Body Position Awareness

Hi, I'm Shelly power here at Palladio's anytime. And we're going to do an intermediate reformer class. So let's get going. We're going to start with footwork. So with your heels on the bar, align your feet so that they're about even with your hip joints and begin to press back and forth. And as you're doing these first few repetitions, I want you to bring your attention to your body position. And what I'd like is that often often talked about neutral position.

And what I mean by that is having the back of your head, the back of your rib cage, and the back of your pelvis, all touching the mat. And as you're pressing back, I want you to feel like you're lengthening your legs. So there's a little bit of a stretch happening and then come back and you can start to exhale as you're pressing out and inhale as you come back in. But keep it feeling natural. Make sure that the breathing and the movement match so that the right now the breath is pretty relaxed.

Let's do one more repetition of that and leave your legs straight. So stay back. You're going to begin to point your feet over the bar. That always kind of feels weird the first time you do it. And then flex your feet. And when you flex, do it slowly because sometimes your feet will slide down, point your feet over and reach to the big toes. And when you flex, pull back a little bit through the little toes.

That's great. And we'll do it one more time. Press over and point and then flex and pull back and bend your knees and come all the way down. Let's change to a pull out these first v with the balls of your feet on and again, begin to press back and forth. So another opportunity to check your body position so that we talk often about finding positions and maintaining them. But that takes some, some um, playing around with. So as you're going, always check back in, exhaling as you go, feeling again that the legs lengthen and stretch and then just bring your attention to your head and your shoulders and make sure they're just at rest on the mat. So no, no major work through the shoulders. Two more times. And one more time.

And this time again, press out and hold right there. Turn your legs to parallel and flex your feet and allow that yum a stretch at the back of your legs. Good and lift and rise up. So keep lowering and lifting smoothly. Take about the same amount of time to lower as you do to lift lower and lift and see if you can feel as you stretch your heels down, that there's a lengthening also happening at the back of your neck. So the whole body is getting stretched, rising up, centering your weight. So it's just about in the middle of your foot.

Two more times, lowering and lifting. And let's do it one more time. Feeling the length in the body. So there's a big stretch, and as you complete that last stretch, come on in and let's take the feet out wide. So we're going to move back onto the heels and open out. Go as wide as your foot bar will allow and begin to press back and forth again.

So now we're able to open up through the inner thighs. The legs are in a spiral out, but go partway. Don't go your maximum spiral. Go partway. So it just feels comfortable to hold that. Great. You can feel that your ribs are gliding down towards your pelvis a little bit so they're not really pushing back into the mat as much.

They're gliding down to the waist. No. On your next one, press back and again, hold the legs straight. Now we're going to internally rotate the legs and then bend your knees as you come in. When you come down to the bottom, pause, open your legs out to the sides and press back out. So we're going to create a circle in the hip joint, bending and opening, and just go to the point that it feels comfortable. So there's no need for your knees to touch. If that doesn't feel good, great.

We'll do two more in this direction. And at the top of the movement as you're spiraling, see if you can lengthen back a little bit more and do one more. And then when you're ready, reverse and go in the opposite direction. So we'll start with knees in and push back. And now length and as you turn out and then bend spiraling around in the hip joint.

So we're creating that circle with the legs three more times and two more times. This is looking really good. One where I'd still be our last one and bring the legs back together for running in place. So on the balls of the feet and push out until your legs are straight and pause there for a moment with high heels. So this'll be our starting position and will also be the point we come back to with each change. So begin to stretch one side down and then rise up and stretch the other side down.

Now as you're going tune back into your body position and we want as little movement of the pelvis as possible. Not none, but just don't let the pelvis go too much back and forth. And again, see if you can feel the stretch going through your whole body and out through the top of your head. Two more sets and one more set. And now hold the heel stretch on one side. It doesn't matter either side, whichever one you're on. And hold there for a moment. Feel the stretch in your calf, which is kind of obvious, but also feel that you get a stretch in the front of your hip at the same time. And now leave that heel down and bend the knee, just the littlest bit, which is going to change your stretch.

