Grounding Feet and Pelvis

Hi, I'm Sharon Gallagher Rivera and I am here from uh, Mill Valley, California. I'm owner of internal fire plotters in Mill Valley and also co owner of polities education lab in San Francisco. And I have my friend Mira Hassan here, my gorgeous model and uh, she's a teacher all the way out here from Amsterdam and she'll be demonstrating when to chair so she sitting on her. This is a [inaudible] chair. So the spring edge that we have set for her is a high and a low, which is kind of standard, um, spring edge for when your feet are on the pedal.

Um, I firmly believe that we all are different sizes and shapes and especially on the chair you have to adjust the springs. It should be heavy enough that you feel supported but not so heavy that you fight it. So here we go. This is, I think going to be a good spring edge for her though for foot work. She is sitting nice and tall. You want to make sure that everything feels grounded through the pelvis and up through the spine. She's in her plenty Zvi and here we go. Inhale down, exhale up, right. Her hands are just gently pressing into the sides of the chair here.

So that's giving her a little sense of center out. What I want you to feel is that you are not squeezing your bum. Okay, so the pelvis stays grounded. Yes, without getting picked up by the sprangs and without getting picked up by the engagement of your glutes. That way the spring gets to enter your spine and lift up. Inhale, exhale up. Try to pull all the way up and that's it. Gorgeous and up. Nice. She's doing a nice job keeping yourself tall. Two more and up. And then we're going to go bird on a perch foot.

So center of your foot on there. The hardest part is getting your heel to wrap around the back edge of that pedal here. Inner thighs together. Inhale, exhale, grab onto that pedal with your feet. So can you wrap the balls of your feet over? Yes. Right and Xcel grandma. And like you're picking it back up and again, you're trying not to get picked up by your glutes. So a little more activation of what's in your low back. A little more.

Yes. Right. So there's a match of effort that keeps you lifted out of the pelvis. Right. Grab on with your feet. Super Active Arches, nice and up all the way. Inhale down, up all the way. That's it. Good. Two more and Nice.

And then on your heels, good. Flexing your ankles as deeply as you can. Inhale down. Exhale up. I want you to um, avoid letting your hands reach down so much. So you want to feel the breath is lifting you out of your pelvis. Rate and exhale. So flexed ankles, the grounded energy is in the feet and in the pelvis. And when you let that happen, then the spine and even the armpits, everything gets picked up with the breadth. That's it. Good.

And pull up all the way. Try not to get picked up by the springs. So only go as low as you don't get pumped up. Right. Lived here a little bit more. Yes. Yes. So less tension in your hips. Nice. And one more. Excellent.

We're going to go balls of your feet on the pedal and I want you to press all the way down. Good. So if you need to scoot forward to get, yeah, that's fine. Make sure your sit bones are a little behind you and not curled forward. Right. So you're nice and tall. Okay. The balls are the fee. The pads of the feet have to be really grounded into that pedal and the way to flex your ankles down without lifting the pedal. Yes. And then keep that pedal down and pushed to a high foot and keep that pedal down and full relax. Nice. So you could even kind of pick your toes up here, right? Just to feel that you're on the pads of your feet the whole time.

Great. Yes. So a lot of times I encourage, um, my students to do toe corrector when they first come in before we're gonna do a chair workout so that there's a really clear sense of where the pads of those toes are and good and keep your high foot. Was your inner thighs together. Can you bring your torso back? And we're going to do our quick pumps and inhale and exhale. So as you start to go up and down in this vertical, try not to let your body wave, right.

So your sit bones have to be very clear about driving down through the seat. If you are tucked under, it's very hard to stabilize this. So can you drill your sit bones? There you go. Little behind you. Yes, right to get taller. They're big pumps and x. Take your right like forward. Keep pumping your left in and exhale and Ian, good high foot on your left foot and x switch legs, left leg, n in and X. Good. Try to lift that left leg higher and X. Excellent.

And bring that leg down. Ah, Nice. And come on all the way back up. Great. So from here we're going to do the basic tenant stretch. You're going to grab onto the back edge of the seat with your hands. Good step one foot up to the pedal. Pull down all the way and other foot. Good. So again, the pads of the feet are standing on the pedal. Turn out into a small V, right?

But toward the base of the big toe base of the Pinky toe is still on that pedal with you. And I want you to feel like your arms are pulling towards your thighs. Crown down, tail down. Good. And you're really hollowed out and lifted. Keep that high lift of your body. But exhale, lower your heels. Everything goes up. But your feet press down through the balls of the feet to go up.

Keep everything going up, but your heels. Exhale. Gorgeous. Inhale, press to go up. Can you say even lifted here as your heels go down. So that inner thigh line has defined how to lift up base of the big toe to press down. Good. Keep standing in the base of the big toe as you go down with the heels. That's it. Yes, there it is. One more. Nice. Good. And from there you're just going to step one foot down.

Control the pedal up. Okay, great. Step back. A footsie distance away. So your foot's distance away from the platform. [inaudible] and I want you to stand in a small V and I'm going to say like another inch back. A not turned out but back. Yeah. Good. Okay. So in this foot position, it's very active.

You want to make sure that the outer edges of your feet are rolling to the floor. Yes. Even more. Right? So now her arch is picked up the inside arch and we want that. So find that when the outer edge kind of grounds into the floor of the outer hip feels picked up. Now don't lose that, but anchor the base of your big toe, right? And feel how that picks up the inner thigh line. So this system of the feet down on the legs up prevent you from shifting your pelvis back. Keep going up through your legs, take your arms up by your ears and on your exhale. Round down. Good. Gorgeous. So this keeps picking you up.

