract. So I guess I suppose if you wanted a little bit more spring tension, that would be fine. One spring is my preference. Make yourself happy. Up, stretch, stepping back up against the shoulder blocks, finding a long spine that's watching you to see that going to help you a little bit straighter through your middle back.

And now we take the legs off and we pull from deep in the waist to bring the legs underneath us. And in terms of where the shoulders are, let's feel a wrapping the scapular, Boone's wrapping around the front and sides of the body to meet the rib cage and feel. As you do that your head is enabled to lengthen even further over the bar. Last one, slide the heels down. Bring the right arm closer to the left arm. Lift the right leg up in the effort. Elephant Arabesque, looking for that same long back. [inaudible] elephant era best. So we take now the left foot out in here. We lift the right leg up as we bring the left leg underneath. That sexy.

Then heel is the left leg, goes back. Exhale, there's the right leg lifts up. We drive deep into the abdominals to bring that left leg and one more and reaching up and also in, and then spring the right arm across. Set the right foot down, left arm reaches across. Both arms are straight. Set the spine, bring the leg out to the side and up. And here we go. Inhale. As you take the leg back, exhale. As you lift the left side, even higher as the right leg comes underneath, feel the arms are strong here. There's definite works through the waist and last wedding you and exhale. And then stepping back down. Step to the middle of the reform. Be careful, there's not a lot of spring on here, but just want to take a little stretch.

So let's take the left leg out to the side, reach it up, rotate the hip, open the left tip open, and then bend the left knee and reach back away from the football and then step back, right? Like goes right here. Opens, reaching away from the football as we then been the right knee. Wrap it around towards the left side of the foot bar and stepping back down. Okay, let's put left heel partway up. So we're going into the full lunch. So if you have a lot of spring tension on you may want to drop. Um, we're still on one red spring. Push the care down, bring that right leg up. Kinda. Let's hang out here until we find our place. Looking for a long spine.

Hands are down but light. And then just take a second and focus on not pushing the carriage necessarily any further away. Well, yeah, focused on pushing the carriage further away, but not your body. So literally try to get an inch or two more openness on this spring, whether it happens or not, as to a whole different story. From there, we do our best. That's all we can do. Yes. Keep the pelvis where it is with not going to sink. It's not going to raise, although chances are mind's going to raise at the end here. But anyway, you push out with the right leg aiming for Australia. Keeping your head in line. If it's okay for you to reach the heel under you do inhaling, go into your happy place. Who? I have no idea right now.

One more breath. Square hips help yourself back. Same thing. The hips are just falling in natural trajectory. I can tell you that it does help if this back leg gets kind of wimpy, it's really hard on you, me. So fire up that back leg, feel it and then go again. Shoulders in their pockets. Oh, I'm shaking this good and then bent, come not all the way in the back so I'm off the stop or there may or may not work for you to give it a shot. Other arm, I mean another foot up. And then take a moment to kind of find your place.

It's worth looking around. Good weekend. Alright, fire up the back leg. I just caught myself being wimpy with it and easier way out. It's a different leg you might think of taking the left if your left leg forward, left it bone towards right ankle [inaudible] but don't let that right or left big toe come up. And by that I mean the bottle of the foot.

[inaudible] okay, bring it back. As you come back, remind yourself to kick in. The lats are trapped a little bit lower. Strong back leg. Big Inhale. And here we go again. Both legs are active. You're not just hanging out on the pelvis. It's as if you're reaching the tailbone towards the ceiling, keeping the rib cage relatively in place. [inaudible] making a change here, letting it get longer.

All right, just come down to the knees and I think I'm, are we ready for back extension? What's missing that a stretch that's missing. Let's do it. So here we are, feet at the shoulder us and we'll cover both. Try to get your feet all the way up against them. You may or may not want to do Combo. Okay, let's do a couple of regular. Okay. Three and three. Okay, so here we are. We're pressing the feet into the shoulder rest and I think that's the best way to get your hamstrings kicked in, which you're going to want.

It's as if you're trying to tilt or tuck the pelvis, pubic bone towards chest. Even though it doesn't appear that way. You're lift your chest. It's like you're trying to come off your arms. Inhale back an exhale forward. I'm going to change that. Take an inhale here. Get Tall. You can almost come off your hands. Exhale back.

Okay, let the inhale bring you up, but you still pushing your feet into the shoulder. Rest. You have an imaginary, something right between the inner seam of the leg. [inaudible] and then you're ready for Combo. Why don't you teach it? So from here around the spine into the round, back knee stretch. Extend the spine, extend the hips, pressing the carriage back.

