Class #1931

Articulation Exploration

55 min - Class
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Explore articulation and breath in this Tower workout with Jenna Zaffino. She uses the breath to accentuate each movement while going through the Fletcher Pilates® Cadillac syllabus on the Tower. Jenna only uses the Push Through Bar, which creates a nice flow and easy transitions. Enjoy!
What You'll Need: Tower

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Today we're going to be exploring articulation on the tower through the Fletcher Paul Audis, Cadillac Syllabus, slightly adjusted to meet the needs of the equipment. We are using only the push through bar for minimal transition time and a nice flow. And I have a sprung on one blue spring today. So we'll get ready. We're going to turn around and face the bar and you'll place your hands onto the bar and just press the bar down until your arms are straightened slightly in front of you. Good. And from here we're just going to start with a few deep breaths.

Starting to align the spine in the body. Let's bring the legs close together so we feel ankles above the knees and that the top of the in seam of the pants connect. And as we breathe in, just think of length and space through your body. And as we exhale, find sound. We'll be working with the percussive breath today. So let's inhale again, breathing in three dimensions and exhale, find more length as you press the air, pasture, teeth, all the way out of your lungs. And one more time. Deep breath in. And exhale. John, your next breath. Let's lift the shoulder blades up towards the ears. As you inhale and from the back muscles, pull the blades down into your back pockets. As you exhale, and again, inhale, lift. And as you exhale, start to feel your chest broadening across your collarbones connection down into the V of your back. Breathing in as you lift and exhale, connect, opening the front of the body and feeling anchoring down through the heels.

Last time. Inhale and exhale. And from here, let's inhale, lift the toes up and exhale, spread and press them all the way down. We'll just do that twice more to really ground into your foot centers behind the big toe, behind the fourth and fifth toe and into the center of the heels. Good. Let's go one more for good luck and Xcel. So with the shoulders down and using the bar, the push through bar as a ballet bar, we're just going to keep a slight bend in the elbow so that we work with a little bit of instability and we're going to roll to the ball of the right foot. Going. Inhale to lift the heel. Exhale, placing the heel back down, drawing the inner thighs together. Left side. Inhale, lift, exhale, place and lift and wholly again and lift and place.

Two more. Trying to keep nice length through your torso and the hips. Quiet as you move your hip, knee and ankle. Good from here. Inhale, roll to the ball of your right foot. Exhale, roll to the tip toe. Lifting the heel up higher. Inhale to the ball. Exhale to the heel. Same thing. Other side. Inhale Ball, press through the toes. Exhale, inhale, ball. Exhale to the heel and again on the right ball and tiptoe and ball and heel.

Last time. Left ball and tiptoe and ball and heal. From here, bending the knees, plea a bending down. The bar goes with you. Exhale, draw the legs together to stand and again, plea a, everything stays in one long line so the butt stays underneath you there and that's not for [inaudible], but try not to Tuck but rather keep your body just like you're sliding up and down a wall or like on the reformer. Inhale, ple and knees go a little bit forward. Over the toes. Exhale for us. Good. Two more times. Inhale. Liai. Exhale, lengthen, pulling up through the center. Last time. Inhale please. [inaudible] and exhale.

Lengthen. And from here, lift both heels. Inhale, Relevate rise up. Press the crown of the head up, and exhale, reach the heels down through the mat again. Inhale, lift and exhale lower. And one more. Inhale, lift. And let's stay on the exhale. Connecting the inner thighs. We're going to lower the right heel down as the left knee bends. Inhale. Exhale, zip the legs together to come to the top. Inhale, left. Exhale, lift and lower your right and lift and left and lift again. Right and lift. Left and lift and right and lift and left and hold.

Now from here, let's pulse the heels up a little higher using a two count breath, so we'll take inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. Again. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. Keep pulsing up. Last set. Exhale here. Inhale, lift a little higher. Exhale, press your heels all the way down. Good. Inhale, lift the toes up and from the top of the hip, rotate to turnouts coming into a first position. Good.

Then we're going to keep the front of the body nice and long and still reaching down through the backs of the legs and go into a few plays and turnout. So we'll inhale, bend the knees, reaching them over the second and third toe, and then exhale, engage the inner thighs to stretch up. Lifting your waist out of your hips. Inhale, bend and Exhale, stretch. And again, looking for that nice vertical line as you bend down to bring your shoulders back. No, nothing to do with how much you have in the back. It's all about how, where you put the phone. Good. And then, and stretch. Let's see if we can do four more. Finding the crease in the hips and really thinking about using the bar for a bit of resistance as we go down. So the body's moving the bar down and then the body's lifting the bar up.