Your hands will come to the pedal and inhale, dive down. Good. Fall into those springs and Exhale, curl your tail under first. Beautiful. Inhale down. You don't even have to close the springs all the way. Let it just deepen this curl of your spine right now. I don't want you to lose what your feet set up. Yes.

So the feet are still kind of picked up into the pelvis. They're grounding. And then it initiates the lifting of the legs to more dive your crown towards your chest. Beautiful. One more and curl. Go down all the way. Inhale. And now as you exhale, pull your elbows towards your knees. So you're going to feel like your spine coils deeper. Good. Inhale, straighten the arms. Exhale, bend the elbows, but keep standing on the spring. So this is so picture perfect. She's doing great. Inhale, straighten. Stand in your springs. As you bend one more.

You could even get your hands a little more forward on that pedal. So the risk doesn't have so much flection. And exhale Nice. And Ian Hill, straighten the arms and on your exhale, curl your tail under and roll back up. Coming on to that stacked pelvis abdominals. Pick you up. Gorgeous. Take the arms up by the ears and the arms come back down.

Lovely. So now we're going to do some non traditional variations. Of this exercise I'm going to have you do this less out so you can be parallel or you can be very slightly turned up. [inaudible] inhale your arms up by your ears and on your exhale, round down your hands. We'll go to the pedal and inhale, dive down. Good. So even though you're a little more parallel, I still want you to feel that effort of rotation that holds your legs up into the pelvis. So try not to shove your knees back. Okay, good. All the way down if you can, your right leg is going to go behind you. So it's similar to our arabesque lifted up as high as you can.

Good. And from here you're going to coil yourself back up, tail under, just there. Inhale back down. Still feel that it's sequential. You have this drive down of the back line of this leg and the belly up. Just that inhale, dive your eyes into your chest and coil. Good. And dive down again from here, we're going to take this into another variation. Similar to Tinkerbell on the reformer. Nene goes into your forehead, hollow your belly. Inhale round up with your knee on your forehead. So round, bring the springs up and then on your exhale, dive down. Shoot that leg back.

Good. Now Hollowell, to bring that knee in to bring you up and dive back down. Yes. So it's very controlled. Hollow the belly. Gorgeous. And dive down. Bring that leg down. Stay down. Good and switch legs. Left leg goes so your pedal still down. Left leg goes up, try to be down and exhale, curl the tail under roundup. Just that inhale, dive down. Good. Feel that right hamstring line support you. One more. Inhale, less about lifting here. More about lifting here. Just that and dive back down.

Now hollow the belly, knee to the forehead. Good. Find that before you lift up and then exhale, dive down. Shoot the leg back. Gorgeous. Inhale hollow the belly to move the knee. Good. And shoot one more and great. Bring that leg down. Good. Feel the feet lifting up into the pelvis. Even here in your parallel, curl the till, under and rural yourself. Back Up.

Arms come all the way up by the ears and out. Excellent. Take your hands here to the um, seat. You're going to make like a little triangle ledge over to the right side like this. A little. Yeah. And over to the right side. Good step in all the way to where the toes are almost at the front edge of that platform. Beat all the way together. Good. You're going to take your right foot up to the pedal, open the springs and set your knee down in your little triangle. Right?

So the thumbs create a little bit of a bridge so that your knee doesn't slip off the edge. Good. I love this exercise because really establishes how to power the foot from the pad of the foot. So the first thing I want you to do is hold your toes up off the path of the pedal, right? So you really feel how to ground through the pad of the foot. Feel the springs anchoring you into a deeper flexed ankle. Now can you keep your heel reaching to the floor as you push through the pad of your foot? Keep going. Push through the pat.

Okay, good. And Flex. So this is teaching her to not power this movement with her heel. So press with the pad of the foot. It's giving her space and her ankle joint. Good and flex. And it's also teaching her foot to connect up to the hamstrings and spread to push. That's it. Gorgeous.

So as soon as the pad of the foot presses, the arches activate, the arch is activated for the heel lifts. And one more. Okay, great. So now we're going to take that into a little bit more of an exercise. You're going to take your arms forward, round out your spine. So you're going to feel kind of like what we did in the last exercise. Connect the push of the ball of the foot to the deepening of the belly.

Less head, less head over. Yes. Right. More rounded through the low spine. And on your exhale, push through the pad of the foot deep in the belly and flex and even the belly. As you press, find that power in your foot. Come on, arches. There we go. Yes. And one more. That's it. Now keep that high foot. I want you to recruit this hamstring line. Draw yourself back.

Feel free to take your hands on your hips if that helps you. Draw yourself back onto that left leg so the knee comes off the front edge. There you go. Keep that high foot and you're going to inhale. Pull that pedal down, exhale it up. Keep that high foot gorgeous. Inhale, great. She's doing a great job at staying back on her standing foot.

I see this done a lot of the time. Really pitched forward and I find that that just really locks down the pelvis and the hip, so as much as you can, you want to keep the tail a little bit free behind you so the spring can just go right on up and out through your spine. On the next one, keep it down or we're going to work through that foot again. Lower the heel as you exhale, press with the pad of the foot. Inhale. Nice. Exhale, lower the heel. Try to work through the foot, not the knee and not the heel pad of the foot. Arches. Arches, yes, and down. One more. Keep that pedal down. If you can press to go back up and control the pedal up from there.

