Class #3940

Magic Circle Mat

40 min - Class
745 likes

Description

Use the Magic Circle to help you feel the magic in the air with this Mat workout by Kristi Cooper. She encourages you to figure out what your body needs to help you feel wonderful by the end of the class. She includes fun variations that use the Magic Circle to help you and challenge you while you work on finding the activation in the center of your body.
What You'll Need: Mat, Magic Circle

About This Video

Nov 08, 2019
(Log In to track)

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Hey everybody, the dolphin just pass by and that is partly why we're picking up the magic circle today. A lot of magic in the air today. So just find what you need to do to make yourself feel that way by the end magic circle. Just have it nearby. You're going to have a seat and place the ring flat, but right in between the heels or maybe ankle, but usually the heels. And this is really kind of what I think of as a postural assessment for myself. Um, right away, this is a little hard to sit like this, so let's maybe bend the knees first.

Put your hands down right by your side and push into them like you're actually going to try to lift yourself up and just notice the load that comes off of your spine. But then also you're going to extend your spine, your thinking upward, so it's not just your arms. Rather you're lifting your spine and use the arms as you need. From here. We're just going to inhale and on the exhale maybe you can think about if you were to squeeze on the ring from the entire inner seam of your leg, but whether you actually squeeze or not is not critical. Just finding the center of your body. You've exhaled.

Inhale and exhale. I think of pushing down into the palms of my hands and inner thighs and hopefully the center of the body gets activated. I'm not squeezing the ring card, if at all in how release. Exhale, do that. Again, we're going to do a few more of these and the idea is that you can kind of unload your neck, loosen up, check in with yourself. For some of you, you'll want to see if you can start to straighten your legs, so we inhale as you exhale, you can slide the legs on, squeeze a little bit more as you push down, trying to stay right up over your hips. Either leave the legs there or I'm going to bend them and bring them back in.

Inhale, exhale. I press down into the Palm, slide the legs out lightly, but they're pressing inward from the entire inner leg. Inhale, bring it back. It's just a matter of trying to neck to yourself right now. Press down, find those triceps. Feel the strength you already have in your body at the start of this class. Inhale, bring it back. How about one more and exhale. Uh huh.

If it's okay for you to stay in this position, I've got a light squeeze on the ring. Fair, fairly significant. Squeeze on the abdominals. Pick the arms up. If it's not okay, you can bend your knees and do the exact same exercise. So we've got to squeeze with the ring feeder to sort of soft hinge forward a little bit. Squeezing, just sorta testing where you are in terms of how much of a straight spine you can keep and pack the it'll squeeze. I do. I do release the ring a little as I inhale but not much cause I'm not squeezing it much. One more time. Okay.

Put your hands back down. Bend the knees one more time here. Push into the hands. Inhale, push down through the arms, out through the legs, a little squeeze, and from there just reach forward and grab onto the ring. I'm coming into a diamond position today, so that just means soles of the feet together. Knees are kind of dropped out to the side. If that's uncomfortable for any reason, you could do this parallel, but let's give it a shot for today. Ring is close to you, elbows are bowed out to the side and maybe you can remember that sensation of squeezing the whole inner seam of the leg even here. So from here, all we're doing, let's just do an exhale. Squeeze the ring toward each other, but stay tall.

So don't squeeze it so much that you bear down on yourself or it in health. Stay tall. Start the exhale, feel the pecs, come involve the heels or even pressing a little bit more toward each other and hopefully you'll feel a little bit in your upper back release. Inhale, very subtle change. Start to exhale. And as you do the front of those hipbones we'll pull backwards just a little bit just to start to stretch out the low back. Come back up to straight. Inhale, exhale a little pressure on the ring. Get taller first. Then tip the pelvis back a little bit. Just show your in control in how come back up.