Last one and good. Let's take it into a ground. [inaudible] get a little warmer. So we'll inhale. Lengthen up through the center. Exhale, plea a. We're going to continue to lower down, allowing the heels to lift as the knees go out. To the side, but not letting that bar go too far forward. Good. Press the heels down. I'm holding on and then come all the way out. I don't know. Full. So inhale, lengthen. Exhale. [inaudible] he did the chest up. Slide down the wall. Full breath to go down.

Press the heels down to come halfway up. Find your plea a good. Don't let that go behind you. And then full breath to come all the way back up. Let's do it two more times. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale. [inaudible] a full breath to come down, reaching up through the head as the heels reach, and then press down to come halfway up. Find your a and all the way up to the top. Good.

One more time here. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale. [inaudible]. Inhale, and exhale, lowering down towards your ground. PA, press the heels down to lift. Halfway up. Keep your torso under control. That's it. And all the way up to the top. Good. So let's stay in turnout and we're going to go into a passe pattern. So you're lifting to the right heel up and you're going to think of pulling the toes right up underneath you so the knee goes out to the side. As we lower, we lower down ball and heel, the breath pattern goes. Inhale, quick up and a little bit of a double exhale as we go. Ball heel. So let's go on the right. Let's do eight times in a row.

I'll do it with you and all eight on the right. [inaudible] [inaudible] four that's it. And three and to, yeah, and one going left. [inaudible] sure. To find those foot centers. Ball heel for four ball heel. And every time that he all connects to the ground, you reach your head up a little bit higher. Last one, let's do four on the right.

[inaudible] always connecting through the inner thighs. Four on the left and up too. Nice. Nice and quick. Yeah. Two on the right and left. Left. Gotcha. And singles go right and lower.

Left and lower right and lower end. Left and good. Connecting the inner thighs. We're going to shift the hips off to the right side to stretch into a side bend. So we're pressing the hips to the right. The body goes up and over to the left and you hold on that bar and go as far as you can without losing your foot centers coming back up through center, finding your posture, lifting up and over.

Hips go left as the body goes, right. Keep your chest square to the bar. That's it. And then come all the way back up. Good. Up and over. Slide them as if they're sliding, right inside of a toaster, and then up and back to center. Inhale, lift. Exhale, slide. Inhale up. Exhale, center. Let's do one more time. Inhale, lengthen through center, and exhale. Go to the side and now we're going to pulse the hips a little farther.

Using our two count breath. Inhale. Inhale, exhale. Exhale for three. We're going to pass right through center to go to the other side. Breathe in and out and reach and pulse. Sure, there you go. Again, lifting up through center all the way to the other side.

Let your head go all the way left. Creating a nice arc and pulse. Four, three, two and lift. Find Center and reach to the left last time. Pulse Eight, seven, six, five. Good. Four three. That's it. Two and one come up to center and we'll stay. Good. Let's lift the toes up. We'll rotate back to parallel. We're going to make our way down to the mat.

Moving through Ron's bar stretch. So we have an inhale to lengthen and an exhale to find that vertical play. So just bend your knees as much as you can. Keeping Your posture upright from the lower belly, round the spine and sit all the way down to your heels, allowing your arms to go long. So you're really hanging from the bar. That's it. So you have a really round spine here. Tailbone wrapping towards the heels.

Head wrapping towards the knees. And we're going to take two full breaths to extend our legs and reach out to a flat back. So we'll break at the hips. Inhale and exhale. Reach the Sitz bones back. Yeah, take another breath. Think of the tailbone lifting up the chest, reaching forward. Head in line with the spine. Good. Take one more breath to lengthen your side scenes.

[inaudible] from the hamstrings in the back. Lift up to vertical and you're, they're very nice. So the last part of that stretch is a real like wake up call from the hamstrings and the upright back. Okay, so let's inhale. Lengthen. Exhale please. [inaudible] [inaudible] take a full breath and contract round the spine, sitting, folding in those knees all the way down to the heels. No, take your time. We're going to break at the hips and start walking the tail back. One full breath reaches the hips back.

You arrive on the second breath. [inaudible] you try to lengthen out of that. Lower back on the third breath and then the inhale lifts you up. Good and back to center. Last time. Inhale, lengthen. Exhale, plea a. Feel the belly pull back as you sit to the heels.

Full breath to go down. Beautiful. And two full breaths to extend out to the flat back. Find your best position. Reach your sternum forward and hold here. Now we're going to come back down to the contraction round your spine. Sit towards your heels and then go back to the flat back [inaudible] and the contraction round and curl into your ball and reach from your tailbone through the crown of the head. Nice. And last time, rounding down, reaching out toward that flat back head and tail. Reach together.

