Class #1117

Expand and Contract Mat

55 min - Class
119 likes

Description

Play with the ideas of expansion and contraction in this Mat workout with Meredith. This is a basic class, but you push and pull on the Magic Circle to make the movements come from the center of the body. She also works on creating oppositional energy throughout the entire class in exercises like Double Leg Stretch, Spine Stretch, and more.
What You'll Need: Mat, Magic Circle

About This Video

Aug 07, 2013
(Log In to track)

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

Today we're going to play with the rain. Um, and my intention is to teach a fairly basic class to y'all, but to, um, but to, um, to incorporate the ring and, and some ideas about the ring. So if the ring is a cylinder and your body is a cylinder, right? Got Diarrhea, fram pelvic floor, abdominals back extensors, right? That creates our abdo, that creates our core cylinder. So we'll take your ring out in front of you with soft elbows and lift and lengthen the spine. So, um, squeeze your ring hard with your arms and let go. So that's not what I want.

I would like for you as you press into your ring every time from now on to feel as though there's a light pressure against the ring and that the pressure is coming from the entire cylinder. So the bottom of the cylinder lifts up, the top of this cylinder is contained. The size of the cylinder press inward and the back of this cylinder stays long. Let the Ringo, and again, let's practice that breathing. And as you breathe in this time, pull the ring. So here is the action of the rib cage.

The rib cage expands as we pull the ring apart. And now contracts as we softly press into the ring. And I'm going to ask you to be pulling and pushing the ring at different parts of today. So pull again and as you pull with not just with your hands, pull with your shoulder blades. So feel the back of the body expanding. And as you press into the ring, press not with your hands but feel the shoulder blades draw inwards and downwards. Not squeezy inwards but but in slightly towards one another, just compressing the upper body. And let's do that just a couple more times. So my point is that we're going to use hex hale.

Press the ring as an idea, expand of expansion and of contraction. And one more expansion in here and contraction. Okay, take your arms down, separate your feet. Um, if they were to heels together, we're just going to go parallel with if you are going to inhale tall and just said gentle inward. Squeeze with straight arms now as you okay on, take your spine towards the floor. So as you're rounding and compressing inwards with your upper arms, I want you to feel that your abdominals are lifting up and supporting the spine. As you bend in on yourself. Go down as far as you wish. And inhale as you exhale, start lifting through the center of your body and again, generate a light inward pressure on the ring.

As you stack your spine over your pelvis at the top, we're going to take our ring up. Now keeping the arms straight, I want you to try to lift your ring up as much as you can, so that'll be different for some of us. We don't want to elevate the shoulder, so just go where it's comfortable for you and then take the arms down, press into the ring in here, and exhale as we take the body forward. So that inward pressure generated by the upper arms is also being generated by the sides of your body. The head is reaching down through the ring. The UB spine is relaxing and the abdominals are gently lifting. Inhale at the bottom as we exhale, again, generating inward pressure from the front of the body. The sides of the body and ruling ourselves back up. Lightly.

Bring the ring out in front of you and then bring your arms backwards. So from here, a nice stretch over towards this way. And then exhale, lift yourself up and inhale as you reach across in the other direction. Feel that you're lengthening, not just the arms, but your spine. You want your spine to move and lift.

So the idea is that we just hold the ring still and that whole shape comes over. Yeah. And then the muscle you feel stretching right now is the same one that engages to pull you up and reach over and lift up. And to do that one more time. This time we're going to let our pelvis go the other way. So pressing the pelvis, I'll get a nice big stretch.

Try not to lean forwards or backwards and then press the bottom hand into the top hand to lift up and inhale as we reach over the opposite way. Let the pelvis drift across in the opposite direction and then lift yourself back up. Allow the arms to come down for one last time. And we're going to sit down. Yeah. So face in words, sit with your knees bent and take your ring and just set it just underneath. There's like a little divid underneath your kneecap. So I want you to rest your ring. Okay.

So now with straight arms and I'll always, we're holding with the heels of our hands, gently draw the ring downwards and send the spine upwards. And from there inhale. Now as you exhale, curl the lower spine only away from the ring. So the ring almost pulls the, the upper body forward somewhat as the abdominals draw back and we create a deep rounded contraction. Do the spine press down lightly on the ring and build the spine back straight. Inhale, exhale. Feel light compression inwards. As the spine curls it curls, but the shoulders remain directly over the pelvis and lightly pressed down on the ring to build the spine. And inhale and exhale.

We bend the spine so the pelvis moves out from underneath us holding there and then pick up the ring. And now just bring the ring with you as you continue backwards with your bat. Keeping it round. Keeping it round. Yeah, go down. Keep going down. Keep going down to you. Hit the ribs or the shoulder blades. Inhale there. As you exhale. Curl this fina.

