Class #143

Magic Circle Fun

55 min - Class
25 likes

Description

Kristi provides the template, you provide the personality! There is a lot of opportunity in this class to challenge or modify depending on your needs today. Much of the class uses a Magic Circle but if you don't have one, exercise variations that don't require the circle are offered throughout the class. This level 2/3 includes exercises like the Rollover and Twist
What You'll Need: Mat, Magic Circle

About This Video

Apr 04, 2010
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Okay. So we're going to start seated. And what it's going to say is as usual, listen to your body, listen to your mood. Um, y'all, we all come in with different reasons for being here and ultimately that's going to be up to you to channel into, to tap into. Um, if you want to take it a little more easy within the exercises I offer to modify. If you want to make them a little more advanced, please do. I'm going to kind of just try to flow through and let that be sort of the template for you. And then you can put the personality behind it. Okay, I'll let the train pass and then we'll start. But we will start sitting up so you can start setting yourselves up. So we have the magic circle and I'm mostly gonna use it today as a means of, um, tapping into the powerhouse more so. So it's never about the ring. Um, and if it is, I'll specify it, but for the most part it is not for now. Just set the ring aside, set your feet so that there sits bones, distance apart. So what that means to me is look at your feet.

They're straight ahead, your knees straight up. Hold on, somewhere underneath so you can let the front of the hip joint relax and stack your spine. Shoulders are down and back and we just inhale and this is where you really set the tone and exhale. Let anything go that you don't want to bring into the room. You may find as you do a few of these, you get a little deeper in your breath. So we now and exhale unconsciously. Let the neck become longer simply by letting the shoulders become heavier and inhale, filling up and exhale, letting go, giving you two more [inaudible], no strain. There's, it's more of a sense of support.

I hope that you're giving yourself an inhale and exhale. All right, just slide your hands back a little so you have a little room to stretch your arms out. Meaning, um, if you were, I was holding really deeply under, I'm now kind of on the outer edges in my legs. So you're still sitting tall. We inhale. All your to do is exhale, tuck the pelvis, but don't drop the body at all. Teeny tiny may not even see it, but you might feel it. Hopefully. Inhale, straighten back up. Exhale. It's the hip bones getting pulled backwards to force a little tuck of the pelvis, creating a mini c curve. Inhale, straightening eyes are straight out on the horizon for now. Collarbones wide. Exhale a kit, the little tuck and bring it back. Remind us you few more.

I'm going to chat for a minute. Remind yourself that when we curve the back, it's never released or relax or a means to an end. It's the work is curving the back. Make the abdominals work for this to happen, not just gravity. Now grab onto your ring. You can just continue to hold the legs, but otherwise grabbed the ring. You're holding it in the heel of your hands. Stretching forward. Inhale, same idea.

You're going to pull the hipbones back away from the ring. We'll go further though. Co a little further. Say about halfway. W remember, you can just use your legs. Inhale, start. Exhaling, pull the abdominals as you come forward, and for the moment I'd like you to stay curved. Okay, good. Inhale, exhale. We go back at, we're not squeezing the ring at the it's spacing. Inhale and exhale, pulling back, keeping the curve. So the end position is shoulders over, hips low back behind you a bit, and exhale. Inhale, adjusting their shoulders as needed and exhale, pulling back on the abdominals. Okay.

And hold. Keep your curves. Inhale, exhale, roll back. Okay, so you don't at this point have to bury the head much rather. It's pretty much straight ahead. Good. Nice. Nice tempo. Teresa, I'm following you. Inhale and exhale down, looking almost through your rings. That's it, Emily. Then from here, once you get to your midway, that's far in Nepal. Then inhale, lift the arms just up. Oh, psych. I'll get you to go back down my fault. Go ahead and go to your low spot. Yup. Roll back, roll back. You guys just hang out. Just hang out. Breathe however you want. We'll we'll wait my, my cue. Go ahead Jim. Go ahead. Good.

Stop there everybody again. Inhale, arms up. Exhale, arms down, holding there. Inhale and exhale, roll back up. One more of those. If that feels like too much for the hip flexors, you simply put the ring down and hold the back of your legs. Again, we're doing the exact same thing, which for Jim and Teresa is going to be different. Inhale, arms go up. Body does not move. Otherwise. Exhale, bring it back down, holding it here for your inhale and exhale rolling up. Straighten your spine on this one. Inhale, this time we're going all the way to the mat. Exhale to roll down. Kind of easy, right? You can be strong and easy at the same time. Let your heads come down. You may adjust your feet and for comfort still sits bones, distance, arm straight above your chest.