Drop the pelvis down and come up over the bar. And from there keep the carriage still around the spine. Reach way back, flatten out the back. Press through the legs, stabilizing the shoulders, stabilizing the pelvis, the lower back by using the abdominals and focusing on the hamstrings. And I know we curve this spy and we stretched the backlog. I'm going to take us a little further, Christie. So let's go into a straight back and now to press with your arms.

So you go into that nice low position. Be careful with your shoulders. This is tough. Press out with fillings and come all the way all the way and yes, and now we're ready for back extension. Do you want more? You choose? I say breaststroke. All right. I'm going to use when spring one full spray and I'm going to use a full spring yet. Hold on. All right.

Okay, so taking the straps and the thumbs pulling on the box. I'm pulling on the carrot so that you can get onto the box. We're not going to move straight into a right away. What we're going to do first is just set the Elvis feel. The straps just underneath the elbows. Don't push forward yet, but reach back, reach back. Now try to keep the elbow still as you bring your hands right back forward.

What I'm trying to teach or get us to practice is not dipping under with the elbows. Wouldn't be bend our Elvis, so just reach straight back like a windshield wiper and then back and do that one more time. So they arms reach back and then as the elbows bent, we're thinking elbows down, hands up. And here we go. Reaching out, breathing in, continue that breath as you reach your arms all the way around. And Ella's been, there's no dipping. The body lowers and reaching out and taking it all the way or reaching back down and lifting. Feeling long through the body in both directions, all the way around and back and reaching all the way around. And just stay there for one moment.

Really open up the chest and then, and to sending down off the box. I'm letting the box come on. You're good. I'm good. Let's put our hands, go to the side of the box and sits here and do sorta cat ish. So, um, maybe slide, depending on how far you wanna stand away. Just slide your arms so they're straight and bend your knees. We're reaching the tailbone to the sky. I'm laying out most of my arm on the box, but you can back up.

That doesn't matter quite so much. Just so that you have a broad upper back and from there tuck the tail under. Get the low back to work. It's almost like I'm dragging my palms towards my back, but not really them. And then I let the legs or go back to a flat back.

My legs will move a little to do that. So it feels good to you. Go ahead and straighten your legs back, your feet up a little more and dip down a little bit. So you're in a bit of a, not quite a triangle, but you're kind of coming through your upper arms. Soften the knees, tucking around. You can come up a little bit on this one. Looking toward the belly, bend the knees, reach the tailbone out, drop the chest down through the upper arms and then straighten the legs. So I'll do that one again. I'm straight arm, straight leg at the moment, dipped down a little, pull the ribs back in, tuck the tailbone under around them, almost like you're going to get up, but then you bend the knees, sort of point them in toward the box, dipping down.

Then untuck the pelvis that leads from the tailbone. Your upper body starts to drop down, your legs start to straighten. And from here, I'm just going to roll up, keeping the leg straight, letting the hands slide off the box, opening the arms out to the side. Deep breath in. Exhale. I'm going to do one more and just let the arms drop. I need to not be controlled.

I mean consciously let it go. Anything else? Good? That's good.

Comments

7 people like this.
loved this class I love the style of teaching that Kristi does. I always watch your videos as we seem to teach and train the same way:) Many thanks to all of you for great ideas & classes
NS
NS
4 people like this.
Such an enjoyable class with ideas to pass on. Thank you!
Thanks Beth and N.Shook. We had a lot of fun that day. I'm glad you both enjoyed it too.
2 people like this.
Loved this class
For a guy who is not flexible awsome
5 people like this.
Awesome Class !! Thank You :)
truly enjoyed the pike pushups with no springs ~ super challenging
But please don't make us wait too long for another class like this
Yugonda you have been very patient. We have at least two great Reformer classes stuck on a hard drive (which is partly the hold up). We "extracting" them this week and should have them edited shortly after that. I think we have a couple that were filmed after that we can push up in the meantime.
I too loved this class. I liked using the risers for arm work. Also the tree with the leg out to the side. I can't get my leg to go as far as you both but I'll work on it!
Wow! Such great comments. Thank you everyone for taking class with us.
1 person likes this.
Thanks for including us! Twas FUN!
Great class ladies, can't wait to do it tomorrow! Happy New Year too, keep up the amazing work, it is sooooooo appreciated :)
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