Beautiful. Other side. Yeah. So hands get set up. Great. Let your knee come to the edge. Yes. So the first thing you want to do is let the springs open your Achilles and open the ankle joint here. Right. Hold your toes up for a second just to feel where the pads of your feet really are. Feel this heel reaching down very actively. Gorgeous.

Keep a sense of the heel reaching down to the floor and push through the pad of the foot. Keep going, keep going, keep going. Keep going. Yes. And flex your heel around the activation of the arches. Yes. And again, so there's almost that, that sense of bird on a perch. The arches stay active when the heel wraps back down around. That's it. Nice Mirror. Let's do two more.

Really focusing on getting the arches active. So I think you could get a little more weight on the base of your big toe and try to keep it there. Yeah, there you go. And keep it there. And then your arms are going to come up here. Round out your spine. Yes. And now connecting that push to the deepening of the low belly belly lifts itself off the thighs. Go ahead. Right. Think down here more than up. Yeah. Yes.

Right. Let the heel reach to the floor. Last one. He'll reach his as the arch is activate. There you go. Right. Keep your high foot. Recruit your right hamstring. You can go hands on your hips and bring yourself back knee off. There you go. Anchor through that hamstring line and here we go. Inhale, get taller. Exhale, gorgeous. Inhale.

So you can be at the back edge of yes. The back edge of it. The springs are pulling you forward. Yes. Good. You're going to try to let your tail stay free behind you so that knee doesn't shove back. Right. The nigos up through the center and one more to go down all the way and stay there. Exhale, flex your heel down. Doing Great. Inhale point. Try to keep that pell down. Exhale, flex your, your a foot could be more on there. It's a little toes. Yes. Right?

Yes. And up. Try to keep that pedal down the last one good. And then you're going to control the pedal up with a high foot. Great. Nice. Okay. We'll see how this spring edge works for the next exercise. So I'm going to have you face this direction. Turned out in a V, a small V, very close to the front end. Um, yeah, to the platform. Great. Always in that v you want to make sure that you're spiraling those inner ankle bones away and that you feel the connection of the feet up into the pelvis.

Take your left foot up to the pedal in a high foot [inaudible] and you'd just wanna make sure your foot in your knee have the same turnout. So it doesn't have to be super big. And here we go. On your inhale, you're going to feel like you're doing scissors with the leg. So arms can go out to the side for balance or they can go on your hips. Inhale, pull. Yeah. So the, the pelvis tries to state level and exhale back up. Let's drop you down a notch. So bring your foot off. Let's try that.

So I just took her down to too low. You just kind of have to play with what works. Part of that is just height and inhale because I want her to be able to keep her pelvis level and then still feel that resistance through the back of your leg. Great. And the other thing is I want her to not shift forward so much because that forces that need hyper extend back. Yes.

So keep thinking pelvis back over your ankle joint. You're standing ankle joint. There you go. Mira. Good. And inhale down. Stay down. Good. And again, I want you to shift so the foot is on the pedal more. Yes. Good. Okay. Stay there. You're going to flex without lifting that pedal. Push through the pad of your foot to point. Good and flex and point right. Try not to lose your standing. Uh, arch, the inner ankle bone lift of your standing leg.

Good and high foot on that left foot and control it back up. Lovely. Good. Stay facing this direction. We're going to do the crossover pumps to take that like down. You're going to turn parallel legs close to the platform.

[inaudible] take your right leg across your center and grab onto that bar. Yeah, really important to get the heel down here. And the foot really sort of wraps around the shape of the pedal. So it's trying to grab on the inside edge and the outside edge from here and want you to lean into the inside edge of your standing foot. Yes. And feel how that makes the arch kick in. Okay, here we go. On your inhale, open that knee to pull the pedal open. Yeah, lean into the inside edge of your foot too so that you're not bumping in. Inhale, this edge grabs yes and exhale, control it back up. Good.

And option here if balance is a challenge, is to use a stick like a Gondola pole while you're learning to practice this inside edge of your foot. Inhale. There you go. Great. And we'll just do one more. Feel that effort of the rotators in the lateral hamstrings. Gorgeous. And come on off of that. We're going to do the same thing the other direction. Great.

So first year turned out good. [inaudible] and right leg up. [inaudible]. Nice. Excellent. So you're letting the pelvis level off, so allow that hip to drop. Find the rotation without shoving the pelvis forward. Right. It's back over the ankle. Joint tail is free behind you. The little more free so that your center can support you more than hanging under. Okay. Here we go. Inhale. Gather the inner thighs together. That's it.

Exhale, right. Get your pad of your foot more on there to come down. So it's a little more over the edge. Yeah, that's it. An exhale. See if your pelvis can stay back over your ankle joint. Beautiful. Inhale. Yes, and I know, and one where you're going to inhale down. Now. Exhale, flex the ankle.

Press through the pad of the foot. Inhale. Exhale, flex. Good. Now try not to hunker down into that. Leaning forward. Yes, right. Make the right hamstrings. Hold that pedal down. And then high foot, uncommon backup. Gorgeous standing parallel facing your chair. Now your left leg crosses over. [inaudible] heel down. Feel the inside edge wrap. Good, but meanwhile, lean into the inside as your right foot. Yes. Inhale, pull the springs open.