You'll feel it on a little deeper place in your calf and then rise up and go over to the other side, pressing down, hold the straight leg stretch for a moment. Feel like you can elongate through the front of your hip and then bend your knee just that little bit to get the stretch to go more into your Achilles, deeper into your calf, and then bend both knees and lower yourself all the way down. Good. We're going to transition now into bridging, so important on bridging that you put your head rest down if you put it up for footwork. So we want to have the head rest down flat and we're going to start bridging on your heels. So heels on and we're going to start to tilt the pelvis a little bit toward you. So when you go, you tilt the pelvis and then you're going to peel your body up off of the mat.

And when you get to your top positions, stop when you feel like in your own long diagonal line and then begin to roll back down bone by bone all the way back. We'll do that a couple of times. Rolling up lengthening. Now when you're at your top position, pause for a moment and feel how you can pull the carriage in toward the stoppers. Maintain that as much as you can as you roll back down. Now sometimes that makes your hamstrings cramps. So if that's happening, you can let it go a little bit, but we want to build up that endurance to be able to do that throughout. Now on this next one, roll up again and pause there and let's press back four times. So extend the legs as much as it feels good and then pull yourself back in.

And I want you to have the sensation that as you're pulling in, it's kind of like I took all the springs off. That'd be kind of mean pulling it to more. And finish up on your last one and then stay and keep the carriage connected to the stoppers if you can. As you roll down, widen between the shoulders and let your body melt back down to the mat. Good. Bring your feet a little bit closer together. We're going to do one leg now, so roll up into your bridge and then extend your right leg to the ceiling and hold there for a moment. Now we're going to begin to roll down.

Only roll down as much as you feel like you can come back up. So roll down to the mat and roll back up two more times. Roll down. So this is looking really good. Do your best to keep the pelvis as level as possible. One more time and then come back up and change legs at the top. So stay up, extend the other leg to the ceiling. Hold there for a moment. Your hips off, and now begin to roll down. It can be partway or all the way, your choice and back. Your exhale will help you when you need just a little bit more. [inaudible], a little bit more strength. So usually that's on the way up.

This next one is the last one, right? Put both feet onto the bar and again, roll yourself down, allowing the ribs to relax. The back of the rib cage can expand a little bit onto the mat and all the way down. All right, so our next exercise, we're gonna roll up and change the spring. So bring your knees into your chest, hold onto the back of your thighs, and we're going to do an assisted roll up and you can let your feet just go over the top of the foot bar to roll yourself up. And we're gonna change the springs. We're going into feet and straps now, so one red and one blue, which is on the little bit lighter side for feet and straps.

Sometimes people do a little bit heavier. In an intermediate class you can do a little bit lighter, which is going to make the abdominal muscles work a little bit more. So press back and we'll put the feet into the straps and we're going to begin with same body position. So feeling head, rib, cage and pelvis. And we're going to start to let the legs move up and down. And what I'm after on this is to get the legs to be as low as possible and then to come back up and sometimes people tell me, wow, you shouldn't do that.

And I think, well, why not? It's the way we stand, right when we're standing up. We're completely, um, completely vertical. So flex your feet just the tiniest bit. Great. Now lengthen this way and let your ribs glide down a little bit. Beautiful. That's great.

Now if your reformer has no risers or you have the Rye, the risers, um, with the police down too low, you might need to lift them up a little bit to get this length cause you might run into the shoulder rest. That's beautiful. Very good. So again, this is similar to the rotation that we did with the foot work of lengthening to move instead of pulling into move. So let's do a few circles. Let's just do four in each direction, going up and around, and you can choose whether you want to be in parallel or if you'd like to be turned out. I'll let you choose that and go for the same feeling. So you might not go as low and that's fine. Get the same feeling of length so that the top of the head is reaching one way and we're lengthening the hip flexors in the legs and the other direction.