At this point you can put a little resistance on the ring, but make it come from the upper arm. Instead of the hands. Inhale for a pelvic curl, we start exhaling to hollow the abdominals. To roll the spine up. The ring just stays where it is. The collar bone stay wide. Looking for a long line, shoulder to hip. Inhale and exhale as if your chest was being pulled away from the ring.

It almost feels like a deflation as you roll down, imprinting the spine back into the mat, fully releasing the pelvis going again. Inhale, starting the exhale to roll. We think I'm reminded right now of the principles of this work and one of the major one is control just to Flonase. Didn't call it [inaudible]. It was control a g, right? Inhale, exhale down. So as you're moving the spine and really this groom grand way, big way, notice the control you're using to keep the arm straight or still and exhale to roll up, articulating through finding the little adjustments that need to happen to make you feel.

Straighten Long. Inhale and exhale down like you to just imagine if that works for you, that you have all smaller magic circle between and above the knees so that you have some inner thigh connection. One more of those exhale. When it's time to roll up deeply curving the spine, find the back of the legs working. Shoulders are down into the mat. Inhale the sun up. It's pretty small. All you're going to do is exhale and lift one heel, but almost totally unweight the toe, not quite. Inhale, put it down the other side. Xcel just lifting the heel of ball of the foot is still on the mat and put it down. Inhale, sorry if I didn't give you a breath pattern.

Exhale to lift the first heel. Inhale, set a down. Xcel. If the other hills are, we're just alternating like a mini march and again, we'll do two more. Exhale, lift up, try to feel a little more hamstring, possible glute and last one. Finally, set the feet back flat. Inhale and exhale. We roll the body down all the way. Stretching the arms back overhead, keeping the arms straight. The ring will probably touch the ground if you're on, if you're flat on the mat, but check to make sure the back is flat.

So I'm taking a couple extra seconds here to first of all, release the tailbone if it's tucked back of the mat or back of the ribs on the mat. Here we go. Just bringing the arms up above the chest. On the inhale. Start exhaling. Feel the rib cage close and reach the arms back again. Just a couple. I haven't done enough of this lately. Keeping the ribs together and inhale, arms back up and exhale, reaching back. Notice when your hands go back the shoulder. Stay away from the ears. The ribs are absolutely still. Keep the arms there.

Stretch your legs out a little further away from you. Okay? It's okay if the toes come up. Just stretch those legs away. Squeeze through the inner thought, even though they're not touching. Still Inhale, bring the arms up. Look through the ring as you bring the ring all the way to your legs.

Exhale the liftoff. [inaudible] terrific. Okay. Placing your ring in between your heels. Okay. And then stretch your legs up all the way out to straight. Um, if you know that it's a stiff spot. Thank you. Paula is a great way to get up. If you know that you have that flat spot in your back, I'm going to ask you to round your back. I'm sorry to bend your knees now. Okay. So they're going to stay bent throughout. All right.

Sitting tall as if you had the ring still in your hands. We inhale, squeeze the ring a little from the upper inner thigh. We roll back just to the shoulder blades and it's all action is happening at the spine. So tuck sooner, Teresa. There you go. There you go. And then just looking forward. Collarbones wide inhale. Exhale, coming back up. Good. This would work with a theraband two. This could work at that point if you want.

It's up to you. The ring kind of works well and exhale down we go. Unfurling the spine. And then at this bottom end you're nice and long. Good Jim. Inhale and exhale coming forward. All right, we've got the basics down. This warm it up a bit. Inhale, exhale, rolling down. So this is again, not about the ring, but it's an assistant. Really inhale and exhaling up. You notice I'm only giving the hard part, right?

I don't even give you the chance to wing yourselves up there and sorta like we did earlier. Get to the shoulder blades and hang out. Just take the arms up. Circle them around a mech sailing and roll. Hi, it's Emily and in a, I'll do it again. So now it's no more surprises for at least two reps. Find all of your back. Then email, stretching the shoulders to go round and exhaling up and inhale, exhale down.

So if you find a lot of people find this kind of helps the ring, helps there. Roll-Ups. If it is, it's your lesson that your inner thighs could help you more in regular class. All right, gang, we're going the whole way. So if you need to bend the knees or use a theraband, please do. And exhale down. We go. Let your heads touch. We're not circling arms. Just reach back and then right back up. Inhale, arms up, head follows.