Exhale backup. Now you're hanging on your right knee a little bit. So you just want to go la inner thigh by leaning into the inside edge. There you go. Right. There's a feeling of the very tops of the innercise squeezing together. As you get all the way down and exhale back up.

We'll do two more. Inhale down. Excellent. One more and nice and come on off of there. Let's do table. So you're going to sit here, your hands will go to the back edge of the seat. Turned out in a v. Great cause. I want you to try to keep the pedal up as you come up into your table.

Squeeze your heels together and lift up into your bridge pelvis. Way Forward. Over your feet right now. Flex your ankles. Yes. And keep that flex of your ankle so that you really powering from the very tops of your legs. You're going to inhale to open the hips more. Good. And exhale back backup. So it's not about pressing down, it's about lifting up. Yes. An exhale.

So feel all of your back extensors get kicked into action. Yes. Can You keep a flexed ankle? Yes. And inhale, open the hips. That's it. And exhale. Gorgeous. One more. And just for fun, we're going to try single leg. You're going to take your right leg up because she's not tired enough yet. You're gonna inhale, go. Just yes and backup. Try One more. Open the hip and back up. Let's try the other side.

One thing that will help is not pushing your heel forward. Keep that heel flex back. Good. And other leg. Here we go. Standing in your foot. Good. And you're trying to go up to the ceiling with this leg. Yes. And Open your hips and back down. And one more.

Open your hips and go ahead and bring this leg down and come back down. [inaudible] great. Good. Okay, so come on off of there and let's do, uh, prone arm press. Okay. So we're gonna change the springs down a little bit. Um, I typically, for my own body, I use this weight, which is two to the lowest. Traditionally the, um, grots chair, you would use one spring for arm work, so a high or a medium. So let's try you on I think a high, we'll see how that goes and I always just check it out and then adjust if it wasn't the right decision. Okay, so you're going to come on with your pelvis here facing that way. Good. And Open the springs in. Scoot forward a little bit more.

Great. Okay. Okay. So zipper your inner thighs together. In fact, I think you need to be a little more forward. Yeah. Good. A little more? Yes. Okay, so you want to feel that the front of the hip stay all the way open. So press your hip bones down right and feel, have the legs get lifted up a little bit. Good. Meanwhile, the abdominals are super active. They're good. On Your exhale, I want you to bend your elbows towards your pelvis without letting your body sag into the space. Inhale, activate to straighten.

I want you to stay a little more. Yes. In that activation. Exhale, bend. Keep that same activation. Yes. Inhale front ribs into the back ribs. Keep that. This is lifting two. Exhale, bend. So much better. Great. Inhale and exhale. We're going to take the ride arm out to the side and squeeze a fist.

So yes, the hard part is to not get rolled over on that right hip more. So use your legs to reach back. You're going to try to keep your right side of your belly active and bend and straighten that left elbow. Good. Inhale to straighten. Exhale, bend. So here's where your abs really work is when you're bent, right? The straight arm gives you support the bent arm less, right?

So make your belly help you and goods which arms, legs stay together. If you can left arm out to the side, squeeze a fist. Good. And bend the elbows. Good. And straighten. Okay. Recruiting that left side as, as you can zipper those inner thighs together and reach back through the inner thigh. Reach. Yeah, squeeze my hand here. Squeeze my in. Yes, I know. And one more. Okay, good. In both arms down from here.

You're just going to pull forward into your swan. Inhale, pull up. Keep your legs reaching. Long. Exhale back down. Try to feel like your legs are reaching back. Your belly pulls forward. You're stretching your body apart. Yes. Great. And we're going to do one more. It looks beautiful.

Can You keep those inner thighs gathered together and back down? Great. So now we're going to go into a swan dive. I'm going to have you bend your elbows. There's two ways that I've learned this and we're going to do the bent elbow version of this. So Ben, bend your elbows towards you. Now the trick is that when you bend your elbows, try not to drop out of the work.

So you have to feel like your abdominals are still resisting. Go ahead and bend right now. Stand in your hands with bent elbows. I want you to lift your legs to teeter dance. So keep lifting, lifting, lifting. Keep your legs together. Good. And now you're gonna lift your chest without dropping your legs right and lift your legs so you don't have to go all the way straight.

Your arms will bend more and they'll straighten more, but they won't go all the way straight. And lift your chest, stand in your springs, stand in your springs as you lift your legs to go down. You're doing great, right? Don't drop down. Try to keep lifted. Yes. Good. And then stand in your hands as you live back up. Beautiful. One more. That's okay. And that was it. We're done. Okay. I'm going to have you take a little break. So come on up. Hands on the seat.

Take a flat back stretch. Just here. Hands, hands on the seat. Stand up on your legs and take a flip EQ stretch. That's it, right? You can even hook your hands there. Get a little traction of your spine back. Good. And then soften your knees and come on back up. So I want to try a fun one here and we're going to try this same spring edge and we'll see how it fits you.

This isn't sort of a nontraditional variation of Swan. It's more of a plank and a more of a teetering plank. Okay. So you're gonna go both hands here. Now doing this on one spring's going to be challenging. So you let me know if you need more help. Okay.

You're going to take your hands to the front edge and you're going to hold yourself up like this. Great. Zipper your inner thighs together and pick your belly up. Okay. One Hand at a time to the pedal and try not to let your belly lay down. So less of a swan, more of a plank. Legs reach down and your belly picks itself up. Aha. Good.