And one more time to round and sit all the way to the mat and extend your legs out towards the bars. Good. So watch your toes. As we worked through push through series as we pushed the bar through, we're going to start actually with the arms reaching up overhead. And before you hinge forward, just find your vertical spines of feel. Your sits bones stationed evenly underneath you. Try not to lean too much for too far forward just yet and let's have a heel of the hand connection when we're up in the hinge so we can use that connection to push against the bar and also to find our shoulder blades and the arms are reaching as much as possible.

So from here you're going to break a pencil at the fold of each hip and hinge your body forward. Good. So no bend in the spine. This is more about coming up, so come back a little bit. Good and lift out of the hips than it is about coming forward. So feel that nice diagonal line when you use that to count breath again to pulse from your hip folds, deepening that crease. Let's go forward. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. Inhale, inhale, exhale. Keep going. And each time you go a little farther, [inaudible] four, three, two and hold from the pit of your belly.

Pelvic tilt takes you back down to the mat, wrapping your fingers over the bar, engaging your underarms to press the bar down to chest height and round up and over, all the way through. Good. From here, using the hip fold and the rounded spine pulse forward, you got it. [inaudible] two more sets of just getting deeply into both shapes. And the last set, again from the low belly roll back towards the Mat, reaching the arms forward as the belly pulls back and lift from your tailbone to come up into the hinge. Let's hold here. Anytime we pause, you're going to stay in the moment. We call this a Fletcher moment. It's fun and painful sometimes. Hopefully not now. So when you go back, be mindful of your wrist position. It's a big cheat to flex as you press through.

We'll take the work away from the center. All right, let's do two full sets of pulses. So let's everyone take a breath to lengthen up through the body and pulse the hips, reaching up on the diagonal, lifting the tail as much as you can and contract back, rolling the hips back, pressing the bar down. Nice long wrists round up and over from your spine to press through much better. And pulse. Four, three, two. And this time we're rolling back towards the Mat. To stay. Keep holding the bar.

We're going to take your left arm and slice your arm open towards the back of the room. From here. Thread the needle, pressing the right arm up, reaching past for your saw. So you can choose two positions here. You can either be more in a hinge, which you're reaching up and out, or you can be wrapped and contracted down towards the thigh. So let's try one of each. Let's try the hinge first to reach up through your back. Spiral your chest through reaching left-hand for right foot and pulse.

Good. Keeping that opposite hip. Hank anchored down. [inaudible]. From here we're going to roll backwards to reach back on the diagonal. Breathed the arm up to the ceiling, place it onto the bar. We'll slice the right arm open to the side, thread the needle, pressing it through, reaching the bar up.

So find that long. Hinge lifting the tailbone, reaching through and pulse working from the hips. Spiraling your chest through under the left arm and will contract backwards. Again, reaching back to the diagonal, lift the arm up to place onto the bar. This time we'll try the contractions of slice the left arm open, reaching it through and let's find the shapes. So now we're rounded.

You are twisting your chest through and almost in a bit of a side bend with your left side. So think of bringing your left underarm down towards your right knee. Good and pulse. Reach the left arm through keeping the left sit bone anchored. Excellent. Let's contract back reaching to the back corner of the Mat. Lifting up, deepening your contraction as you place your hand. Slicing the right, beautiful.

Reach it through to the left side, contracting, rotating, twisting and pulse. Four three, two and one and contract back to reach. Lifting up to place. We're going to lift from the tailbone to bring the bar up to our hinge one last time and from here rolling down to the mat. So take your pelvic tilt in. Once the bar is safe, let it go and reach all the way down.

Arms coming down by your sides. Excellent. Good. So we're just trying to, starting to open the spine. Now we're going to work on the a little bit more. We'll draw the legs together. Toes are pointed, feet are pointed. And again, find g, finding your magnet connection so that the ankle bones just above the knees and then all the way up to the INSEAM. And we're take a devil of PE, which is just a fancy way of bringing the leg to the ceiling. So we're going to draw the right leg up to posse and then extend straight up to the ceiling, bring it to passe and slide it down. Connecting magnet magnet magnet in how the left and extend pos a folding at the knee and reaching all the way down and the right reaching up to stay. Now from that deep hip fold pulse the leg back to you, keeping the opposite hip anchor down.

Flex the right foot and keep pulsing to last one here. We're going to hold it at the top level. Take a full breath to point. Inhale and exhale. Reach that leg good and see if you can bypass the bar. Lowering the leg all the way down. Yes, in a perfect world it was awesome. It's been enough leg up and extend again.

Reach long through the opposite leg, so feel the back of your right leg connecting to the mat. Good and pulse. And your pulses are just wearing you from the hip. So it doesn't really matter how far they go. Flex the foot. As long as they're coming from the right place, they might be tiny. Good. Take a full breath to point and reach the leg all the way down. Good.