Little trick with the ring that I'll give you now cause it may apply later, is to exhale as you push, push back. Now I actually wrap my fingers and when I go to sit back up on a pull the ring apart in health that tall. It's just kind of a nicer way to get into the back of the body. In this case, soften the hands. Exhale, press to roll back a little, right just to tilt the pelvis, grab onto the ring, pull it apart. Elbows real wide, kind of high. Shoulders of course, easily down. One more [inaudible] and pull apart to come up. Another change but not a big one. We're just going to go further. Inhale, exhale. Same start.

As you go down though, you can extend the arms forward. You may feet. Find your knees come up a little or your feet slide to you. That's okay. Inhale, grab onto the ring. Come forward, stay curve. Pull a ring apart until your shoulders are over hips and sit back up tall. Inhale. Exhale. A little squeeze on the ring. Initiate from the pelvis, extending those arms forward. There's not a lot of squeeze on the ring. Once you get out there. Inhale, hold. Exhale. If you want to pull it apart, elbows wide diving almost through the ring.

Shoulders over hips and sit back up again. Exhale, PRRS just starting to feel the center line of your body. Inhale, Xcel, wraparound. Calm forward. It's pretty subtle except it won't be soon. Inhale, eh? Yeah, it's like a bit of working in opposition with the ring and using the ring for help to a position and assistance. Is that possible? I bet it is. Inhale, exhale down.

Inhale there. Exhale, pull apart. Elbows wide. Shoulders down. Dive in forward and sit up tall. This time just extend the arms out and bring them back in. One more time like that and we'll change it for you. Press out, get tall. Make sure you stay that way. Bring it back in.

Now rotate toward the front towards me. You got to rotate. Get tall, exhale, extend and roll down. So it's the same exercise, only your coming down one side of your spine. From there, inhale, exhale, come back up and pull the ring in to go to the other side. Okay, so I don't, the ring is sort of a placeholder in some cases so let's not get too caught on the ring. If it starts to go to your neck, you might just have to set the ring down and think about pressing maybe more from the upper arms. In the case of using this in this position, we exhale roll down, the hips are pretty square still. I'm just coming down, barely off one side of my spine. Inhale, hold, exhale, come back up. Reaching for just as you did before and back to the center. Bend the arms, other side, rotate we and reached down, reaching, reaching, reaching. Little bit of resistance on looming but not a lot. Inhale, exhale, go forward, forward, forward and pull it back into come center. Rotate to the back. Exhale and Perez and reach, reaching, reaching. If I could have put the upper, the ring in my above my elbows and that's where I'm squeezing more than in my hands. Exhale, come up and I could, but it just takes too much time and be awkward.

I'm not going to imagine that you can do that one more set. Pull it up and send her the last one to the back and you can press harder. But you know, just pay attention to what is it actually activating for you down you go. Inhale. Exhaling up, up, up, up, up. Bring it back to center. And if you scooted back to scoot forward from here, we roll back down the center almost the same way. Almost the same thing.

From there, we're gonna lift the right leg. Exhale, I have a little pressure on the ring. Stay on this side. Lift that leg up to upper body. Doesn't move. You're about at your shoulder blades. Three I'm maintaining a very late squeeze on the ring, but it's pretty light for one more time. Think of the belly initiating five.

You know the other side must come now and whole two. Well, it must be working. I just saw Dalton jump. I'm not kidding. Three here's four. Hopefully he'll pass by and five from there. Inhale, we're going up. Squeeze the ring. It will help. Imagine it's higher than it is up, up, up, up, and when you get there, raise the arms up overhead and just take the stretches.

If you were hanging from the ceiling, let your shoulders come up instead said it, enjoy it. We'll go on right back. Bring the ring in first. Exhale, roll it back. Extend the arms as you go from there, we're going to slide the feet in a little closer. I lift my heels. You don't have to. I'm not really sure why I do that, but I do. I think Kathy taught me that. Raise the arms up and back.