So there is a feeling of pulling yourself forward so you don't slide. Okay, so you're going to teeter down and pick yourself right back up. Legs go down. Pick up yes and down. Exhale right back up. Gorgeous. Inhale down. I think we could scoot you forward a little bit more. Little more. Great. Two more. Inhale down. Hold those inner thighs together. Xcel right back up.

Gorgeous heels reached down to pick you up. Good. Now here's the fun part. Stay up there. Okay. Okay. Stay up there. Take your right arm by your ear. Squeeze a fist. Oh, sorry. You need a little more weight. Okay, come on up.

Now we could have given you more weight for that. That beginning part two and it would have made it more uh, doable. So what I'm going to give her is two to the lowest. Okay, here we go. You're doing great. Yeah, these are hard.

Scoot forward a little more. A little more good. Excellent. So you're gonna Punch your right arm by your ear. [inaudible] a straight arm and squeeze a fist right by your ear. Just like that. Zipper, your inner thighs together. Now tip your legs down to plank. Up, tip down, right? And come back down. Less of a swan, more of a plank. Pull yourself or to reach down to come up and then come back down.

Try the other side. Cheat your right hand to the center. A little more left arm by your ear right now. This is major. This will help you. Yes. Reach down from here to pick yourself up, right? So less arched, reached down to pick yourself up. And one more. Good. Okay. And come on down and shift back. It is hard.

It is hard. Okay, so let's do torso press it. Uh, I personally like to do, actually use that one. Um, this really light, really light so that, uh, your back extensors aren't overly powered up. So what you're going to do is sit here legs that way, hands are gonna go back to the pedal. Yes, right? And just keep your legs out straight. Now you could do this against a wall. I'm going to be your wall, which is nice because then you get this grounding energy through the backs of the legs. Sometimes I also have people put their legs on a physio ball, so it gives them a little more energy and then they advance to doing this without anything under their legs.

But the main thing I want at first is that she articulates down from the lowest spine. So it's not an arched back. It's an inhale round back. Good. Now stand on me and exhale. Curl around your spine to come up. Beautiful. Inhale back. I want you to gather your inner thighs so you're not shoving your knees down and XL. You can stand in your heels without shoving your knees down. Curl. Great. Now I'm going to let go. Okay, so hold yourself together.

Inhale round down. Gorgeous Mira. And exhale curl. Lovely. One more. And exhale, curl. Awesome. We're going to do single arm, so I'm going to give her support again so she finds it. Okay. So curl up. Come all the way up. Yeah, you're going to rotate your right hand open. You can take your left arm over your ear. Twist your chest open toward this wall. Good.

Now take your arm by your ear. Yes. Round. So yes. Inhale and round up. Exhale, curl. Try not to arch. Yes. And round. So the back ribs are stretching back away from the pelvis. Try not to hang through those knees. Right. And then just once without me. Inhale round and exhale gorgeous.

Come on up to switch. Good. Try not to hang through your knees. Yeah. Left arm or right arm up by your ear. Twist your chest. Open toward the beautiful view here. And inhale. Round back. Yes. And around up. Try not to lift your chest on that. Inhale, good and articulate. You can feel movement through the back line of your legs. And then once without me, inhale and exhale. Yes.

Good. And come on up all the way. Lovely. So I love to do the side arm twist, which I think this is probably too late for. So I'm going to take you up to a high. So one to the high. So you're going to sit here, legs straight, uh, facing this way, leg straight. And this time this is going to be extended, arched. So you want to have your pelvis further back and you want to feel those sit bones really ground into the seat. Okay, good leg.

Straight out. Good arms up by the ears. Now you're going to rotate toward this wall. Open your chest as your right hand comes to the pedal. Drill your sip ans down into the seat and feel how that activates the low back. Nell are children my hand. As you inhale back, look at your right hand and keep looking at your right hand arch up. Exhale, gorgeous. Inhale arch, right. Try not to let your legs get heavy, so you have to drill those sip bones down, right. Flex your ankles.

Inhale and now lift your spine. Gorgeous. Can we do one more with your arm on your ear and exhale, come all the way back up. Yes. I think we could scoot you back a tiny bit for the other side. Yes. Good. Arms up by the ears and here we go. Twist. Look at your left and inhale.

Go send your sip arms down into the seat. So the low back is arched arch around my hand and he'll pick yourself back up. Look down at your left hand. Yes. Art your low back to go. Yes. And pick your low spine up. The all of the extensors are turned on in this exercise.

Yes. [inaudible] can we do one more? Inhale, try not to let your legs get heavy and exhale yourself up. Gorgeous. Nice. Okay. We haven't done the teasers, which are really nice, but what I'd like to do is just tease her three because torso press, it kind of gives you that some of the work of teaser one. So we're going to go back to a lighter spring. We'll do teaser three and we'll do twisted teaser.

Okay. So I'm going to take her down to one. Oops. One at the lowest again, so that it's a little easier to counter the weight of the spring. So coming back to how you set up a four torso, press it. Yes, your hands will go back to the pedal. Good. But your legs are going to be up in your teaser position.

So your sacrum is underneath you, right? Excellent. Find your teaser balance. Good. Feed your arms, backs. You're going to go like this. Good. Nice. Great. So from here, as you start to open the springs, round your low spine to lower legs. Aha. Good. And then try not to let either side get heavy and curl yourself back up, right?