And I think we have one more to do and go back around the other way for, for, and as you're going, makes sure that you feel the back of your pelvis, staying on the mat the best you can. And we usually use as a guide the hipbones and pubic bone staying about level. So as long as that's comfortable for you, see if you can maintain that throughout. And let's call this next one, our last one and stop with the legs at about 45 degrees. So just reaching out a little bit and we'll go into shorts. Fine. So make sure, again, if you had put your headrest up that the headrest is down and we're going to start to let the legs go in a long arc up and over. And if you can allow the carriage to roll to the stoppers.

And then pause when you get in your shoulder stand. Turn out a little bit. And as you bend your knees, the knees will come down. Keep everything else steady. Leave your feet in this position and roll down as far as it's comfortable. And then bring your heels in towards your bottom and press your feet out over the foot bar grate up and over again.

The same lengthening field that you had in bridging. Turn out as you bend your knees, roll down, keep the feet steady, you're looking at them so you can see are they staying in place? Go to where it feels comfortable and then press out on this next one. Reach your arms up to the ceiling. So it'd be our last one rolling over. Uh Huh. Uh Huh.

Good. So it no longer is a tricep exercise. Bend your knees, keep the feet there and roll down. Beautiful. And then pull your heels in towards your bottom and press out. Very good. All right. Bend your knees in and let's exchange the feet for the hands. So place your hands into the loops.

For those of you that feel like you want to have a lighter spring setting for this, that's perfectly fine. So legs a tabletop, and we're going to start with the same arcs of the arms that we did with the legs. So pressing down and coming back up. And I want you to stop before your arms come all the way to the mat. And that's just to make sure that we maintain the integrity of the shoulder. If the arms go down, sometimes the shoulder rolls forward. I also want you to have the same feeling of lengthening, so as you're reaching, feel like you could reach your fingertips underneath the foot bar a long way away, two more times. Exhaling as you do that, see if the reach of your arms can help you with the lengthening down of your ribs. Your ribs are gliding towards your waist.

Good. Now let's add a curl up. We'll leave the legs at tabletop, and as you exhale, roll your head, neck and shoulders up to look towards your legs and find the same. Press through the arms and then roll down. Allow your arms to come back up. Exhale, press through the arms, roll up, reach long reach, reach, reach, reach, reach, and come back down. Add the legs now, not too low, just maybe 45 degrees of lengthening, long and bending. Beautiful. One more time. Reaching Long. Good. Now stay here in this kind of hundreds position. Open and close your legs.

One time. We're going to go into coordination. Bend your knees and bend your arms, but stay up. Now you're going to reach everything out into the hundreds position. Hold Open, close your legs, bend your knees and pause. Now I want you to inhale, which always feels kind of strange. Inhale, as you reach out, hold the breath as you open and close. Exhale as you bend your knees and bend your arms.

One more time in how length and open-close. Then the knees bend the arms. Roll down and take a break. Good. All right, so let's go into overhead. Ile overhead is just like short spine, except instead of having help from the straps on your feet, now you've got to do a little bit more work because the hands are going to be on the straps. You're not going to have that pull over. We're going to do it with the arms.

Usually it's taught with the arms coming down. I'd like to do it today with the arms more reaching toward the ceiling or just a little bit down lower than that, but not too low. So allow your legs to come to tabletop and then extend your legs up to the ceiling. That's great. So you can start to push into the straps a little bit, get some tension there, and then begin to roll over into your shoulder stand. That looks great. And the hands can stay right there. Yup. Good. And now roll back down and just pause.

Let's not lower the legs yet, but let the arms come back up. That's it. So the arms press a little bit and then the body rolls and bring your feet down so that your feet are about as high as your sip phones from there. Roll back down. Leave the carriage steady. Great. Really Nice. That's it. Now you can challenge yourself by taking the arms lower and lower.

But I prefer that they don't rest on the mat. So I'd like them to be up in the air. As you roll over, go ahead and then roll back down. We can start to increase the difficulty by letting the legs come toward the foot bar. As the arms come back up. We're just gonna do it one more time. Exhale to help yourself. Roll over, pause there, and then roll back down. Arms come up, legs can bend and take a break. Good. Set Your straps down and you can roll up either in a full roll up or you can roll up with your hands behind your legs. And we're going to go into the elephant.