Set the ring back over the knees and lift the back. Inhale. Exhale. Bend the spine. I'm a moon. Move Alyssa a little quicker. And now we let the ring come up and the ring just kind of sits in their hands. There's a delight. Inward pressure. We'd curl the spine just to there. Inhale and curling Baca.

Set the ring on the knees and build the spine up tall. One more time like that. We curl the spine. So we will want to ask stablish the rounded spine and then take the rounded spine back in one piece right there, Jenny right there. Don't go lose it from there. And then lift your ring up. It'll make your stomach work a little harder and then bring your ring back forward and then push it down into your legs and use it to lift a little and lift the ring. Huh?

And bring the ring back down and use it to help you lift a little. On one more time. Lift the ring on and bring the ring down and pause to breathe in and breathe out. As you curl your way back up, setting their ring down and building the spine tall. Inhale, it's gonna get hot up here. I have a feeling I'm already so hot and exhale or if I do say so myself, and now curl the spine. Curl the spy. Let let go. Roll backwards. Try to get just to the lower back area.

A little lower right there. Now turn your ring. One hand comes off and top of the other and Xcel to come back to center. And any way reach over to the other side. [inaudible] and Xcel to come back through center. So it's an oblique reach. One hand turning on top of the other and center and again, reaching over and coming to center. We're going to do that one more time.

Reaching over, coming back to center in healing as you go across, gently pressing into the ring as you come center. Pause for a full inhale and exhale. We curl the spine. Yes. Place the ring on the knees and lift the spine tall again, rounding the spine datum and change it a little. Again. Establish the rounded, the deep curvature of the spine. Then roll back, rolling back, finding the lower back. Reach through the ring and put the ring on the floor towards me. Top hand stays on top of it.

[inaudible] and now we're just going to press down on the ring and make a little lift. So top hand down candy inside the bottom hand through. Just reaching through like that. Yeah, and lifting up. So the bottom arms gonna reach. You can use it for help if you want. What a good idea Jenny. So you could push off it right. And two more and one more and I'll pick that ring up and a turn ourselves back to center and we're gonna lift up, set the ring down, lift the spine tall. Inhale, exhale, create the curvature. Feel that the shoulder blade stay open and then round the spine down.

So now we rotate in the opposite direction. The bottom hand comes out of and through the ring top pan presses the ring into the floor. And now we just do a little lift up and down. You can even hold if you want to add a little lift up and down. So we did three more reaching, curving, rotating and down, lifting, curving, rotating and down. Last one, lift down center holds. Slide your feet in towards you.

Separate your knees and set the ring in between your knees. So now in order to get a good position here, let's um, let's reach up and see if you can touch the backside of your shins. Can you touch the back side of your shins? You want your feet to be that close to you. And then organize the feet. So there in a little bit. So you'll already be applying pressure to your ring.

Your feet are about as wide as your own pelvis. Okay. And then lie down. So now I want us to again practice that idea of inhale, prepare. And as you exhale, keeping the pelvis down, generate pressure with the center of the body and inhale, expand the center of the body. So I'm not suggesting that the legs won't work. They absolutely do work. And inhale. My suggestion is only that we can create energy all the way in through the body to move the legs and inhale, release. We're going to do two more excelling, pressing in. Think about working both legs evenly.

Here's our last one. We're going to exhale impressing you. Get a hold that pressure, pause and inhale. Now as you exhale, flattening the spine, we're lifting up into a pelvic curl. When you depress your arms down onto the mat below, you lift your pelvis up so you're in line with your knees. So straight line from the knees to the shoulders. Inhale there and now exhale. Continue to press into the ring. As you just slide your spine back down.

Notice that the arms reach for the feet all the time, so that's going to help us organize where our shoulders need to be. Drop the pelvis down, release to squeeze on their wrinkles with five times at the bottom, one on the Xcel, pressing from the body, the whole trunk in here and press and in here and press and in here and hold. Now we lift, lifting the spine up, rolling up, continuing to put pressure in there when you can lift a teeny bit higher is any are perfect. Now hold in, inhale, and now exhale. Slide the chest through the arms, but continue to press the shoulders open. Slide the rib bones down into the mat, then work meticulously through your lower spine, trying to space out the vertebras there and then finally drop the heavy pelvis to the mat all the way down and it'll release. One more time.

We squeeze paying attention to both sides, both legs and release and three and release and two and release and hold. And then rolling the spine. Press down into the feet to lift the pelvis through space. Pause there, hold there, lift a little higher. And now slowly slide the spine back down into the mat. Take the ring in your hands, we'll cramp. Take the ring in your hands and separate your knees for just a minute.