Your rest of your body doesn't move. Come on down with the ring again. I am not squeezing it really right now. Inhale up. Keep the stability and up and this is where breath really matters. Stay up in that upper body. One more time there and from there raise the arms up above your head at least or a little bit. Anyway. Exhale, lift the legs, one per Ressa down whether they touch or not as not critical too. Big.

Exhale to get it down. Three, here's four of five, four and five. Set the feet down, reach the arms back, stretch your legs out and enjoy it. That all right. From there we're going to just slide both knees in. Bring them up to about a tabletop. You can actually drop the feet a little bit. Maybe you can keep them up and just bring your knees a little closer.

Try to keep the tailbone down and the ring still for now with your knees bolted together like there, one shoulders on the mat. That's kind of the hard part for me really is rotate toward the front. When you get there, extend the top like reach it right out through the screen and these are lined up from there. Inhale a little more pressure on the ring to exhale and bring that position back to center. Fold the knee again to the back. You rotate the opposite. Hip does come up, the ring stays as stable as possible.

Reach the top leg, keep the legs bolted together. Otherwise, inhale, exhale, pull it back to center. Here we go. Inhale to the front. Extend the top leg. I like to start my Xcel right here to rotate back to center and fold in. Healing over. I'm sticking a longer. Inhale today. Reach it out. Start that exhale.

Push the bottom inner thigh into the top one and bring it all back. That's one way to think of it. You get another couple options to try over. Extend opposite shoulders still down or you could think, Oh, it's my ribs getting heavy and the legs are light. You decide. One more. Inhale, stretch up and exhale back to center. Fold the feet. Set them down. Inhale here. Exhale, curl up. Again, light on the ring. If at all, reaching forward from there.

You just reached the arms up as far back as you can. Maybe right by the ears. Exhale, bring them back. Body doesn't move. Inhale and exhale. Just two more for four. One more. This time you actually going to stay back. So guess three and a half. Hold it there. If you need to bring it higher, do from here. You inhale, you start the XL and pull those knees up to tabletop. You exhale, push them back down. The body doesn't move. Stay high, exhale, pull up, stay high. You can always reach forward.

You can always support your head with the ring to one more. From there, everything down, reach the arms back, stretch your legs out. Take a big, big stretch here and then draw it all back in. Similar to what we just did, we're gonna reach the arms back again is best you can. Again, this is really where you would want to modify if you find your back lifting, so if you need your arms higher and maybe that's a good place for us all to start, let's say 45 degrees is a start position of the arms. We're going to inhale, exhale, curl or head, neck and shoulders up the arms. We'll adjust a little bit to accommodate that. We inhale there. Exhale, draw the feet in, lifts the legs up and reach the ring over the shins.

From there we inhale, reach the arms back, then the feet down and everything comes down together. Inhale, exhale. Only the upper body, the arms and everything else comes up first we inhale. Exhale, draw the legs in right under that ring. We reach the arms back without the legs moving. Then the legs go down and right near the end of that you can just set everything down. Can we do two more? Of course we can. We curl upper body up. This is one of those times of the ring is really more placeholders.

Drag those feet and bring it up. It's okay if your butt lifts a little bit. I'm all right with that right now. Arms go up and back. Now get to them on down. Put the legs down and the body down. Last time. Arms and upper body. Go forward. Draw the legs in. Pull it in. Keep everything is best.

You can reach the arms back first, then the legs down, everything down. Adding onto that curl, the arms and the ring forward. Draw the legs in. Stay here sort of. Now we reached the arms and legs out together. One, pull them right back in. Here's two, just six. Pull right back. Here's three.

You're solid in the middle. Four, five, focusing your arms. Only six is what I think I said. Hold it there. Let everything come down. Feet are down, knees or down or knees are bent, arms are down, right? Next one coming right back up with the upper body and the arms. Let's do it. Pull it in. You know it's coming. Now what I've done is I just turned my palms a little bit on the ring just so I can get more surface area there. We pulled that right leg out on one like way, way in, a little pressure on the ring and change and change. Not about the ring anymore again. So now we just go a little quicker. Pull, pull, pull, pull 'em in.