Good. So come around. Now I teach elephant with a light spring. So we're going to go all the way down to a red. So if this is the first time you've ever done elephant on a light, spring goes slow cause sometimes you can, it'll get away from you. So go ahead and put your hands on the foot bar and stand onto the carriage and the feet a few inches in front of the shoulder. Rest is good. A little bit more. And one of the ways you can tell if you're in the right direction in the right position is that your legs are vertical more or less.

So we don't want the legs too far back or too far forward, round your spine. Now, and I don't know if you've ever put a cat, for those of you that have cats ever put a cat in a cat carrier and they do this. That's kind of the feeling that we want to have. So I want you to press out through your arms and through your legs and round the body. So now start to let the carriage roll back and forth and it feels a little different if you're used to doing it with a heavy spring, it feels a bit different. Now as we go, I want you to push back with the legs, but I want you to feel the pull in comes more from your center and not so much from the hip flexors. So one of the images would be to leave the carriage back as you're rounding the body. That's it. Inhale as you go back and exhale to pull the carriage in.

Inhale back and exhale, lift the ribs a little bit more. Good. That's it. And exhale. And we're going to do three more and lift from here. So let the legs come in slower. So leave the legs and lift here. Yes. Good, good. Let's make this next one, your last one. Great. And then kneel down onto the carriage. Good crack.

Crack your alive and take the legs in front of you to sit for rowing. You got it. All right. So again, you can definitely go down to a lighter spring if you feel like you need to. We're on a red spring now, so take your straps from behind you and you're going to hold them the strap. We'll go underneath your arm and you can just put them in the most comfortable position for your hands. And we're going to start with the hands in by the side.

We're going to do sitting tall. We are going to stay all the way sitting. You want to get up on your sit bones the best that you can and we're going to start by pressing the arms forward and then just pause with the arms in front of you. Good. Now tendency often to let the shoulders round so feel like you're pulling your arms back and your breastbone up. Allow your fingertips to come down. And as you do that, grow taller, come up and around and when you get out to the side, pull your arms in as if you were squeezing something under your arms, like a ball or a pillow. Reach forward, keeping the width of the shoulders, fingertips grow down. You go taller, dollar, dollar, dollar, dollar, come back up and open a round. Good. Two more of these. Press out.

You can touch all the way as long as you can come up for the circle a just to side and then come in. Exactly, exactly. And reach out. This'll be our last one. One town up, open and around. Good. Beautiful. Let's go onto the next one. Now there's a couple of versions.

There's many versions of everything. So this is, we're going to do two versions of the bending down or bending forward. So the first one hands are going to come to the mat and this is like elephant, but sitting. So you're going to roll forward, reach the fingertips out, pull the abdomen back so you feel like the arms are going one way and your body's pulling back the other. Keep your arms in front of you and you're gonna roll up. Just like spine stretch from the mat work. So the arms are going to stay in front and you're in a roll up to sit tall, sometimes called the sleepwalker position. Circle up and around.

Place your hands down to the mat. Roll forward, reach the fingertips along. Hold their roll up to sitting tall. The arms stay in front like you're rolling around your arms. Come up tall and one more hands down. Rule forward. Exhale and then roll up to sit tall. The arms are in front of you, up and around. Good second version.

This is going to go into a long diagonal line from that initial horseshoe or spine stretch position. So it's going to start the same. Roll forward. Reach the arms out. Now I want you to pretend like you're rolling the carriage backward with your sit bones. So let your bottom push back. The arms are going to go forward. So reach over the foot bar into a long diagonal line. Come up in that diagonal line and then circle and pull in.

That's it. Roll forward. Stretch long. Leave the arms there. Go into the longest diagonal line that you can gorgeous. Come up now. Bring your ribs with you. Yeah. So at the end of that, your ribs should be over your pelvis. Last one. Roll forward. Reach Long.