So moving onto our leg circles, you've work, we're working that hip fold. We're going to accentuate the crossover aspect of the circle using the push through bar as a visual cue. So let's devil up, pay the right leg, inhale and exhale to extend as if you could slide right parallel to the bar, cross your leg over without lifting the hip off the mat so you're really engaging that inner thigh. Then you're going to circle down and around to the outside of the bar and back up to center. It's an inhale to cross. Exhale around, inhale and cross. Exhale around keeping the pelvis quiet as if there were a bolt above your pubic bone below your belly button. Keeping your pelvis connected to the mat last time.

Cross and reverse outside. Now accentuate the cross out and feel the crease of the hip as you move across the body. Always conscious of the back of the opposite leg, reaching to connect to the mat and working from your hip. Fold to 90 last one and good length in that leg up and then we'll reach out. Lowering all the way down. Good Devil. Pay The left leg extending up to the ceiling, engage the cross circle around and really working for the top of your femur bone all the way into that hip socket for three. Oops, you're okay. To my fault.

If I get kicked last one and me verse when it's good, it's like mesmerizing. Just wow, that's a, that's a great circle for to remembering to keep the chest nice and open and continue to breathe into that space and we'll finish there. Good lengthening up, reaching all the way down to the mat. Excellent. Let's develop a both legs, keeping an inner thigh connection up to 90 degrees. We're going to articulate the feet flexing and pressing through the points and we'll go ball flex ball point again. Ball flex ball 0.1 more. Ball flex and point. Good. From here, open the legs just hip with distance and bend the knees to place your feet flat down to the mat. Good, so we'll go into pelvic press.

We're going to take a full breath into a posterior tilt. So inhale and exhale. Feel your waistline weighting your belly sinking back. And then let's go the opposite direction through center. Feel the hips creasing, reaching through the sits bones. And again, full breath to roll back and inhale. Exhale to rock forward. And one more time to roll back and stay. And before we start to lift the spine, feel the soles of the feet three points pressing down and start to slowly peel your hips off one bone at a time.

The first one will take as many breaths as we need. Coming into a position where our knees, hips, and shoulders are in the same plan. You can come up through your chest a little bit more. Yes. And then just take one breath to just photograph that shape in your memory. Very nice. And as we come down, take a breath to just release the chest towards the Mat, reaching down through the bones of the upper ribs and another breath to roll through the rib cage down to the waist.

And your last breath to roll out to a centered position of your pelvis. Feel the weight of your bones into the mat. Let's do that again. Two full breaths up, one through the tilt. And one to continue to peel one bone at a time, pressing through the back of the underarm to really open the chest up. Good. And from here, let's add a way.

So we're going to lift the heels up on the inhale and exhale, press down. And again, lift them up and press. And as you lift those heels up, lift the hips a little higher. And as you press down, try to keep the hips up. Inhale, lift, press the hips higher. One more time, lift and lower, rolling down through the throat and chest through the rib cage. One bone at a time. And then all the way out through the tail. We're going to do that one more time with a little more dynamic.

So two full breaths to roll up. [inaudible]. Press down through the soles of the feet. Continue to peel all the way up to the top. This time when you're lifting, it's a swift inhale. And as you exhale, you're going to press your heels down. And really don't be afraid to us. Slam them down unless it hurts. All right, so inhale up. Exhale down. Inhale up.

Sure. Keep those hips high. Four more up and press three and press two and press one and stay rolling down through your chest and throat through the ribs to the waist and all the way down through the tail and you to fall. Excellent. Let's roll to the tip toe and we're going to extend or like straight out along the mat reaching your arms to the ceiling. As you flex your feet rolling up through your upper contraction and all the way forward over the legs. Good. You are going to take hold of the uprights on either side and slide your hips to the very, very edge of the mat as gracefully as possible.

Good. And as we, let's come up one moment and so you can get the bar as you roll down. There we go. So your pelvis is almost between the bars, sits bones at the edge of the mat. It's going to depend on your body length. And then from here we're going to find a 90 degree angle. So the uprights really give us a nice visual cue for that. So legs are going straight up to the ceiling.

We're going to work some abdominal work to prepare us before we go into more articulation work. Your legs are holding their spaces if they were up against the wall and the back of the underarms are wrapping so that we're not lifting from our shoulders and we're going to take an inhale breath to lengthen and an exhale to curl the head and shoulders up off the mat. Good. Now feel the bottom rib anchored to the mat so it's not a high lift. It's a deep connection to the lower abdominals and the middle torso. We're going to roll back one bone on your inhale. Exhale, sink down to lift up. Good. Inhale, roll back and exhale. Feel yourself moving down. Good.

Inhale and press all of the air out. Very nice. Making sure that the legs are holding their space. They tend to drift. Last one and up and on your inhale, lift a little higher and exhale, articulate down to lower your head down. Let's flex the feet and point a little endurance for the legs and hips. You can do it one more time and stay.