So you have to start to move your spine back. Use your arms. Yes to keep your legs supported. Gorgeous and up. And just one more. You're doing great. Mirror [inaudible] and up. And you're going to finish with a little teaser balance, right? And bring your legs down. Nice. So doing okay, we're gonna go into the twisted teaser. So what I want you to do is I'm wondering, I might switch how this is facing. Great.

So we just adjusted the chair so that the facing was a little easier to see at home. So here we go. Mira going to come on here for twisted teaser. We dropped the spring inch down to just one at the lowest and so she's going to sit on the corner with her sacrum underneath her. So try to get a little more, yes, right. Her legs are going to be up in a teaser on this diagonal angle and that right leg crosses in front. Good right hand comes to the pedal. Good. So I have a little variation that I like to teach that builds people up into this one. So open the spring a little bit with that arm. Just so you feel s feel like you're standing in the resistance.

This arm's going to come to the front edge, right? So this is her way of bracing herself, but also pulling herself around. Keep your body in one piece and roll all the way to your side of your hip. And I want you to be on this diagonal gorgeous. So that elbow kind of braces and prevents you from rolling off.

And then scoop your belly and come back. Squeeze those inner thighs together. Great. And let's try one more like that tops of your inner thighs together as you go. Use your left hand to help you. Right. And it's a good way to just get a feel for the exercise before you don't have the support. Hold this together and hold that together as you curl back.

There you go. Nice. Okay, so now we go. That arm goes by the uh, in the same angle as the legs and as you go it goes to the ear. Good. So I think this has a beautiful combination of a hundred curl and extension. So now arch out of it, right.

Reflection within extension and then curl yourself back up. Gorgeous. One more. I want you to use your inner thighs more and feel how that helps you. Yes. Stay as one piece more and arch arch, arch, arch, arch without losing your, your ribs and good. And come on back. Yes. And come down gorgeous.

Yeah. So we'll try on this other angle again too with the variation. Good. [inaudible] turn a little bit more this way cause we want your hipbones to aim for this corner. So that's your pattern. Yeah. Let your left arm open the spring a little bit. Good. Take your right arm across. Nice. Now coz squeeze those inner thighs together.

Pull yourself over to your shoulder. Your, your torso will be over that shoulder over there. There you go. So that's your angle. Yes. And then scoop your belly and pull yourself back up. Nice inner thighs together. And again, be one piece. So I feel like your rib cage. Yeah, it needs to remind itself, right. And Gorgeous. Now tops of your inner thigh squeeze together here. Good. As you go, that arm is going to shoot over by your ear. There you go, right?

Yes. Keep this together as you go into your arch. So the arch happens in the by lifting up the front and activating the back. Yes. Yes. And back up. One more. Nice. Squeeze those inner thighs together. Find your arch there. Yes.

And come on back. Beautiful. And come on down. Nice. So I'm going to give her a little more resistance here. So I'm going to go two to the bottom. We're going to do a version of mermaid that is not traditional and then we will do a traditional Merman. So what I want you to do is hook one foot over the side facing that way.

[inaudible] scoot as close to the Springside as you can. [inaudible] and then right hand on the peddle. Good left arm by your ear. Good. So Ian, hail to go up and over and I want you to keep this arc reaching down. And then on your exhale, pick yourself up from the lowest of your side ribs. Just that. Inhale back down.

So you maintain the side arch and you want to feel like what picks you up is the underneath side. Just that. And one more. Inhale into your side ribs to go down and exhale, lift to come up. Nice. Now rotate toward the pedal. Widen your hands. Okay, so same idea here. I want her to inhale the back ribs open to go down and stay down and pick yourself up from the underneath side. Exhale, gorgeous. Two more of those.

Inhale, dive into yourself to pick yourself up. And one more. Inhale down and round up. Good. Last thing we're going to do here is a serpent version. You're gonna inhale down now, pull your crown forward, come up in a flat back, keep using your arms to pull you longer. And as you get to the top spiral around your right shoulder, keep going, keep going. And I want you to feel like your crown keeps going forward too.

You're pulling yourself apart or jus and round center to go down. Good. Pull forward through your crown. Shoulders down in the back and pull yourself taller as you spiral out of it. Long through your crown. Yes. Good. And one more round down. Good. And then crown forward and spiral. Right. And I would really want to see, yes, good. And then round down and just round yourself up.

And we're going to do the other side. Nice. My clients love this version of Mermaid. Um, the tradition when they don't love as much, but my goal is always to get people to love the traditional work, usually by steps of other exercises. Not usually, but a lot of the time. So scoot as close as you can. Good. Okay. So slide that hand back. Can we keep going a little further back?

Right in line with your pelvis. There you go. And this arm goes by your ear. So you create your arch at first. Inhale down. [inaudible]. Stay in that arc and then deepen it. So lift, yes. The from the underneath side. Inhale down.

Keep this going down and reach from here. Yes, you're going to feel like you're reaching up from where your Titus and awesome. Good. Rotate your torso toward the pedal. Widen your hands. Straighten this leg and inhale into your back as you go down. And then lift from under here. Exhale front ribs through the back ribs. Good. Two more. Keep that right, like reaching long. Inhale and then deepen that stretch.

Last one. Inhale down and exhale round up. Now we go for serpent. Inhale round down. Keep this leg reaching long. Now pull yourself taller through your crown. Keep going up all the way and at the end of that spiral around that spindle of your spine, including your head. Thinking of that spindle. Yes. And round down an exhale. Pull yourself apart in both directions.