Just allow the knees to reach open from one another and then take the ring and hold it in your hands just over your chest. You're going to bring the knees back together. We're going to lift one leg at a time, so now we've got the knees in a table top position and the arms are holding the ring just over the chest. So now keeping the ring still allow both knees to tilt in my direction only as much as you can without changing your arm position. And now from the waist, we drag the spine back. Inhale, allow both knees to tilt the opposite direction, keeping the arms still, the shoulders heavy and XLE drag the spine back. Here's another suggestion. Inhale as you go, what?

As you start to come back, don't think of leading with your legs. Allow the legs to be a natural weight of you, for you to pull with your center body and inhales. We reach across and Xcel as we come back and two more in hills. We reach across and then play with the edges of that movement. And exos, I come back. It's nice to sometimes challenge our level of control in any given movement without being afraid of falling or not being perfect center and one foot down and the other foot down. So now please take the ring behind your head, rusted just at the base of your skull and then take your hands and put the hands with the heels of the hands just underneath of the ring.

And from there let your elbows be wide and curl your head and chest up. Now as you curl your head and chest up, I want you to keep the head heavy in the ring. Keep the head heavy in the ring. So we curl using the abdomen, we lift up, we're going to lift a little higher and inhale. And now as we exhale we're going to let the head come back into the ring and let the spine come down. So there's a fairly simplistic movement. As you exhale, curl the ribs down into the mat so the front of the ribs draw downwards. The back side ribs curl up and over like a hook around the front of the ribs in your lift, a little higher. And XL length in the spine.

So we work our way down as well as working our way up. And again, exhale. So even though the movement is fairly simplistic, this is the place in my mind where we can get really strong, really detailed work. So look for that strength and now released yourself down. One more time like that. We're going to inhale, we're going to exhale and lift, pause and hold there. Keep the head heavy in the, in the uh, ring. But keep curling the forward. Lift one of your legs, either one and lift the other leg. So now holding the legs together. Try to lift this by knee even more. Take one leg down and pull it back up. Exhale in leg as inhale as the opposite leg goes down and exhale, draw in from the center of the body.

So what I'd like for you to consider as that leg comes from just underneath the ribcage to come towards your body and inhale and exhale just underneath the rib cage. And we curl into it and inhale and keep the curl of the body nice and high and inhale and exhale. And keep the elbows and the shoulders wide. And last one we lift up, we inhale and now just the head and chest. Come down to take a little rest, take a breath in. Exhale, curl the head and chest back up again.

And now we're going to take the leg furthest away from me to the ground. We're going to turn the body. So we come towards the leg that's in the air. Yep. And then center. And then rotate the opposite direction, staying lifted and then sent. Or say you're lifting to the bent knee. The leg that's lifted, I guess they're both bent.

So we reach over and then we pull center. Seeing high, keeping the height of the movement consistent and come center. And let's do two more to each side. Reaching across and come sensor [inaudible] reaching up to the leg that's still in the air and common center. One more to each side. Reaching over, finding center, reaching over, finding center. Let the knees arrest towards your chest as you place your head down onto the mat. One more thing here. Breathing and prepare. Breathe out as you curl again, your head and chest away from the mat. Send the legs towards tabletop.

Hold there. Now take both legs down, keeping them bent, but also keep the lower back flat on the mat. Abt adamantly flat and pull back up. So the degree to which your legs go towards the Mat is determined precisely by your ability to stabilize your lower spine. That might mean the legs drift away two inches from you, or it might mean they go all the way to the ground. I don't know the answer, but I want you to find the answer in your own body. Keep the back flat and left. Keep pulling. Use your arms to help you up.

We're going to do one more now reaching down. Inhale, use your arms to help you up. Lift up and then all the way down. Rotate the ring from out from behind your head and stretch your legs out straight along the Mat. So now holding the ring just in front of your chest. Do the same action we did in the beginning of class by bringing the arms above the head as the arms come above the head. Feel the shoulder blades on the mat. Slide under slightly upwards towards the ceiling. Now lift the ring, lift the head and chest.

Look down at your feet and roll through your spy. Curling this fina stay round at the top for now. And then we're going to pull the ring apart and we're going to lift the spine to the ring. Yep. Pulling it apart from the backs of the little s forward, Jenny. Yep. And now take the ring forward. Curl the spine away from it and roll back down.

Start as you pass your pelvis, lifting your arms over your head so that as your head comes down to the mat, your arms are already there. Shoulder blades reaching under in slightly upwards. Inhale head, chest and arms and curl the spine. Good. Keeping the shoulders plugged into the back. And now pull the ring apart as we build the spine to straight. Nice. Pulling it into the chest. Press it away from you.

Curl the spine and peel away. So we creating or we are creating throughout this class or will be lift your arms, oppositional energy. Inhale head, chest, arms, exhale, curl. Once you hit that round place, then pull the back to the ring and the ring to the bat. Stay here, flex your feet. We're going to press into the ring here. Press and release. As you press into the ring, I want your spine to lift more and release and the feet are pressing down and it's always fine to bend the knees to get the back to be taller. Press and release and then create almost a resistance on the release so you feel there's work in both directions. Two more. Press lift, release.