Neyland for two and I'm excelling as I reach. Inhaling and exhaling. One more set. Inhaling and exhaling. Pulled both knees in. Set the feet down. First arms go back and your body of course follows right? All funky order here today, right? Who cares?

Let's take the ring behind her head right at the occipital Ridge. So that's a little divot just to your basically your school where it meets the neck. Let's not have it on the neck. Elbows are wide when not so wide that you can't see them. Let's feel the see them and put a little pressure on the ring. Often people are gonna want to hold onto the handle with the fingers, so that's okay. Just mind how much your fingers are working.

We exhale to curl or head, neck and shoulders up. We drag those feet in just like we did before. I like a little pressure on the ring here and pressure on the rate from my hands and pressure on the ring with my head into it. We're going to extend that left like turn into the right and change. Press and press and reach.

Pull that opposite knee way in today. PRS, PRS Ferris, same breath or any breasts you want, but I'm doing about an inhale and an exhale as I talk. One more set. Here it is both knees. Come in, release the ring from your head, place the right foot ball of the foot into the handle. Stretch your other leg out as much as you can, so if you can go to straight. That's what we're looking for there. If not, you can bend it rather.

Let's not lift the tailbone on this one at all. Let's think heavy down almost to the point where you're, you're pulling the ring. I have my hands on the lower handle or just to the side. You're pulling the leg into your hip joint a little bit so you kind of get to relax a little in the leg that's in the air at least until we stretch. Bend the knee a lot without lifting that hip.

You can even press the straight leg or the opposite leg into the mat. However it is. Start to extend and straighten the leg that's in the air. Bend the knee. This is kind of like you put more arm strength into this, but whatever you did, try to keep that and then straighten it like one more time bend. You can, you know, be nice to yourself and, and keep it as straight as you have it. Keep the arm tension or the pull on the ring and press into the foot meaning point to toe or the ankle, then flex it. So there might be movement, but rather think of a stretching out the ring and working the calf or stretching it depending on which is harder for you. Just going to do one more Zack.

Now I'm taking it with the opposite hand and I'm just going to cross it over the body. Um, the, the free hands. So if we have our right leg in the right harms, now free out to the side and I'm in a soft flexor point. We're going to let the hip reach over, let the hip come up, even let it come up, not come up as much as you want. However, keep the shoulders down. I should have said that sooner. Push into that ring, like get it up and away from you. Keep it like that as best you can. And now draw the hip backwards to the, towards the mat. So you're still pushing in their ring.

You're creating that two way stretch here about, Oh, let's go again. Let's free it up. A little lift. They have up and into it. Push into the ring more. I don't mean point the toe so much. I just mean like I'm trying to get the ring away from me and then as I do that continuously, I'm trying to now pretend I could set my hip all the way back down. Almost not really. All right, bring it back to the center. Let's keep it in the same leg, but uh, go the other way. So I'm switching hands.

My right hand is going in. I like to have a super long arm. Some of you know I'm going to turn my hand over and hold it this way, but you could hold it really however you want. I just, I get all in my own way, so I'm holding it with the right hand. Now left arm is free and balancing me and now doing my best to keep the hips level so it's no hips are lifting. I take it to the side, elbows helping me by resting on the ground that have the right side. Then the fun part, that right hip bone, sit bone I should say, but bone try to reach it to the left ankle as you push into the ring. Sort of that same idea of trying to find the two way stretch.

You can bend the knee at any point. In fact, I am doing it now. Let's cue that and then reach the hipbone or the sit bone first. This time toward the opposite ankle and then straight, slightly different maybe. All right up we come to switch feet, so just switch that simple other foot is down and I'm just noticing that the tighter side, right? So I am trying to set my hips level before I see if I can go straight on the other leg. All right, hold where it's most comfortable. We bend the knee, my foot is flexed at the moment and then exhale on straight bend again. Maybe apply a little bit more. Arm pressure.