Take a full breath to contract up. [inaudible] do four deepening contractions, rolling back one bone and sink to lift. Good and too, so it's more of an internal exercise than it is a big showy movement. We'll do those later. Good. Last one. This time we're going to stay in our up position, folding at the right hip. Bring your right leg towards the bar, and then replace.

Now we're going to do that without lifting the pelvis off. Then the left leg and replace. And now try both legs. Inhale and exhale. Let's go left and pulleys and right d pitfalls. Keep your tail resting in the mat and pulled both legs back and place. Inhale, lift a little higher and exhale lower all the way down.

Go ahead and bend your knees into your chest and from here, keep holding the bar, but you're gonna pulse your knees in and your heels down. So you're going. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. Just giving a little oppositional movement. Good. Last set. Exhale. Good. From here, let's roll back and see if you can hook your legs right up and over the bar. Perfect. Alright.

The number one rule of this exercise is that your knees will stay hooked together all the time, unless only one is extending. Sometimes people like to throw both enough and then it's just a hot mess so that we're bring arms down by the sides. You're never reach your fingertips towards the edge of the mat. We would. These things are always said because unfortunately they happens, right? All right, so the one of the other things to think about is really using your breath to keep your chest open as much as possible so that this doesn't turn into a, um, a really contracted position of your upper body.

You won't see much, but you'll feel a lot. We're going to take a full breath to just tilt the hips back, so feel the low belly sinking just back to the waistline. So the tiniest pelvic tilt you have without actually using your leg muscles to lift the bar. Good. And then lower all the way down and we'll tilt the opposite way. So your pelvis is going to reach forward.

You're going to deep in the crease and really reach out through those sit spawns. It's a very deep fold. So let's do that again. Inhale and exhale, she said it's awesome. And then inhale and exhale lower down and then tilt towards the wall towards the edge of the mat. Really reaching long through your spine and find the centered position again. Good one last time. Full BRAF to tilt backwards. Deepening the low belly. Full breath to lower down.

Full breath to tell forward and full breath to find center. We like the forward. All right, so engaging the inner thighs, trying to keep the legs as close as possible. Full breadth to the backwards tilt. Okay, continue to press through the upper body as your legs float up to the ceiling and we're trying to find Hamm's drink connection, inner thigh connection, low belly, and then a reach through the knees. So without straightening your legs, can you reach the bar higher? Can you leave it up there and you'll keep that bar as suspended as possible as you start to roll down. So I'm going to resist both of you. Reach down through your chest and find the release through those bones and take another breath through the rib cage. Trying not to drop out of the space.

Knees are reaching up, Belize, pulling down in. Find each bone as you roll all the way out and once we reached the Mat, let's reach the tail into that deep hip crease to oppose it. Yeah, that's a little piece of heaven. It's great. Let's do it again. We'll roll back and we'll do it from the rest of the time we talk amongst yourself. We'll be tilting good all the way up. Now if you can find the place where your arm meets your back and really press that down so you feel that your weighted into your shoulder blades, but you're also opening up the front. Good. Inhale, lengthen. One more inch.

Exhale, reach down through your chest to keep reaching your knees up as you pull yourself down. Make an active endeavor to reach through each bone curling. And let's all pause here and can you let the weight of your body, the front of the body, the organs, can you let that go towards the back of your spine? It's almost like you're hanging from the bar. It should feel really nice and then use that sensation to continue to roll all the way out. Good. You guys are great. Let's do one more time. We'll add a little variation up at the top.

So two breaths to roll all the way up. Finding the weight transferred into the upper body, anchoring down through the arms. Good. From here, we'll keep the knees bolted. So find that magnet right above your knee and extend your right leg only up to the ceiling. Think of wrapping it up and over the bar as you exhale. Then the left leg extends up trying to keep those legs connected. [inaudible] exhale, rat. Then the right leg again.

Inhale and reach longer out of the hip as you wrap. Good. And the left leg. Inhale and reach longer and stay there. Both knees only lift up, reaching higher. Good. And then roll down in three full breaths. Taking your time. Very nice.

Okay. All the way down. Releasing through your back, reaching out through your pelvis. Yummy. Good. And from here we'll take the hands back onto the bar. You know, roll yourselves up and out, and then you can roll up to a seated position and we'll slide ourselves back and there's as gracefully as possible. Come to a fourth position. So you're going to have your right leg bent in and your left leg. No, you were right. I was wrong. The left leg. All right.

And come closer to the bar so you can take it with your left hand. So ideally the hip on the right side, you can move into a little closer. It's going to stay anchored as much as possible. But this, if there's a little lift, that's okay too. Um, we're going to start with the right arm down and out by the side and it comes into a mermaid position. This piece is called Cleopatra. We're going to inhale, reach the arm up, finding length in the spine, and then exhale side bend up and over using the spine to move the bar. So by reaching this hip down, we get a nice long stretch and arc through the fingertips. And then take a full breath and think of stacking spine, pulling it up to a vertical. And lowering the arm down.