Nice guys. Press lift, release. Now hold the ring right there, right against your chest and turn your body towards me. Don't let the ring, the relationship between the ring and the body, change it and heal to come to center X. I'll keep the ring right there in front of you and turn your whole spine. Nice, beautiful, beautiful, and come back to center. So concentrate here on not allowing the feet to shift. Keep the feet lined up on it with one another and allow that to be the judgment of or the marker to the place where you're trying to take your spine.

Nice. Come back to center. Stretch this way. Hold there. Take your arms out straight and as your arms reach out straight. Generate a little inward pressure and a lot of upward lifting. And then bend the elbows. Pull the ring back to the chest and come back to the center.

Rotate to the opposite direction. Lift your spine like your heart is following the center of the ring as your arm stretch forward. Now bring your heart through the center of the ring. As the ring comes back to you and come back to center again. We rotate first we stretch the ring away and maybe we turn a little more there and then we come back and we come back to center. And then we do it again. One more time. Go stretch.

Pull the heart through the ring. Come back to the center, take the ring and rest it behind your back. Take your hands and put them just on the outside of that ring. You don't really have to do anything with the ring here. It's just kind of a marker. So from here I want you to push your backup straight so you're on a bit of a diagonal with your spine. Bend your knees, do a little basic bridging feed are parallel to one another.

We're going to pick the pelvis up, shift your weight evenly through your legs and through your arms. Press Nice and high with your pelvis. And then as you drop your hips down, imagine that you're not going to touch the mat and you are actually just going to hover. Just going to barely like graze the mat and lift it would press that, get that nice shoulder stretch and then the pelvis comes down. But the backstage straightened, we're pushing up away from the floor and we just graze the mat and we left. So your hamstrings, Miss Knee candy and then then, and unless you three more lifting, I'm sorry, I had a major one like that just a couple of minutes ago that I tried to pretend wasn't happening. It's true. I lift stuff again, good lifting, lifting, press up. Nice. And I use those likes. And I'm last one.

So I'm just attempting to give us a little bit of an opening through the front of the body before we'd stretch our legs out straight again. And then dad. Okay, so now I want you to stretch your legs out. Just take a stretch forward, stretch out those hamstrings just a little bit. Hold your feet or your ankles or whatever makes sense to you. And then from there, let this lower spine start reaching upwards or straightening.

So you're going to try to come forward now that most of us might, I'm gonna adjust my hands to my ankles instead of my feet. And I'm going to guide my spine even more forward, even more forward, trying to come up on a long diagonal. And then from there I just want you to let go. Just let go and lift and inhale there. Now as you exhale, we're gonna roll the spine forward.

So we're going to contract through the center of the body and then just reach out over your legs, press through the heels of your feet and pull your toes back towards your knees. Inhale and exhale. Rolling ourselves back up. Sitting tall. Yeah. Inhale. So imagine here that there's a wall behind you so that as you go forward, you're not going backwards. So always just inwards and downwards, inwards and downwards, reaching out for your feet. Pause at the bottom. Inhale and exhale. Don't go backwards.

Stack the pelvis and then allow the bones of the spine to just transfer above the pelvis one at a time. Nice in here. Exhale as you curl back, round, round down. Now we're going to do the same thing that we did before, so rest your hands lightly on the mat. Just lightly on the mat, in between your legs. Start building your spine on the diagonal. Your hands will slide towards you. Hands will slide towards you. Stay there, stay low, stay low, stay low and flat, and then stretch your arms over your head. Yeah, reaching out through the spines who want to be nice and flat. And then just give me a little presses back through the arms for five and four as the arms press back, the spine reaches out through the fingertips, maybe more through the fingertips than towards the floor as a focus and then round back forward. See if your hands go further than they were before and just slide your hands along the mat as you lift up. They'll stay there now, so they'll just come in between your legs lifting tall, inhale, exhale. We're going to take it back forward so we're going to around down to just, you don't even have to touch your mat, you just reach along it and then maybe just give yourself a little bit more of a pole there and then start to lengthen out the spine and as the spine lengthens out and as the spine length sins out, the hands have to come back a little bit for me. Anyway, it looks great Deb, and now let go.

Let go and just let the arms float up over your head and now little presses back and back and back and two and one and then dive forward. Lengthening out of the lower spine, reach all the way down to the mat and then roll yourself up. And now we're going to do a little variation with doing so. Reach around behind you and pick up your ring. And Inhale, soft knees are always okay. Exhale, curl down. Okay, so once you get there, let your ring lightly rest on the mat.