Elbows are wide so your collarbones are nice and wide as well. And then if you can keep the tension on the ring but also straighten the leg. In other words, the thigh bone doesn't move away from you. You might feel that. Let's do one more like that. Pen. Hold firmly, not just with your fingertips and stretching and straighten. Now wherever you are, see what you can do about pointing the foot.

Stretch out that ring and flex and and flex thinking of that sit bone already toward the opposite ankle up and flux. Last one here. Oh and easy flex or point. Whatever's most comfortable. We're going to cross over as much as we can. I use long waist the hip away from the ribs as best you can. From there, let the hip really lift up, go into it, pull on the ring a little bit and then keep the ring there and see about pulling the hip back toward the mat just to increase the stretch. So if you feel the stretch, we're good. You don't have to make it look like anything. You just have to find a stretch.

For most of us it's going to be through the glute or outer side of the thigh, but fine ups push up again, release it a bit so you really lift that hip up. Shoulders are down. That was probably the only rule I had. And then keep resistance going into the ring as you try and draw the hip back toward the mat. Cool. Bring it back to center. I'm switching my hand again. So now we're all going to the same arms leg and then open it out trying for level hips, nice long leg feet. Sometimes you have to remember that there is that lower leg cause it's a really good source of support and it can drift out and kind of act like it's on a day off. Amy, that foot more towards your shoulder, but the hip bone sit bone towards your inner ankle on the other side.

Other Lake. All right, help yourself back to center and from there, let's just set the ring down for a moment. Keep it in. Your mind won't be long. Let's just do a little bit more play now that our legs are stretched out. Lacing the fingers behind your head right where the ring was earlier. Feeder up off the mat and near you. Cruel, your head, neck and shoulders. A head is dropped back in your hands. Put your spine is high.

We're going to extend the left leg out and it's like a single leg stretch, a little, little something, something. Extend the topic up and bring it down. Left like gums in. It stretches up as it comes down the other one cycles and it's like a giant bicycle scene. Doesn't it feel kind of fun now that it's a little looser? Yes, Christie, let's go faster. That's a good idea. So just finish each part of it but go a little faster. So I bend, I stretch at first down. I do think of that. Straight leg pressing down.

Keep your upper body high. I'm turning left side. Here's right. So one more time. Boom, boom. Both knees in both like straight up. Lower him down a little bit. Exhale, bring him up, lower him down a little bit. Keep your upper body up there. Exhale, stupid. Bring it up. Let the legs be the weight against your abdomen and up. One more. That's it.

Just one more. You got that and it hug your knees in. Let your head rest briefly. You got to bring the knees way in. So let your tailbone come up. Because if, if we don't have around, it's fine. In this one it's going to be really hard because the exercise is called rolling like a ball. We're going to take it from the ground up though. So elbows pop out. You're hugging, close your press lotions into your hands, your hands into your shins to get it going. Just rock back. Float back. It's small in the beginning, right? You don't have to yank, you might need to exhale. Inhale, Xcel expect the hips to rise.

Who? Four. Keep your shape. Three, two and up you come. Walla. Pull the ring out from underneath. Yeah, and we're going to go pretty much right back down. So let's just slowly roll down like we had before. Place the ring at the ankles this time. Just when you thought all the AB work was done. It isn't hands.

Let's just take them forward. Extend the legs out relatively high, lower if you want. I'm inhaling for five now as Xcel schoolies the entire interstate with the leg and the ring and hold. Inhale, let it go and exhale. Squeeze. Two, three, four, five. Inhale. I don't pump usually on this because sometimes, but because I'd like to just go into it more. Here's four. If you can pump your arms, go ahead.