Now roll the carriage back with your siblings as you lengthen the body. Beautiful upbringing, your ribs over the pelvis. Circle around and pull in and take a break. Good. Okay. Set the straps down. Okay, good.

That looks great. Let's go into a little bit of down stretch so we can get, um, continue with the extension mode and we're gonna leave the springs light for down stretch. So come on into your hands and knees. Now if you've been doing down stretch for a long time, you can stay in this position. If you haven't done it that many times, you can actually come forward and bring your knees closer to the edge. That way when you go into the position, more of your body weight is on your arms and your arms are holding you up and less of it is being transferred to the trunk. So it's an easier position. So you can choose how, how you want to do that. Good. So we're going to open up the collarbone.

We've already started this on the down stretch yet and get back to the normal position. Thank you. Good. So we're opening and feeling like you can open the front of your shoulder from inside, kind of where the strap usually of where your sports bra is. When open from there to come up. Now, just like an elephant when you come up, it's like some mean teacher came along and held the carriage back. I don't know who would do that. Certainly wouldn't be me. And I want you to pull the carriage forward and [inaudible] as you come through. That's it. And back.

Think back to what we did earlier with the opening of the pelvis on the foot work and feet and straps. Now we're taking it just that next little bit and pulling forward and up. Good. Stay in this time. And you're going to take your right hand to the center of the foot bar and we're going to move into rotation. Now some people teach us what the hand cross way over.

That's great if you have the mobility for it. But center of the bar is usually just fine. So you're going to rotate to the side now and you're gonna let your left arm come back and reach kind of out over the head rest or your heels and you're going to press yeah, that looks great. And come back up. Beautiful. And just stay there. Leave the arm back. We're going to do four on each side. Good. And again, use the under our muscles to pull you up and come through and back.

Pull up just in case you need to go play tennis or golf later today. This'll be our last one coming up and around and change sides. Good. So hand to the center of the bar is fine. Turn the body first and then begin to press back.

Now when you pull up, pull the front of the shoulder. Yeah, exactly. Pull the front of the shoulder back in and that'll make sure that you're not allowing it to press forward, which is not the strongest position for the shoulder. And let's do two more. Great. Really good. And again, use the exhale where you feel like you need the most support. Use Your exhale there and then pause. Good. Alright. Hi. No, it's a little bit of tricep work, isn't it? I know that, especially on that light spring. It's a, it's a good one. Okay, good.

We're going to step off now and we're going to go into the scooter and scooter has a lot, again, like most things has a lot of variations and we're going to do one that's even a little bit more different, not through traditional pushing back and forth. We're actually going to go into a flat position where the body and the leg are going to become horizontal and then we'll stand back. So one red spring is great for this. Um, you might even choose to do it a little bit lighter if you want, and you're going to stand beside your machine and have your foot. It doesn't matter. We're going to do both sides. You're going to have your foot aligned.

I usually align my toes of the standing foot with the front edge of the carriage. Whatever feels comfortable. And depending on what height reformer you have, this all can change a little bit. The foot is on the back. Now just to start to find the position, place your hands on the foot bar and allow the carriage to roll back and bend the standing knee and go forward so that your body and your leg are approaching horizontal right. And then come back up and do that one more time. So this is just the prep, just the feeling of it. So you're going to press back and you lift up under this thigh a little bit so it's not pressing down. It's reaching long.

I lift your upper body so it's in that same horizontal position. Good. Now memorize this because this you're going to do now with no hands. And so come on up. Come up to standing. Yes. If you're on a slick floor, make sure you have something underneath the reformers cause they'll slide a little bit. So as you push back, you're going to tip over and he long each your arms and let your arms reach in one direction as your leg reaches in the other direction. And then press the floor away to come back up to stand tall. Yes.

Good. And go again. Yeah, a little bit lighter. Sometimes it's easier for us. Long stretch under this like now key pressing away with the floor as you stand back up. Good. And I think we should just do one more press long fingertips, top of head, back, leg are all reaching away from one another and then press through the standing leg to come up tall. Beautiful. Very nice. Go around to the other side and let's do the other side. That was great. So I will do without the preparation this time. So we'll just start in standing.