That leg stabs down as your crown reaches long, gorgeous and one more and spiral. Great. Round down and round up. Lovely. Good. Uh, I think we're going to actually skip the, the traditional Merman cause I want to get through some other things. So we are going to do something called scissor sideline leg, which will require us to use a mat and to adjust the facing.

So we've adjusted the facing of the chair and we uh, grabbed a mat so it's a little more comfortable to be on the floor. I had dropped her down to one from the lowest, so I'm going to have Mira lie down on your right side. Facing this direction. Yeah. Feet. That way you're going to be propped up on your right forearm and your right foot goes forward about 45 degrees. So skew. Yeah. And your left foot is going to come onto the pedal.

I'm going to help you come into this first. From the bottom right, your foot is going to grab outer edge of the foot wraps around the pedal. So it's a very, a unique foot position. Yes, and it's super activates the medial arch and medial line, which she's gonna love a lot. Prop on your forearm, your right forum a this way. Elbow underneath your shoulder. There you go. Your hand goes behind the back of your neck. Good. Now when the pedal is down here, this hip is reaching long through her foot and we need to keep that pedal down. Yes.

And her side waist is pulling up through her armpit in a very active side bend. You feel that? Okay, good. Now from here, you're going to control this pedal up. Keep wrapping around the outer edge of that. Come into your side. Bend this way. The lowest ribs lift up, similar to what we just did. Now again, you're going to pull this long anchor, the outer edge of your foot and you come into this side bend. Great. And then you look at as the leg lifts, you lift the lowest of the side ribs.

Nice. So there's this nice translation of this hip in a parallel stretch and pull down, make your right side waist. Pull further out, away from the machine and exhale up. Beautiful. We're going to do two more. I love this exercise. Yes. Good. Here, wrap. Make your foot really work. Good. And lift. Last one.

Feel the sideways doing more than that ratio. Shoulder and lift up and over. Beautiful. And I'm going to help you here by taking the pedal and you can come off and we're going to switch sides. Good. Nice. Feel that pinkie toe edge. Grab on. Yes. And wrap around inner thigh lifting up. Nice.

This can be a little less forward. Here we go. So as that pedal comes up, you come into your side, bend gorgeous. And then lengthen that left sideways. Reach your hip toward me. Yes. And stretch up and over your left shoulder. Great. Now it's hard for that foot to hold onto the pedal. So you know, you just work within the range that you can without letting it snap away from you. And up and over. Good.

Gorgeous. Last one here. Pull down as you stretch. Beautiful, and then come back into your side bend and I'm going to take the weight of this from you and you can come off. Great. We're going to go into the handstand. I typically do this for myself with one to the low, one to the second, a four mirror. We're going to try her to, to the low.

We might decide that we just need one spring for her. So we're going to do the same facing here where you're going to do a sit up here, press down all the way. Good. And then you're just going to stand up on your feet. Good. Take your arms up by your ears and you're going to do a standing roll down. Yes. Once your hands reach for the floor, you're going to turn your feet into a v and walk your hands out just to a piped position. Flat hands. So I want it to be less than a downward dog, right? So the hands go underneath the shoulders. Yes.

So really important to get this anchor down through the heel and this, shift your shoulders forward over your hands. This deep curl of the upper spine. This is where the support is. Drive the backline of your legs down through your heels for support and we'll see if this position works for you. From here, you're going to start to take a little more weight in your arms and control that pedal up. Gorgeous. Now drive the backline of your legs down from the curl of your abs. There you go. Control it up. You have to keep a flexed ankle on this exercise.

Otherwise people get ejected and yes, two more deep curl from the upper abs. She's doing a great job. Really Nice control here. Uh Huh. Beautiful. One More and control it up. We're going to keep it up. She's just going to take a stretch here. Take your right leg up to the ceiling. Stand in your left foot. Take your right leg up to the ceiling. Okay.

That's all right. Fatigue. Okay. We'll skip that variation. Yes, yes. Um, the second thing I wanted to do here is the seesaw pushups. So you're going to come in the same way, so you're standing up on the pedal. Aha. Standing all the way up, arms up by your ears, round down. Good this time you're going to walk your hands out to more of a pushup position.

And again, keep those feet flexed back. [inaudible] Nice. And I'm just going to be here to prevent it from snapping. Okay, great. So I want your back line of your legs to really super anchor down. The first thing you're going to do is control that pedal up and then pull it back down. So use that upper curve. Good. And up.

And Dan, we're going to do one more and down. Now as your legs come up, you're going to go into a pushup, right? Keep your legs up and just press it right back up to more with just your arms. Now on this last one is you're coming up from your pushup. Press the legs down. Good. You're going to see as your legs come up, you dipped down in your pushup and as you progress up, Gorgeous Mirror. One more and good. Now let your legs come up and meet your body line.

So so be in your pushup position. Legs come up. Now you're going to bend your elbows as you pull the pedal down. So you kind of pull forward and press up. Don't lose your ribs, ribs, go up and press back up. One more gorgeous and press down all the way. Walk your hands back, keep those heels anchor. You're gonna roll your spine back up. And this is how we would have gotten out of the previous exercise as well. Excellent. Good.