So it's inhale to lift. Exhale to reach. Inhale, lift from underneath, and exhale, lower the arm down. Let's do that twice more and breathing in and exhale over. And inhale, lift and exhale. Lower. Good look. Good.

Inhale up and XL oversees, slightly extended and working more in a hip fold. Good lift and place. And one more. Up and over. To stay from here, wrap your body towards the Mat to take your right hand onto the bar. Slide your left heart arm out to the side. So our chest is as square as possible and we're in as much of a contraction as possible. And if that hip needs to leave the ground, so be it, but it should be in a reaching oppositional place from the right arm, not just floating in space. Good.

So holding this contraction and enjoying the stretch, we're going to bend the elbows sideways to pull the bar into us. You're holding yourself from your center and your inhale and cramping in your hip. And then exhale, reaching all the way out. Good. Inhale, bend and exhale. Press them. Not a lot of weight. On the arms, but a lot of work through the center to maintain the position. And again, inhale, bend, finding the blades down in the back. Do two more. There you go. And last one. Nice long risks. We're getting variation on hip cramp. Yeah. Well do it. Just work in the position.

Let's bring the left arm to the center of the bar and keeping the chest down towards the ground. Let's wrap the right hand behind the back or behind the back. Yes, and from here we're going to rotate the spine to face the chest forward and pause. So you're in a reclined position, you're in a profile focus with your head, looking over your right shoulder. This is your Cleopatra Moment. You can luxuriate in the drama and the position and of your, if you need to. From here you'll contract back, rotate the spine, pull the belly back, bend the elbow in and wrap yourself down.

So we'll take a full breath. Inhale, exhale, press look over pose and contract to come back in and press rotate and contracts to start to think about the order which would be arm pal. This mid spine, upper back head, and then the same from here. Arm, pelvis, all the way through the head. Last time pressing to rotate. Everybody focus up a little higher. That's how she would do it. And then contract to come back down, bending the elbow.

We're going to reach the right arm down to the mat and windmill it up to come back to the starting position and lower the arm down. And then we have a brief interlude in the reverse. Reverse pushed through. So bring your legs towards the edge of the mat and hands back. We'll just take the overhand grip if that's okay with everybody. Good, very simple. Seated 90 find the nice deep pitfall that we've been working on. Remember that it's not a locked elbow, but almost a tiny little bicep curl, a tiny little Ben so we can find the support. Long wrists. Inhale, lengthen up through the torso. Pelvic tilt takes you back towards the Mat.

Good. So you go to your comfort level, making sure that those risks are lengthened and we're going to pulse by working the belly backs. We're going inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, inhale, inhale. Exhale and hold. Take a full breath. Round your nose to your knees, deep in the contraction forward and let the bar help the arms lift up towards the ceiling. Good. And then we're going right up under the rib cage to pulse up through the spine, lifting up to four, three, two and one. Drawing the shoulder blades down the back to press the bar. Remember the risks and roll back up to vertical. And then inhale, lengthen, and exhale, contract back. We'll do that one more time.

Let's release the neck a little bit. Yeah, move from your pelvis and pulse back from the belly. So now let your hips and spine take your head forward over the legs. Take another breath to find your best upper position and pulse lifting ribs away from hips, four, three, two. And now engaging the blades down away from the neck. Press down to roll up to vertical all the way to the top. Excellent. You release your left arm, you're going to do it. Amy Did perfect.

And come to the center of the bar. We're going to be great if everybody just knew. Do the next thing. All right, side bending. Inhale, lift up. Exhale, reaching all the way over and reaching that hip down and then grow from underneath and press the arm open. And again, I feel the side. Ben, start from your pelvis. Make its way all the way through the spine, out through the crown of the head and lift. [inaudible] one more time. Up and over. [inaudible] and lift to recover. The last time we'll go up and over to stay.

Yeah, lift and rotate into your contraction. So it may not look like a deep curve, but it should feel like one through the stretch. Everybody take a moment to widen your back, feeling your shoulder blades wrap downward. Excellent. And we'll bend the elbows out to the side. Inhale and exhale. Press an inhale. Cross the collarbones. There you go. And press in deep in the pool of the belly back then and press good and bend.

And as you press, you can reach even farther with your torso two more times. [inaudible] last time and press your sliding your right hand to the center of the bar and your left hand comes behind your back. Torso. Chest faces the ground. Yes. Then we have our breath. Take a full breath to rotate to your profile. Head goes over the shoulder and lift in. Lengthen contracting as you bend the arm and wrap the body. Good.