Exhale to come forward and holding that long line. That's so good, Emily. Really good. Inhale. Exhale back. Okay. To me it feels like the arms are plugged into your back. It's a cue. Someone taught me some time ago and I like it. It works for me right here. It'd be tempting to reach the shoulders off your back, but instead keep them in a great inhale and exhale down.

Oh good. Yes, it's all about tucking and, and when I say tucking it really mean abdominals, right? This is it to come up. Okay. From there, sitting yourselves up tall, remove the ring. And for those of you who are used to doing rolling like a ball, happy with rolling like a ball, perhaps board by rolling a ball, which I don't understand. No one here would be, you can take the ring and hold it just above your, your knees if you've never used the ring before, you can hold the ring in the knees. You can do a Debra's doing, which I like as well, which is between, today's be careful of your forehead though. That's why I made that mistake once. And if you are wanting to practice rolling like a ball, you open it up a lot by just rocking back and forth, trying not worrying about landing it.

So everybody is just behind their sitz bones or even on the mat to start. We go inhale, roll back, exhaling up. If you're doing the full rolling like a ball, you pause. If you're not, you can just keep rocking, inhaling and exhaling. Okay, so inhale back. Go ahead. Nice job. I'm going to stop you guys on this next one. Next time you come up, stay up. All right. Don't look at me. I'll be clear. I think I haven't been clear all day, but we'll see what happens from where you are.

Bring the legs in a little closer to you. So you're really kinda teetering on the edge of just balance. Only then from that place, try to pull the hip bone or the low back. How the ABS away from the thigh? Just a smidge. Just a smit. Don't change your arms though. Don't change a thing. Just contract away because when you let the leg just come in and you don't hold the contraction, you're flattening your back and you'll never have a smooth ride. So from there, now squeeze your butt a lot. Here you go. Don't change that. Inhale, roll back. Keep your butt tight back there. Exhale up. Trust your breath.

See Theresa Good again. Inhale takes a little bit of trust truly, and email that. Keep it Xcel. Try not to kick the legs and inhale. Ah, last one. Holding those legs up from deep in the trunk. Okay, good. Set the feet down just for a moment.

I want to just quickly show you the thread, the needle in case in case you haven't seen it in awhile or at all. Um, this is in place of double leg stretch. So the point of the exercise is to just let go and come back. Okay. So you get all you do is that you're holding the trunk still regular devil leg stretches to reach back or fully outright. So you have that option. Final option or there's probably more with final one I'm going to offer is threading the needle drawing in and out. It's kind of a longer breath cause it, everything takes longer, right?

I try to avoid rocking up. So it's just a little variety. If you're not into variety, devil leg, stretch regular or holding the knees and letting go. So roll back when you're ready. Bring your legs to tabletop eyes or forward. In fact, I'm going to do all three. So if you already know the thread, the needle want to go there, you're welcome to. Otherwise, just inhale, reach the arms up, let the legs drift away a little. Make sure your back doesn't change. Exhale, bring it back and inhale, reach.

The ring is more for spacing. Exhale that works for you on a challenge at a little. You can just stir edge it up and it's, hey, if you're doing the short lever position, you just got to go slow to keep on our pace. Inhale, reach and stretch. Trunk doesn't move at all. If you're going to thread the needle, it'll come here. Here's your inhale. Exhale, long in prs. Reach. Inhale, open. Take them out and reach China.

Exhale and reach. Inner thighs are important here and exhale. Good. [inaudible] yeah, that's it. Last one here. Inhale. Do not throw the needle. Just bring the ring back. Let your heads go down, right. Taking the ring straight up overhead.

Find your tabletop with the legs again. Inhale, rotate to the back of the room. Keeping the knees lined up. It's pretty small. Exhale, drag your legs back to the center. Other way. You know, we find that control again, right? And exhale. Inhale. This is where, I mean I'm giving you a template where you can work deeply, intensely or you can kind of be a little more gentle with the body and explore both. We'll work with these exercises one more time just to finish it a little bit. That's all. All right. From there, we're going to curl back up. At any point you're welcome to put down and hold your head. Otherwise we're just reaching the ring parallel to the shins out in front.

Extend one leg and hold. Squeeze the glutes gang and squeeze the inner thighs together. That's an end change. [inaudible] you want those shoulder blades or the lower tips of the shoulder blades on the mat. So Teresa, either look more forward or take a quick neck break and then come back. Right? You could do it up here if your neck needs a little break.

Yeah, bring both knees in. Lower your heads down. Place the ring right behind your head, so in place of your hands that would normally go there. You take the edge of the ring and place it at the edge of the skull, so where the little shelf occurs, do not place it on your neck. Okay? You don't want to hang out on it. It's just above right before it turns into the main part of the back of the skull. All right, from there, elbows are pointing to the side and you have a little pressure on that ring.