I'm going to kind of keep it simple from there. Keep a mild squeeze. Inhale, raise the legs up and go forward with your upper body. Exhale, keep the squeeze as you lower down. Now you can go lower. Probably inhale up, maybe not. Exhale, check those. Collarbones. They're wide. They're not wrapping around your ears and up and in here. You can do one more after this. I know you can. I think I can.

And up you go. If you need a break, take it. Otherwise we're going into rollover. So arms down, light, squeeze. Exhale. Up and over. Let's go to horizontal here. Flex your feet, squeeze the ring. But feel the abdominals jaw deeper and just rule from the throat, from the front of this germ, from the reps, from the belly.

Find your hips and either take them out on a diagonal. Just stop it when you get to the bottom. In Hilton 90 exhale over flex and squeeze. Try to stay pretty parallel if you can, and when you squeeze that ring, fill the belly, deepen. Exhale. It's not so much coming from the feet that ring and inhale [inaudible] for those of you who want to, of course we can flex. You can also lower to the ground. Make that bend. Come more from the back though. I'll just hit flection and two more.

[inaudible] check your collarbones. Check your wrist. We get so into the fingers on this one. Try to flatten out your wrists as best you can again. Right? I've said that a hundred times. It's kinda all we can do, isn't it? My parents taught me that much and down when we come down, we come.

When you get near the bottom, take the ring out, bend your knees, put them out on the floor. In that Diana diamond position like we started with earlier and roll up. Oh, come on. Oh, it's not always easy. Is it? Set the ring anywhere near your feet and just take a stretch forward. Let the tension, if there's any come out of your face, your neck, your jaw.

Let that cool. Okay, now that your face is all nice and this, pick up your ring again and we're in that same position where you're holding, you're pressing into the center of the ring. With the elbows wide. I do find that the heels together pressing is a pretty key connection. So let's be aware of what the feet are doing. They're not just chilling out here. They're there.

They're working as if you had a ring between them. All right, so all we do is we just rotate toward the front. Stay tall, get taller. If you can, exhale, extend the arms. As you rolled down, we're making a little circle here, so hopefully even on your hips, so that when you go to the other side, you're okay and then come up. Oh, here's the ring. It helps. It helps. And back to the center. Refold the arms were going the other way. Rotate first and it's, I keep the arms close really because you want it to feel like it's coming from your spine, not your arms, so right out over that knee. Exhale, take it down. Keep it long as you roll across the shoulder blades and up you come on the other side. Doing your best to keep those hips level center and fold. Rotate to the front foreskin. Roll down.

Little resistance on the rain. Come across to come up. Oh, that's good stuff. One more. We rotated the back. We press, we come. Now we go all the way to come up, up, up and to the center. Cool. Let's turn over. Actually it's turn on DRO side and place the ring between your inner ankles. Again, Amy for parallel feet to the, there'll be a little turnout depending on lots of things, but we're all the way down and this one is just sort of that reminder of how the legs are connected to the center and the rest.

All you're doing is starting with an exhale and we press the ring down two, three and let it up and two, three and let it up. And I often like to, I can feel it, but you can touch inside or dig into the belly just a little bit and just feel that sort of sensation of contraction without too much shortening and in the body. We're just doing one more and then we'll pulse it here. So it's pulls down. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Might as well do 21 two, three. Same thing, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10 right? Moving on, we'll come back. No fear. He get to do your other 20 bend your knees, keep the ring where it is, and just turn onto your belly. And if you lost it, hopefully you have a friend nearby from here. Go ahead and put your forehead on your hands. But what I'd like you to focus more on is, is the length in the front of the hip. So go ahead and straighten your legs.