Press the arm from the pelvis through the spine, ending at the head and lift to contract. Keep trying to find space between your ribs and your hips and press to rotate. Smiling helps cramping hips and contracts to come back in. One more time. You always, there's always one contract. You good? And from here reach your left arm down to windmill it up.

Straightening your right arm to come all the way back. We're going to bring the push through bar up to rest. Turn to face the edge of the mat, extending your legs out in front. Let's just flex the feet. We'll take a bit of a twist. So we'll come arms up. We're going to take a yup, that'll work. Take a double XL to twist to your right. Breathing in. I mean double inhale, sorry. Inhale, inhale. And then exhale.

Let's do that again. Same Way. [inaudible], [inaudible] other way. [inaudible] and twist, twist and recover. Last one, reach the arms up, contract forward over the legs and take four breaths to roll down, pointing your feet as you go. One for the pelvis, pressing the pelvis down, one for the weighs, taking your time, one for the rims and one to place your head all the way down. Good. And then you'll reach your arms back. So we need to adjust for teasers so you can come on back and bit. Yup. And then we'll contract up to get the bar.

Excellent. All right, so from here, let's just work the shoulder blade connection a few times. So you're just going to allow your shoulder blades to lift off the mat as you reach the bar up to the ceiling. And then think of making an impression of your shoulder blades against the mat. Again, working on that opening of the collarbones in how reaching up and exhale, pressing in, placing down two more times. Inhale and exhale, press and the last one, reach and place.

And now maintaining that pressure through your shoulder blades. Bend the elbows. Why? To bring the bar through, pressing the bar all the way overhead. Excellent. So from here we're just going to reconnect to our inner thighs. Take a nice big breath through the entire body, down to your heels. Think of releasing the bones of your ribs, your pelvis, your legs down to the Mat. And then we'll bend the elbows through.

Pressing the bar up. We'll curl to an upper contraction. Take another breath to lift up into your modified teaser. So the legs are down. We're going to find length here. Inhale, exhale. Pelvic tilt takes us back and as we lower the head down, we'll bend the elbows to press the bar overhead. Good, yes, and adjust if you need to. There's always a sweet spot. Inhale to bend the elbows, pulling the bar through. Exhale, upper contraction.

Feel that same connection to the mat. Lift your spine up and off and reach down through the legs. As you grow, bringing your head back in line with your arms. There we go. Inhale, lengthen and exhale, contract down. And as you reach your head back, bending the elbows and reaching through.

So we're using a little more breadth to really just accentuate all of the bones onto our variation. Same thing to bring us up in how bend as you press the bar up, lift your head into the frame of the arms and continue to come up to the top to stay. So a bit of hip work here, sitting on the sitz bones. We're going to keep the spine long. Inhale, bend the bar down just behind your head. Exhale, press it out. Now if you have to move your head to bring the bar down behind it, just reached to the crown. That'll work good. Working from the back of the underarms. Again, inhale, pull down, and now lift out of your hips to press up. Get longer. Inhale, bend and exhale lift. We're going to do two more.

Inhale bent and exhale, pull up higher, higher, higher there. Last one, and reach and now contract all the way back through the pelvis and bend the elbows to press through. Good. All right. Adding on. Inhale, bend the elbows, pressing the head through the frame of the arms as you curl up. And we're coming all the way back up to the top here. So we're gonna stay in this position.

We're going to bend the elbows and take the bar just behind the head, so see if he can rest it on. Just underneath that bump that occiput in the back of your head. Your belly is still deep cause we're still slightly inflection, but we're in length and flection. Once we have this position, we're going to go look ma no hands and reach out in front of us without lowering the bar. Lift your right leg up as you breathe in. Exhale, press it down. Keep that bar nice and high. Lift the left leg up, and as you press down, get a little longer through your center. Good. Lift the right leg up and exhale, press good. Last time the left leg up and press inhale.

Reach the hands to take the bar. Exhale, press the arms up. Grow Taller, contract all the way down. Very nice. Reaching all the way back, bending the elbows overhead. Really good. So let's do one actual teaser. Why not? Since we're teasing, we might as well teaser. All right, so we're going to take a two breath teaser to come up.

We pause in the canoe on the first breath, and if you don't know what the canoe is, you'll soon find out. So let's just go for it. You're going to bend the elbows, bringing the head through the frame and lifting the feet up to make a canoe shape with your body and you hold from the center. Lift to your teaser from the middle, not from the arms. Good. Take a breath to articulate down to your canoe, reaching out through the legs and then extend the body all the way back to the mat. Good. Let's leave a bar there and we'll do that same variation. Full breath to the canoe. Belly sinks is the head and the females will lift up.