Pull the spine again out on a long diagonal, not on a long diagonal. And then we just let the bat continue to lift, bringing the ring out in front. So here I want you to bend your elbows and pull your spine forward into the ring, forward into the ring. And now as your arm, straighten your spine. Just lightly continues to reach forward. So we use the arms, let's pull the ring apart and expand the body forward and then reach forward. So pull the ring apart and expand the body forward.

Nice. Beautiful you guys. And reach out. Let's do two more. Expanding the body forward and up. Strong legs on both sides. And last one, pulling in words with the ring and forwards with the spine. And then just shoot the arms out straight and sit up and sitting up. She just feel super easy. Now maybe, maybe legs together. Bend your knees, take your ring.

This kinda take your ring and rested against your shins and want you to slide your legs nice and close to you. And then apply pressure with the arms against the shins. From there, curl the spine backwards and just start drawing back so much with the center of your body that your feet clear the floor. So we're balancing, we're holding this little balanced position, letting the feet lift up. Then we're going to rock ourselves back. So we're going to K, we're going to rock back or at our Rocca you like that. So here's something that I'm discovering you guys. Use your arms, your upper like around your elbows or wherever. You know we're all different lengths.

Use that to squeeze the legs towards one another. And then you use your shoulder blades to pull the ring towards you. And your base hands are kind of just resting there. Now keep that whole shape and then just tit the pelvis backwards. It'll send you back and then the hard part is so hold it on the way up.

Yeah, just try. Right. And let's go again. Inhale as we go back and exhale as we lift up. Here's another idea. I've not done this before. I'm, I'm kind of doing it as I go. So let's give it a try. Take the heels against. Oh, it's making my hip flexors cramp. I might have to give it up. Okay, so heels against the ring.

Arms hold like a big truck or steering wheel. Elbows wide. Push your heels towards the backs of your legs and rock back. Try to keep that shape and roll up just as good. Yeah. And reach back and lift up. Nice. I like it. To kick the heels inwards, feel the abdominals, pull back, rock back and lift up last to rock back and lift up. And last one. Okay.

And then just put the feet down, undo the ring, open up the knees, let the ring just rest on you. And just take your spine forward for a moment and keep the knees reaching. Why? Okay. Curl the spine. Spina. Pick up your ring, bring the knees back together. Sit back. So you're on a little bit of a diagonal. Round your spine slightly. Lift your ring up over your legs. Lift one leg and lift the other leg. Okay, so the ring resting in the hands.

I'm not married to any particular idea and then roll down could control the role down, but I just roll away from the Nice, nice and holding, holding, holding. And now we just easily roll ourselves back up. Yeah, I try to keep the legs still as you can. Okay. Uh, I have an idea, Deb. No, you're not incompetent. I have an idea. Here's your idea. Dan. Put the ring just like rested on you and then use it and it might slide. It'll slide on your legs. Let it slide on your legs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now let us push it into your legs and slide it back up. It's better. Let's do one more. I'm here all down. Yeah. And that.

Okay. Now all the way down. Bring your knees into your chest, put the ring on your shins and use it to pull your knees towards your body. Hmm. I said simple, right? I didn't say easy. I said simple. No. Curl the head and chest back up. Lift your rings so is resting in your hands. Now I want you to feel that that ring is pulling you forward.

It's pulling you forward. We're going to stretch the legs out underneath it and we're going to bend them back in. We're going to stretch the legs underneath and we're going to bend back in and we're going to reach out. We're going to pull it and feel that the back body, the back of the leg stays strong as it like. Stretch out and pull it. Now add the arms. Inhale, arms up, legs out. Keep the body lifted and back. Inhale, arms up, legs out, body stays still and back, and we reach expansion and contraction.

Expansion and Hex here. Three more reaching and contraction and two more. Spreading the body out and pulling it together. Last, I want to reach out and pull it together. Take the ring on you. What are those shins and come down. Yeah.

And then again, push your legs into the ring. Use your upper body to curl. Let the ring float up. It's like a hovercraft now. And we used to stretch the right leg out. Now this time bring the knee right into the tip of the leg of the nose and switch right the into touch. The nose ring just reaches out past that straight leg.

Reach and reach Yan or reach and reach and keep curling the spine forward. Reach and reach and reach and reach and two to one, one both knees in a ring on the shins and let your body calm down. And then do one more thing. So we're gonna curl up and I pick up their ring. So a little bit confusing. Come towards me first. Take the leg furthest away from me straight. And now take the ring and turn it on its side and reach across towards the inner top, elbow and switch. Cross inner taut elbow, and then slide it upwards. Good.

So using the slide upwards to get the height as you use your obliques to find your rotation. Good lifting. And lifting and lifting further. And three more quick. One, one, two, two, three, three. Bend both knees in and rest. Yeah. Okay. Take the ring in your hands. Place one foot down on the mat at a time, but keep the feet pretty close to you. Inhale there.