When would you do the ring? We'll touch the ground. Some of you will even be able get your toes on the ground. And that kind of helps to lift the like straighter. Like sometimes we think our knees are straight, but if I can get your toes on the ground holding onto the ring, even better to save your low back, the abs call in and up. And from there we simply point those toes, lift the thighs or the ring barely off the ground. Maybe it's still touching, muddying be okay and you squeezed inward. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 12 we make it 20 all the way around. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 20 O K.

from there we're going to flip over so it's easier if you bend your knees to do it. I'm going to face away from you, but it's exactly what you did before. And we'll meet back here in just a second. Lying on your side, it's worth a check to make sure you're not way in front of yourself or way in back of yourself. Parallel knees point straight ahead. And we pressed the top leg down to three and N and we remind ourselves, abdominals are really doing it theoretically and up three and press four. I'm not pulsing. I'm continuously pressing [inaudible]. I'm only doing one more for probably an odd number, but that's okay.

I think we did five or six on the other and now as our 20 we've wrestled one, find the middle to three. Forget the tight foot. Five, six, seven, eight, nine again, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10. From there, of course we're going to enroll back under our bellies. Hands in front of you and your forehead. This time, start with the same position, right? Your legs were straight, your abdominals were pulled in, so you already feel where the thigh meets the butt, right? Then if you can, you lift the ring. If you can't, that's okay, but you do not lower the knees. You're going to bend the knees. I don't care if they're flexed, appointed, squeeze the ring, lift up a little higher and then start to straighten the legs back out to where you started. Ha. Keep the knees up, bend them to your, you never quite get a break here, but you only have to do four. Squeeze everything interesting with the leg. The knees are bent, you lift a little higher. If you've got it in you and you stretch the legs out, my head is up just for the mic, but you [inaudible] the it could probably even be down and bend.

Squeeze, lift, stretching. Squeeze as hard as you do. You want, cause you only get one more in Ben. Squeeze with those Bentleys first. Keep everything tight as you lift a little higher. Stir retina. Oh, high backside and all right, you got to bend them just to reach back and find that ring. Take it out in front of you. This one is not for everyone based on the size of a ring, but let's give it a shot.

And if not you just to let go the ring and you can do it without. So with the legs as close together as seems feasible in parallel, take the hands over the top of the ring. I've got the rings sitting on. Um, one of the handles, the other handles at the top, if you can, you can put one hand over the other. If that's two types of your shoulders, just go a little wider and again you can get rid of it all together. From here you're looking down your ears or by your upper arms, your biceps from there without much pressure on the ring at all. You just start to look forward. Like you're curious. You look through the ring and you want to see what else is above the ring.

So you're just following your eyes and at certain point you might want to apply some pressure to lift up, but what do you think we're going to go for today is that you do not lift higher than your sternum. I know that's really frustrating for some of you flexible people, but I'm really looking for a forward pull, almost like I would be pulling the ring backwards as my chest went through it. So I'm trying for upper back almost exclusively. And then you peel yourself back down the exact same way in reverse again, we start the head. It's not just looking, tilting, it's reaching forward. As it looks up, you feel some sensation through the upper back.

Hopefully if it gets too much in the little backstay, lower is still, you can push on the ring once you get up there, that's fine. Just try not to get too high. I think I went a little high on that one for my instructions and here we go. We're getting there. Comm lift, lift, lift. Now that we're here, check yourself. Did you get too high? Do you need to drop your sternum and really feel that stretch in the lats and the shoulders and work in the back from there? No motion the spine.

Press of ring down, let it up too. So you push and you almost take all tension out of the ring, but your body stays where it is. Let's get two more and Oh great. Let's set the ring down. Help yourself up to a child's pose or rest position of any kind that feels good to you.

And then just find your ring again. Come to kneeling, do a little thigh stretch here. Oh yes. We love the I stretch Christie. Everybody loves a good tie stretch tie for your tops or your feet on the mat. They'll, they'll want to sickle one way or the other, so I'm thinking try for level and do the best you can. Once again, all right, the ring is going to just feel like it's a lifeline.