And you can sit down on the seat to close your springs. Great. And I want to finish off with a straight leg press exercise. So I'm going to have you come on off. And this again, it's always a, you know, get kind of guessing game of spring edge, but I think we're going to start her out. Actually, we'll try this too to the lowest. I'm gonna have you face the chair. You're going to be one straight legs. Distance away. Uh Huh. I think just a tiny bit further. Perfect. Yeah. Right. So this leg is straight.

[inaudible]. Good. Now the first thing I want you to do is cup your foot around like a bird on a perch, even further. [inaudible] good. And you want to feel like you pull that like back a little bit to go down and back down. Can You keep your knee straight? Yeah. Right. And let your right leg be heavy. So hands on your hips. So feel I am going to hold this down. Yeah.

So feel when your leg goes down that your spine goes up with a straight leg, right? And then back up. So this is just a little preparing. Now you're going to use that to curl your spine forward. Very similar to spine. Stretch forward in the mat work. Try not to let your, let your torso just fold. Make your leg pull all the way down, all the way down, and then stack back up. So I want you to be less folded. Come all the way back up, right?

Make your leg pull down more and make your spine go up to go over, chest into your back. Press your leg down, stay up with your spine. Press your leg down. Try to go up with your spine as your leg goes all the way down and stack back up. Try to aim to get no more than like 45 degrees over. Yeah. Up in forward as a leg pulls down. One more time. Okay.

So there's more space. There's more like scooped out. This goes down to give you the up. That's it. Right? Keep going down with your leg. Pull with your hamstrings. Keep going. Lean forward. Gorgeous. Better and stack back up. Good. Okay. Let's switch legs.

It gives us that leg a little bit more of a break. Sometimes you can just go into, we're going to do the side version and the back version too. Um, but doing the forward one, it's a little nice to have a little break for that leg before going into the other part. So here we go. First I want you to feel like your leg sucks back, pulls down to go up with your spine. So at first just go up to get that feeling. There you go. And back up. Good. Excellent. Good. Now you're going to use it to round for it.

So you're gonna pull a Huh? Take your chest into your back. Take your back ribs up as you pull that leg down. Good. Lean on it. Yeah. Gorgeous. And control yourself back up much. Yeah, the springs might be a little heavy. Right? Okay, great. Yes. Make that leg do it. Yes. Right. And back up. The biggest challenge with this series is to not hang on your knees. Right?

So you want to keep drawing your foot up into your belly. Right? Keep going better. Yeah. And all the way back up. Gorgeous. Bring that light down. I'm going to lighten the spring, Andrew, a little bit for the uh, side and back versions. So instead of two to the bottom, I'm going to give her one to the high and I might actually, I take it back. I'm going to give her one, two, a medium changing my mind here as we go. Okay.

So you're going to face this way and one straight. Now this is a place that I use a Gondola pole for people. I'm going to see if she needs it though first. So try not to fall into that art. You're gonna lift. Feel the outer hip activating. Good. And I like to do arms out to the side, gives a little more balanced.

You're gonna pull that leg down by drawing your inner thighs together. And I do want you to, once you get down, lean on it, kind of like going yes, right? And then drop that hip external spiral of the leg to control the leg back up, right. Crease your hip crease. Crease crease. Yes. Right and down. Now we're going to add a little side bend to this cause she's doing such a nice job once down. Keep your pelvis level, take yourself into a right side. Ben. Sorry. This way. Yeah, that's a left side bend by the way. Not a right side bend.

And then bring your arms back up too and come on back up one more time. Gorgeous. Pulling down into a left side bend. Gorgeous. Okay. What you're going to do is rotate your standing foot to face that direction. Turned out [inaudible].

I want the pinky toe edge of this foot to grab onto the pedal. So you're gonna do that same foot that we did in your scissor, said Lang leg go parallel or not. In your front leg. Your back leg is gonna turn to the length of yes, the pedal and your pinky toe edge grabs on gorgeous. Okay. So from here the frontline of your body pulls itself up to pull the pedal down. So keep going up and as you do that you can kind of lean back onto that outer edge of the foot state. See there, take your arms up into a high back release.

Look up gorgeous. Fill the whole front line of your body picking itself up. Bring your arms back to the side. Good. And then feel the front of the leg coming toward me. Keep the pinky toe edge holding on. Big Hip opening here. Gorgeous. And we're just going to do one more of those. Pull down, lift up through the belly. You got it?

Yes. And open the arms out and control yourself up. Stand on the hamstring line of your right leg. Yes, there you go. Lift that leg off. You're going to come into a little passe moment. [inaudible] and bring that leg down and turn to face the beautiful ocean.

Straight leg, arms out to the side. Great. So working for a level pelvis. So the hip crease is relaxed. Yes. And from here you're going to pull down and as you pull down, lean on that leg. Good. And go into your side bend. Right? Think of a side bend is more up than down, right?

So the down is the legs and the opposite. The spine. And then come on back up. Heavy hip. Yes. One more of these. I think we did two. Maybe we did three. I can't remember. [inaudible] and good. Okay. From here, turn and face that wall. [inaudible] good. Paul, the front line of your body up as you keep that pinky toe edge grabbing. So reach around here. Yes. Good. Both like strong.

Now pick your arms up, pick your belly up, look up. Good. And then arms back to the sides. Gorgeous. Mira. Strong legs here to open the front of that right hip. You got it. [inaudible] one more and lift. Good and arms open and control yourself up.

Lift that leg off. Come into a little passe balance and bring that leg down, and I think you worked hard enough. So we're gonna end there. Great job. Nice work. Yeah.