We're going to exhale. Rolling the spine up, back up into a pelvic curl. Allow the f the front of the body to open a little bit. Pause there in here and now reach the ring overhead and just let it hover off the ground as you slide your arms away from your spine as your spine travels down into the floor all the way down through the pelvis and reach the arms over the chest. Again. Inhale, exhale. We curl the spine up, lifting, pressing into both legs. Inhale the arms, reach over the top and exhale the arms in the spine. Move oppositionally to one another. As we let the back open and stretch and such and the arms come back up.

Changing the exercise a little bit. Here it goes. Lift to the top. So now I want you to take your left foot off the floor. Keep the knee bent. We're going to take the left tippy toes to the floor and reach the arms overhead without changing the pelvis. And we're going to bring everything back to touch. Inhale, reach the leg in the arms away from one another. Excellent. Everything comes back to touch.

Stay high in [inaudible] and exhale everything back and [inaudible] and everything back. And reach out. Hold the arms there. Just place the foot down. And now roll the spine back down again. Using the front of the body to manipulate the back of the body. Massage the back of the body.

Bring the arms up over the shoulders and inhale and exhale. Curling the spine up. So now we take, keep the left foot on the mat, the right leg lifts up, finds connection to the ring, and then the ring and the leg reach away from one another and pull back together and reach away without the pelvis dropping and pull back together. Keep those hips up. Nice. And I reached down not too far away from you. So that hinge that happens at the hip, less to lift and one, oh, we've got to put that leg down.

Take the arms overhead and now just slide yourself all the way down again. Okay. Bring the ring over that yourself and turn your body over onto your side so that you face me. [inaudible] um, how about heads this way? Okay. So why don't you to take your ring out in front of your body, kind of, kind of where the ribs are there been between the space, between the ribs and the pelvis. And you're gonna lie down on your bottom arm, you know, organize your legs are that your inner knees are pulling towards one another.

And now here to start, I just want you to gently press down on your ring and lift your bottom waist, your bottom ribs up off the mat. Yeah. So it's rural little Jenny, take your ring a little bit more around your belly and less around your face. Yeah, there you go. Okay. And so we press down on that ring, but we lift the bottom side of the body up. Now when you to hold the bottom side of the body up and allow your legs to lift. Now they won't lift very high and that's okay. Okay, so now we're going to press down and float higher and release a little bit, but not all the way. Press down and lift higher. And as you press on that ring, I want you to feel that the pressure is coming from the shoulder blade going down the back and down.

The shoulder blade goes down the back and then we press and lift. Good. So we use again, that idea of the contraction of the ring taking place within the whole trunk of the body. And the body's reaching long as that contraction is happening. So nothing's really shortening much or or changing. Lead does use the legs as a lever for work in the center of our bodies. Nice. Last one.

Okay. Okay, so now you're going to put that down. I'm going to sit up for justice sack. Take the ring, set it between your ankles, stretch your legs back out and lie back down. No, I changed my mind so I sit back up. Put your feet inside [inaudible] well, we're going to have the legs a little bit forward of the spine, a little bit forward of the body. Yeah. And then come all the way down. So just like all the way down to any, and then pick your legs up and bring them a little forward. There you go.

Perfect. Okay guys. Now what I want you to do here is check it by putting your hand on the back of your pelvis and see your pelvis is straight. Kay. Now we're going to keep it straight and I want you to turn the knees towards one another and to push the bottom leg towards the floor and push the top leg towards the air. And again, so we pushed, we never really let go of the ring at any point. We're just creating little contractions, little upward liftings and little downward pressings at the same moment. So my suggestion is that both legs are working evenly on the both sides of the body are equally long.

And we'll do four more and three more and two more. And last one. So now I want you to take that leg, bend it the top leg, and bring it over the top. So I want you to push like you're trying to kick something away from you, something heavy, and then you're going to kick that same, the heavy something through the ring. So we're going to go over the top and then through and over the top, working through the heel and then through and again, so just up through, up through, and three more. Two more. Last one.

Take the leg over the top, bring it forward and tap. Bring it up and behind you. Bring it forward and touch. Bring it up and behind you. Bring it forward to touch. Using the bottom leg, always to stabilize the ring, to stabilize the trunk. Up and back. Up and forward. Up and back. Up and forward. Two more. Last one. Hmm.

I gotta go to the front and then bring the link to the back. Woops. Hold it there. Use the ham. That's free to help your cell phone and slide your elbow on the arm that you're arresting on underneath you. So now use both of your arms to lift your chest and to spiral your spine towards the forearm that's on the mat. Yeah. Now we're going to take that back leg and stretch it up and back and up and back.