Most likely. It doesn't do much here, but use it where you need to. We are scooping, tucking, rounding, lengthening, any one of those words that makes sure your butt tighten the front of your hips. Stretch a little bit even just here and the backfield like it's not an not involved. From there, we're going to just hinge back the hamstrings. Come closer to the calves. Hold that inhale. Exhale, push into the tops of feet. Come up and shake out any cramping you get. Again, we scoop. As we roll back, we're going to just let the ring come up a little bit and there's where a little pressure might help. Inhale, exhale. Keep the shape. Come back up. Let the ring go down. Just simple three to go. Inhale, exhale. We've already done the scoop and tuck.

It might even help to look down just a little bit. Inhale and exhale. Come up. Take out that calf in a scoop as you hand raise the ring. I forgot to do that on the last one. That's all right. It's just, it's just helpful to do it. So sorry I didn't say it and back up. Left one. We scoop. Maybe look down a little.

If you're prone to arching or thrusting the ribs forward and back, you go. How much more and up you come. Oh, that's a nice he centric contraction of the quads, isn't it? Right? Almost there pushups and that's about it. We're going to take the ring and place it right in the middle of your sternum or near it. Once your hands are down. Ken, with my long arms, it's sort of funny cause I take one link back.

We're going to do a tricep pushup. So ideally I'm going to have your elbows going straight back, but if that's not working for you, you can widen it and get a little assistance that way and it can even be done on your knee. So first things first, shoulders are stable feed in place, and we just bend the elbows to the extent you can and Oh, gets a little easier with that ring helps you right up until the very end in hell. Ben, keep those shoulders away from yours. Exhale up. Enjoy this version of a push up. Be successful. I like feeling successful. I'm doing only two more. So if that helps you in your planning, here it is.

Strong straight legs. Just like before, notice how much is back. Your body helps. Oh, we already did it. Bring it down. Let the ring come by your side and let's just come to sitting forward. I'm going to go to that diamond position like we started in and from here, just inhale, take your arms up however you'd like going to one side, stretching over, lift up and go to the other side. Stretching over.

Come back up this time as you go over and let the arm in the air drop, hold on somewhere. Let the opposite hip lift up and just sort of lean off away from it. Try to stay over here with your lean and reach the hip back down for a little side stretch. Then take the arm back up and we go to the other side. I'll put it over. Find a place to hold on to and kind of lean over. Super easy, right?

You're just over here now and then trying to lengthen from the waist to put the flat bone back on the mat. That's the side. Then when you add that stretch back in, you have that anchor point. You come up anywhere down. Inhale, both arms up. I'm rounding forward. It just feels right. Exhale. Bring yourself back up just to an upright, easy position.

Let your arms fall where they may let everything fall where it may inhale. Exhale one more for the day or you know, together. Anyway, thank you for being here next time.

Pilates at Home: Magic Circle Mat Classes

Comments

2 people like this.
very beautiful, thank you, i was hoping for something like this from you :)
4 people like this.
love that assisted tricep pushup. what a great idea!
Such a wonderful class and your energy always brightens my own.  Thank you!
4 people like this.
Loved the two way stretches! Thank you! 
2 people like this.
Thank you, feels good!!
2 people like this.
Your cueing is so great! I love your classes! Always a little something new, too.
Thank you all for joining me in class again. Vivian That push up variation taught me to do it well originally and now helps me with my shoulder injury.  I'm glad you like too! 
Sharon, I'm really glad to hear you found a little something new within the cueing of this class.  I love it when that happens for me (often!)
1 person likes this.
Unpredictable movements with your great cueing with magic circle made my day; I always find it a bit hard doing push ups but with magic circle I have done it easily; thank you so much Kristi
Georgina S
2 people like this.
Fantastic - thank you Kristi! This was my first pilatesanytime class. Let’s hope they’re all as great as this one! I feel really ready for the day now!
2 people like this.
Loved the abdominal work, always lovely when you cue us to focus on our body to choose positioning at times. We all appreciate one position doesn't suit all. Thanks kristi
1-10 of 68

You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.

Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.

Footer Pilates Anytime Logo

Move With Us

Experience Pilates. Experience life.

Let's Begin