Full breath to lift up even higher. Let's [inaudible] inhale, lengthen and pull down to the canoe. Reach out through the legs, deep in the belly, and then reach all the way down. Good. Excellent. Now we're going to have fun back Ben. To teaser. There's a string on your sternum, you draw your shoulder blades back, you lift your chest up to the bar, fold in your hips and experience the joy that is extension. And then roll all the way back down. So this one can flow a little bit more.

We'll take a full breath up and a full breath down. We inhale, lift, reach to the sitz bones, up and contract. Okay. And Lyft, who has called this the flashdance moment and contract. Making sure not to press your chest through too far through your one more time. Good and contract and nice.

And we'll do the last one to come up and sit all the way. Releasing the bar at the top with just depended the elbows. Excellent. And now we're going to come onto your knees facing the bar, feeling nice and mobilize. So our last piece today is Ron's cat variation. So we'll start with the arms extended.

We're going to go through the elements of the piece and then put it all together for a beautiful finish to the work. So legs are together as much as is possible. Starting vertical, breathe in and lengthen. And on your exhale you're wrapping your spine back to sit towards your heels. But it's a stretch backwards.

So you should feel like there's a real opening through. Yes. And then from here we're gonna come back up, finding the hamstring connection, pressing through to unroll the spine back to vertical. So let's do that four times. We always take that lengthening breath to contract, pulling back. Feel the stretch from side to side in head entail, and then press the hips forward. Rolling up to the top two more times. Breathing in and contract. [inaudible].

Press the hips open to come up and the last breeding in two. Contract and press the hips open and lengthen. All right, adding on. Inhale, lengthen and exhale, contract back to your first shape. We're going to keep the arms long, deep in the contraction forward. And when you no longer can deepen the contraction, you're going to start extending tailbone up to the ceiling. Hips fold, chest reaches all the way to the mat. Nice and long. Curl the tailbone back to your former position. Good.

So full breath to reach forward. Pressing the bar down, reaching through big headphones, big sits bones to the ceiling, and then contract back shoulder blades, reaching down two more times, pressing through chest to the ground, tail to the ceiling, and pull from the tailbone in the belly to come back last time, press and reach and curl to come back from here. Press your hips open to come back up to vertical. So we've got a and B. C is a forward hinge on the knees. Bodies in one long line. Press the bar up, lean forward towards the top of your kneecap and then use your backline to pull you back to center on [inaudible]. Just four times. Inhale, press. Exhale, lift to center each time getting longer through the sides to at center. Nice last time finding the shoulder connection and center and our final step is a high release. The bar comes down, the chest reaches up to the ceiling.

Ron would say he would like to serve tea on your chest in this moment and then come back to center. Good. And let's do that just one more time. You get it. Pressing down, lifting, opening the collar bones. Feeling the extension and your upper back and coming back to center. All right, so let's put it all together where inhale center. Exhale, contract back. Full breath to press through into your extension. Full breath to contract back. Inhale, come up through center. Exhale to your hinge.

Inhale through center again. Press the bar down. High release. Inhale, center. Exhale, contract back. Full breath, pressing through. Reach to your extension. Excellent. Curling back on a breath to the contraction. Inhale, press through center. Exhale, hinge forward. Inhale, center, big, high release. Chest up. Last time center. Contracting back, pressing forward.

Feel the flow of the breath. Contracting back. Hips Open Center. Exhale, hinge last time through center. Big, high release. We're going to stay here for one more breath. Lifting the chest, pulling up and out of the waist. Inhale, come center. Exhale, step your right foot forward. Take a full breath to come to stand. Good. We'll let the bar rest and we'll come to a few steps behind.

Turned to face me and we'll just finish with four nice big breaths with the arms reaching out to this side. So and forward. Yes. So just feeling all of our spinal motion and the way that that's freed us up for simply just to standing is the benefit of doing this work. Let's breathe in and exhale. [inaudible] the last one. Thank you, John.

Comments

Jenna, That was a fantastic class!! The flow and your cues come in an effortless manor. Just lovely - I look forward to more of your classes :)
Ahhhh, love the articulation in this class! Thanks Jenna!
Jenna, i loved to practice with you , thanks !:)
Jenna Zaffino
Thank you Erin Jill and Corinne! I'm so glad you enjoyed class! Tower is one of my favorite places to teach a group equipment class and I love being able to play with lots of combinations of movement!
Love this class! Great cueing and wonderful flow! Thanks for sharing!
Wonderful workout Jenna. Congratulations on a great flowing Fletcher session!
Beautiful class! I did have trouble with the video freezing up,though.
(Edited by Moderator - Alex Parsons on April 1, 2022)
Julia ~ I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the class. I recommend switching to the alternate video player and then watching the videos in a lower quality setting to keep the videos from freezing. If you still have trouble after trying this, please email us at support@pilatesanytime.com.
Jenna reminds me of you Hilary Rogers!! love this video!
Z A
This was so fun, thank you.
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