So as you're getting ready, you're looking forward. Pretty soon. You're going gonna look down to the floor. We'll have arm choreography here. Just don't knock each other off. [inaudible] there we go. Perfect. Good. And then come back up. Good. And again, reach long. We're just going to do three good. Lift up under the signs of lift up under the yes, that's it. And come back up.

So the most common mistake on this is allowing the hip to kind of drop forward. We want to keep the hip lifted. So all that stretching work that we did in the beginning, the lengthening is really important now. Gorgeous. And come up. Yeah. Pause. Good. All right. Transitioning into a little bit of standing work with the foot bar down.

And depending on the type of reformer that you have, you might have a standing platform. You might need to put one in. You might have one already in. It's your preference. So these guys slide. And then if that's enough space, you can leave that. Or you can also, we can put it down, but it's probably probably good just to be there cause we'll be kind of at the edge of it. And we're gonna use one red spring, which again, not very heavy for the standing work. Sometimes we get really heavy to work pushing out.

We're going to work kind of medium, medium today, so you're going to stand on your standing platform or the frame first and then put the other foot fairly close to the edge as you come on. That's set. All right. I'm beginning just finding that same alignment that you had during footwork and during the, especially the feed instructs with the lengthening of tall vertical position and starting to glide the carriage out slowly and then glide the carriage in slowly. So with this spring setting, it's not a lot of work to push out and it's not a lot of work to pull in, so just kind of feels almost even in that, let your pelvis come up and on top of your legs. That's great. Good. Now on your next one, push out and find a place that you can hold comfortably from here.

We're going to start to roll forward. So this is the spine stretch from the mat work. You're going to begin to roll forward and you can change the where the carriage is. So if you've under or over estimated, you can always make that change at the very bottom. Allow yourself to go down as far as you wish so we can go farther than we would in them at work. And then begin to roll yourself up from the pelvis first.

So it's as if you're moving your pelvis on top of your legs. Keep your weight forward. Good. That's it until you get all the way up. Now bring your pelvis up and your ribs back. Yes, that's it. Start it again. It's nod the head and roll down. Good. So hold the pelvis just like we would in the mat work.

We would keep the pelvis in place as long as possible. Then we're allowing it to go and you can go as far down as you wish, as much stretches feels good for you, and then start with the pelvis. See if you can leave the body where it is for a moment and begin the movement of your pelvis going up and over your thigh bones. Keep doing that. Pressing down through the legs a little bit and come up to here. That's it. Good. Allow the carriage to come all the way in. We'll step backward to step down, cause this a little bit easier.

And we'll go around to the other side. So this time we're gonna do similar, but we're going to go into the song instead of the spine. So again, do a few times of just pressing out an end to get yourself going. And again, the feeling like your pelvis is standing up on top of your leg bones. That's it. Now on your next one, press out and hold again. Find that place that feels good for you and you're going to reach your arms straight out to the side and you can turn to whichever side feels the most comfortable. You're going to start to go into the sauce.

So one arm is going to reach down towards your foot and then you're going to roll back up to find center. Good. And start to bring your pelvis forward, right? Good, good. That's it. And go to the other side. Reach across. So we're rotating and flexing. Good. And then roll back up. We're going to do one more to each side and you're both doing a great job of keeping the pelvis in the center.

It's wonderful. Turn and go. So it's really easy in this to allow the pelvis to go off to one side or off to the other side. So do your best to keep it in the center. If you can't tell, move it a little bit, not, it'll help you. Yes, that's better. Keep moving the pelvis, pelvis, more pelvis, more pelvis more. Yes. And last time turn hold hands and rest through. Good. Now I want pelvis to go first. Pelvis, keep doing pelvis, pelvis, all pelvis, all pelvis, all pelvis. Yes, that's it.