My favorite thing to do goods and then use again your arms to try to pull your spine forward. So as a legs going behind you, you're getting a little stretch to the waist. We'll do two more and one more, and then we'll just bend that knee. Use Your hands to help you sit up, pick up your ring with your hands. Turn onto your back and lie down. Take the leg that was just working, the one that was in the top into the ring. Guide the pelvis down into a neutral place, and then pull that leg over your body towards you.

And then in how to bend your knee, create downward pressures. You push the leg back straight. So get a little stretch. We're gonna do about four good. Inhale as you bend your knee. So you're right, you can decide how much or how little pressure you wish to put against that stretch. And two more bend and stretch and last one, bend and stretch. Now take the hand, the ring in the opposite hand. So I've got my left leg in the ring. I'm a hold it with my right hand.

Put your other arm down and then guide that leg across your body. Keeping the pelvis down. Yeah. All right, let's stretch the hip. We just worked. Now you can bend your knee a little bit if you want to. If you need more, stretch to take your leg further back towards the arm that's holding it and then try there to put the pelvis back onto the mat a little bit and then come back to center. Hold the ring in your hands, lower your leg, lift your head, kick yourself up, and sweet sides. That was the most fun. The kicking up. We'll do it again once more.

Okay. So, oh, we started with the ring in our hands and our, we're lying down on our side and we took just a minute to organize our body's inner knees facing one another. Lying in a straight line. The ring was just around the front of the body, just around the belly say. So here we go. We just pressed down initially in lift. How much can you lift the bottom side of your body and then release and then apply gentle downward pressure on the ring with the shoulder blade pulling down towards the pelvis and release. And one more. So now once you get into that pressure, then start to slide the legs away from you.

So much so that they just hover off the mat and that arm just continues to apply pressure. And then inhale, let the legs lower, but not all the way down. And then press and lift and inhale down and exhale, press and lift and inhale down and for us and left Deb, I have an idea for you. So when you're look here, when you're pressing, try to go under, maybe even drop your elbow a little bit and go underneath with the ad better with your scaps [inaudible] so that's an idea that we can all play with, right? Cause I think some of us get real tight in this kind of forward position. So if we go underneath with the shoulder blade, impressed from there. That's potentially, that's nice. Wendy. A better place to work from last two and one more.

Okay. So now we stopped and then we helped herself up and we put the legs on the inside of the ring and I won't make, I won't do the of the mind thing twice. Yeah. Oh okay. So your legs are on a slight diagonal to your spine. Your spine is just going to be straight out. So once you get yourself down, then just check your pelvis, make sure the top pelvis is right underneath the bottom pelvis and then reach that top like a little further. Reach that top like a little further, and then look at their feet and see that they're lined up. Once you've done that, then look straight ahead of you, turn the thigh bones inwards and push down and also push up and down and also push up. Good. So we want the knee bones to try to face inwards and the five to spiral inwards on one another. And then it's a fairly simple thing, but also if as you push up, you engage your waist, you'll get work there as well. So we're going to do four more and three and two and one. So now Ben not knee kick over the ring with purpose and kick through the bottom like has to work and hold that ring down on the mat and kick.

So as you kick lead slightly upward with your heel and slightly downward with your knee. And again, reaching and reaching and lifting and through two more times and through last one here and through. So now we take the leg and we reached it out over the top and then we made an arc and a backwards r and we went forward and back. And as the legs, I'm going forward and back through space where keeping the body stationary or as stationary as possible and back. And we'll do three more repetitions of this kind of keeping this spine law and two and back and one back all the way. So now use your hand, help yourself up, slide your elbow underneath you and her forearm, and then use both of those arms to help you spiral your Chester's or your chest is going to kind of go forward and over that bottom forearm. And then use both of the arms to pull the spine forward. And once you get there, then kick that leg up and back. You can get a little bit more glute work here, up in, back up and back, letting that stretch happen.

And four and three and two and one. Let the leg bend and come down. Help yourself. Then grab your ring with your hands, hand slide onto your back, put the working leg in the ring and come all the way down. So, so I've just put the pad of my foot in the pad of the ring and then just check for a moment that the pelvis is all the way down and then guide that leg towards you a little bit, but also continue to press the pelvis into the mat. Bend your knee breathing, pull down on your ring and stretch the leg up and pull down on the knee.

Breathe in or bend it and then create a little bit of downward pull on the ring. As you reach up through your leg and inhale, pull down. You create your own pressure, your own tension at last too, and reaching a and last one and reaching up. Now from there we're going to take the opposite hand. So now I've got right foot left hand.

We're going to take the opposite arm out to the side as we gently start to guide that leg across the body. Yeah, so you can straighten out that bottom leg if you want to, Jenny, and that'll give you more space. There you go. So if you want more stretch, you can start to pull the leg towards the arm. That's holding it, but at the same time also try and take that pelvis and put it backwards on the mat. So we keep the pelvis pretty stationary. Okay, come back to center. Here we go. Candy, draw the lay down. Pick their head up and kick yourself up. Turn yourself around onto your stomach. Okay, so, so I were to do say like some sliding of the ring. Would that work you guys?