Xcel to curl up if you haven't already. Shoulders are down in a way. So here we are at the hands, right? Good. Elbows a little bit wider, Jim. That's it. And now Chris Cross, go slow. This twist to the front of the room. It's Xcel to his hole. That's it. And Change. Hold. Try not to drop through the middle. That's it.

And it's really you turning your rib cage. You turn in your rib cage and it's not that big or it doesn't appear that big, but it's intense. Notice that when right now as we allow the elbows to be forward a little bit, you can let the shoulders fall a little more. Let's go a little quicker. Let's go. Ten three, four and five, six, seven, eight, nine comeback bent. Knees released the ring and place it between your knees.

Situate yourself. If you need to get back in the middle of your mat. I'm going to start this within feet on the ground. Arms are down by your side. Try for parallel feet. So, um, that won't be as close together as they were before us. But Paula, you can bring yours a little closer to each other. Debra, you can bring your feet a little closer to each other and that looks good. All right, so from there all you're going to do is start exhaling, feel the abdominals, engage lightly and then squeeze the ring. So there it is. Inhale, allow the ring to release. Don't arch your back. When you inhale, start exhaling. Feel the entire trunk engage and then feed in the ring.

That's it. Inhale. So I have the ring comfortably, pretty comfortably above the knee. Try for that if that works for you guys. Look good. If it slips around, you're welcome to adjust it for comfort. Really, you don't want it to be a distraction. Emily, you can drop your ribs on the exhale. You'll feel it, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Good, good. Just a couple more. Make it as intense as you want. The legs. Follow the ABS. Always keep a little contraction. We go, you're feeding closer. Then pick them up.

Adjusting if you need to. Same exercise for just two, just to feel it. Inhale, exhale, start, exhaling, and then squeeze. All right. This is a key little trick that we do in blotches here. Working when the back is straight or neutral and the inner thighs and hip flexors are working with the ABS. We want the abs to do more than the hip flexors. All right. Take your hands behind your head and we'll add in more abdominal s, but it all starts the same. Inhale, start. Exhaling.

Squeeze the ring and curl up and in. He'll come down, releasing the ring. I go again. Exhale. I suppose I'm not fully releasing the ring at any point. You nail down and exhaling up one more like that and exhaling up. Keep the upper body up and 10 little squeezes here who wants little puffs of air to feel the bones of the back. Gently pressed into the mat. You want to see or at least feel those abdominals working every time or consistently. Now take the ring and place it at your ankles.

If your legs are tired, you don't have to use the rings. Stretch the legs all the way up. Curl head, neck, and shoulders up. If you put it back down, either stay here or lower the legs a little bit and we little puffs here, one and two and three. Relaxing the feet, a little. Cool. Still more ads than legs. Five and six and seven and eight and nine and 10.

Pull the ring in. Take it out from underneath you for a moment. Setting it off to the side. Reach the arms back, overhead, legs, and table top. You can always put them on the ground. We're doing the hundred. Here we go. Exhale. Curl right up into it. Extending those legs as if you still had the little magic circle. Inhale, prepare and exhale. Two, three, four, five and in.

Listen to your back, listen to your body. If it starts going in your back, your ways, the legs, okay. You'd rather work the ABS right than the back and inhale and squeeze things that will help you. A little girl, glute contraction email and keep energetically reaching. You get three more breaths cycles focusing in on yourself. Yeah. Last breath cycle. Coming up. Finish your inhales when it's two, three, five. Draw the legs in. Set the legs down, reach to the arms overhead and then from here we crossed the right leg over the left and I kept my knees bent to do it. I'm just putting weight into my feet to shift onto my left hip, I guess.

Not fully, I'm not completely turning over, but just more weight on my left hip. In fact, I don't have any on my right. You might have some. It's okay. Then stretch the legs away from you so we have a right leg over left. The knees are dropping toward the left. Curl the head, neck and shoulders up, returns overhead and maybe grab onto the leg, hook the heel, ankles into each other and help yourself. Up. I know it's not going to be easy. I was just a sneak attack as all that was.

I am at the ankle. Did I say knee? That was not at all what I meant. Does that work? And that wouldn't work at all. No wonder I was so hard and cold. So I'm sorry. Ankles. Here we go. Exhale. Roll down. You can hold on.