And come to the center. Let your arms come down and step backward onto the floor. And we're going to finish up with a little bit of semicircle. So put your foot bars back up and let's use, you have your choice on this. I like the spring setting a little bit lighter than heavier.

So if you have a red and a yellow or a green available, you can try that. If you're unsure, you can go up to a red and a blue and that'll feel a little bit more secure. All right? So you're going to lie on your back. And the only reason you would need to do anything with your head rest is if you're really tall. So sometimes people say, Oh, you have to have the head rest up and actually you're not on the head rest. So that doesn't matter unless you're really tall, I can buy you an inch or two of movement. So you can always keep that in. Keep that in mind.

So I like to do the heels and even with the feet a little bit wider than maybe as wide as your shoulders so that it's an nice flowing movement. Sometimes when the legs are together, it's a little bit, it's a little bit more difficult. So place your hands onto the shoulder rest and you're going to share me yourself out. I know it's a little sticky at the end of class. That's unfair. We need towels, I mean slighty bits. All right. And from here you're going to extend your legs and then pause with the legs extended, so go all the way out. [inaudible] yeah, exactly.

Now I want you to keep lengthening. There's a theme here and you're going to put your pelvis down first, and this is a little bit different. Keep the knees straight. Yeah, that's it. And allow yourself to come down whenever you feel like you've gone far enough. Bend your knees and come in a comfortable amount and then roll up so there's no need to bring the carriage all the way home. If that doesn't feel good, press out. Now here's again that lengthening. Before you go, lift your ribs up and put your Pawas down for a sec. You're going to put your tailbone onto the springs. Yeah, it's a little untraditional and then bend your knees and roll up.

Press long now. Keep almost a feeling like you're rolling the carriage back as you're putting your bottom down into the springs. Really Nice. Let's do one more and go out long arms, long legs. Create some space so that you can move down really good. All right. Now we're going to reverse. So you're going to again, lead with the tailbone a little bit weird. You're going to lead with the tail beautiful and come down.

And it's important when you're in close that you don't come into far. Otherwise you won't have anywhere to go press out now before you left away from the springs stretch arms and legs and just float up, bend in, don't come into much tail, goes down, let the ribs follow. Press back, lengthen before you lift one more in poor. It's like waterfall flowing over. Press, back length and first and lift. And when you come in this time, bend as deep as you wish and reach your hands either to the side or the top of the foot bar, or you can even go to the front of your ankles and give yourself a stretch up and over this gorgeous stretch through your hips, feeling know that's worth the price of admission. Feel like your ribs are following that good [inaudible] and then as gracefully as you can cause it's so hot and sweaty after the end of class, wiggle yourself back to great. All right, let's finish up in standing. So just roll to the side and come up and you can just stand just to the side of your reformer is fine. And we're not gonna use the reformers. We're just going to end in standing.

So allow your weight while you're standing to just go a little bit back and forth on your feet. And we're going to see if we can't pull in some of the things that we did during the class. So we talked about having the head, rib cage and pelvis against the Mat many times. And when we're upright, we want to have that same feeling. So if we had somebody behind us with a dowel or you had something telling you where you are, those three points of your body would line up and you're gonna allow your weight to just ever so slightly go to the ball of your foot. That's it. So if you ever are looking for that position, you can't quite tell where it is. Lift your heels up and down.

And in that position when you're just slightly forward, you should be able to lift in low or pretty easily, right? But you're not ski jumping so you don't go too far forward. Good. And then find that position with the heels down and pause there. Feel the backs of your ears lengthen. So sometimes I use the, the image of Mr Spock. So if you were to look like Mr Spock, it also works well in a lot of countries because everybody knows I'm going to start star trek. You're lengthening up and then feel like the opening of your rib cage is balanced over the opening of your pelvis. So we start at the ankle, the legs come up from there, the pelvis like we did in the standing work is resting on top of our thigh bones. Then we've got the ribs on top of that.

The back of the neck and the back of the ears are long. And you're ready there now to go out and start your day or finish your day. Thanks so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure teaching you. Thank you.