Can you slide them along your mat? Is it too sticky? Good idea. So fold your mat over a little bit so you've got some sliding space room for yourself. And I won't make you put your face on the floor. Okay. So let's start with the arms. Kind of a fairly straight out in front of you and just your resting at this moment on your chest. Only your head essentially is lifted off the mat.

Okay? So, and now I want you to engage the backsides of your legs a little bit and now lift up through the center of your body. So we've got abdominal supporting us. Start sliding the arm, bodes backwards into the shoulder joints and as that. Yep. So we're going to just lift with straight arms. Initially lift with straight arms. Initially the ring will slide along the floor. Just lift your back.

There you go. Now Bend your arms. So as you bend your arms, Hook your thumbs on the inside of the ring and try to stretch it apart. Or you can keep it right on the floor. It'll just drag back and forth on the ground. And then slide it forward. Feel the shoulders go as the arms reach forward, and then pull the ring apart with the upper body and with the elbow slides along the map and reaches forward. Squeaky and slide along the man and slide forward just two more.

So as the ring comes towards the chest, lift the chest up over the ring. Nice and reach out one more and reach out. So now let the body, you guys can unfold your mats. Now we're done sliding the ring. Um, just place the forehead on the Mat and cup the hands underneath the rings. You're holding it like a tray. Okay. This is um, fairly non-friendly. So be prepared. Abdominals in legs strong. The legs are going to stay on the floor.

I want you to pick your head up and pick your ring up. Just hold it and look down at the ground. Two, three, four, five. Lower the arms and lower the forehead. Again, lift low, bringing the nose forward slightly so you're looking slightly forward. Perfect. And then pick up your ring. Holding, holding, holding, holding and down goes the arms and down goes the spine. So we're just going to do that one more time. Slide the spine up and forward.

Hold it and reach, reach, reach and down and lower. And now turn the ring so it's resting on its end yet. And take your hands out on the outsides of the ring like a 10 and two on a steering wheel. And they armed. You just going to be straight and my head is going to just hover off the ground. So now we're going to make a little bit of a bigger back extension.

I want you to start to look through the ring a little bit and then sliding the shoulders down the back. You start pulling the ring on the diagonal towards your body as you start bringing your body up and forward towards the ring. So Jenny just looked down a little bit more and then we're going to reach back out. Good. So the suggestion here is don't let the, don't push down to lift up, slide backwards through the arm bones into like your bra line and then ease your way forwards. Yeah, Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep. Good. And release. Let's do two more. Sliding the arms back, floating the spine upwards, stay there and really sound.

And one more time. We slide the arms back Urijah and we really stamped. Take the ring and set it down flat. Slide your arms underneath your body, push into the mat with your arms and lift up onto your knees. Straighten your arms there and then just sit back towards your feet. Sit back towards your feet.

And then just take a moment there to allow the pelvis to be heavy and then take a big inhale. As you inhale, I want you to feel their back body expands, your ribs expand outwards, you fill them up with air. And then just gently start, exhaling and exhale slowly and feel as the exhale happens, how the body naturally releases or contracts. And again, inhale, feel the body expand, expand all three dimensionally through the ribs, through the center, and just exhale and let that breath settle in to a very quiet place. And then walk both arms over towards me. Just stretch out through the arms and drop the hips in the opposite direction.

And then walk your hands through center and walk around to the other side and stretch the arms and pull the spinal away. Oppositionally and then walk back to center and slide your hands back so they're closer to your knees. And now let the elbows come in towards the body. And I want you to lift yourself up with an extension. So you're going to reach the Chester and reach the chest up and reach the chest up until you can let go. And you're just sitting on your feet or being on your knees is fine. Fine. Take the arms up, expansion and like a hazy.

And just one more. Take the arms up and up. And that's class.

Comments

2 people like this.
she's like a dancer. I liked it
Great muscle energy and oppositional work!
Yeong Cheol C
wonderful.
2 people like this.
Very nicely done. Thank you.
1 person likes this.
Meredith, your use of the magic circle was magical! Thanks for the detailed cues. The ab work in the beginning was crazy good. Thanks for a great class!
Thank you ladies for taking class with me and for taking time to leave feedback. I appreciate it so much!
1 person likes this.
This was the first class I have watched and it was fantastic.
Welcome to PA Lucy!!
1 person likes this.
Thank you...loved side leg series & the continuous "play" with flexion & extension of spine. Definitely woke up the cylinder!
1 person likes this.
Thank you Meredith!!!So nice and so hard after summer holiday
1-10 of 20

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