You can or I'm not going all the way. I'm just going to go about, just pass the pelvis. Inhale and exhale up. Focusing on the abdominals for sure. But the obliques, try to keep your knees more toward me. Your arms are straight ahead. If anything, they're going the other way, Jim. Yep. There you go. I want you to work in across the body. That's it. Teresa, stop. Just before you can't get back up. There you go. There you go.

Uh Huh. Uh Huh. Good. Plenty. And Ah yes. Zeroing in. Go again. Keep talking. Keep talking. That's about it. And then back up. Don't you think? Good. Give yourself just one more please. When you get to the top, stay at the top and just sit your hands down. We're going to change sides from here cause I need to see what I'm saying.

So I am now left ankle over, right. So switch your ankles Theresa. Yep. All right. So if I didn't make it clear, the knees are gone one way. Basically the bodies in the center, you may have to even cross over a little bit more opposite where the knees are pointed just to keep your balance. But otherwise you're trying for basically down the center. Here we go. Yeah.

What you can do is stretch your legs out a little. Could you guys, so we're inhaling at the top. Inhale, hold and exhale. Yeah, just work forth yourself. We did about six, so keep going. Go that way with your arms and back up. Ooh, good. There's probably places where the knees have to balance for you, but when you can and with you you can. Yeah, you go. Can we do two more? Looks good, Wendy, to have bro working hard thinking.

I'm not seeing her, but lovely, lovely, lovely. Maybe point your knees more towards Wendy. Debra done this last one? Yes. Okay. Next one up. Stay at when you get there. Nice job guys, and uncross your legs sitting tall. Bring the ring back just to get you ready for, I want to see Paul A. Little bit spine stretch, so we're sitting up on the sits bones. Feel free to bend the knees. It won't effect the main point of the exercise, which is your back reaching out. Long check your collarbones right there.

Why'd you not let them come in front? Inhale, apply a little pressure on the ring. That's your inhale. Exhale, start rounding forward. The only reason the ring gets pressed is because your spine is flexing. The ring might get pressed forward and it looks good. Tracey, you can actually reach forward with your spine. There you go. Inhale, hold. Exhale to roll back up, keeping pressure on the ring til the very last moment and release back to upright. Inhale a little pressure on the ring. Make it middle of your hand or heel of the hand as you go down. The abdominals are pulling back.

Allow the body to travel forward a little. The wrinkle kind of get on a diagonal there. Inhale and exhale, coming back up. Good, slightly faster. Once we get here, inhale a little pressure. Exhale, rounding down the, it feels like the rings going to fall over. You might need to just move it forward. Inhale and exhale and inhale. Exhale, feeling the sides of your body, the back of the body. That's it. Staying down here this time. Inhale on your exhale.

Just a little pulse horn and to look to see the abdominals pull back. There's no additional strain in the arms. Press and prs, and next one. Just hold. Hold it, hold it. Hold it. It looks good. Just barely police shoulders back. There you go. Inhale and exhale. Roll back up. Just set the ring down. Yeah, move that away. That's good. Good idea.

Adding back extension in here as if you have the ring, you've got that imaginary pressure. Exhale to round. You can go tiny bit further than you did before as long as it doesn't come from the shoulders. From here. Let's start lengthening your back from the tailbone through the crown of the head, floating the arms up alongside your ears, long lines, and then exhale, reroute to roll back. So we're going from vertical to curve to diagonal. Inhale and exhale. 10 towards. Yes, yes.

And then she starts to lengthen from her. Low back. Everybody's range will be different. You can come a tiny bit higher gym and he'll get a longer gang and exhale round. Forward and up. Good. Good. Just to keep checking those shoulders. Inhale right here in front. Exhale. Round forward.

Good. Keep going down. Then inhale on the diagonal. Start lengthening your back as you lift the arms. Yep. I'm gonna just hold your back here. Just keep lifting your chest. Try not to lean back any more. Just stretch out on that tag and has that and they'll pick your head up and your all. That's it. Beautiful.

That's a big inhale and ray round to come forward and roll back up like you're sitting up against the wall. All right guys, give yourself one morning. It ends right there. Perfect. Okay. Inhale in the back. Extension started at the tailbone. Let's stay here. When we get here as, hang on Theresa, just lift your head and pull the shoulders way down. Stick your chest out a lot. A Lot, a lot. Now from there, exhale, pull those arms back a little bit.

Little pulses. One, that's it to make it come from those shoulder blades. Good. Beautiful. Debra. Wow. And C and e and slow. Nine hold 10 inhale and exhale. Round forward. Nice work. Nice work. Hang out down there and hang out down there and enjoy. Good.

Roll yourselves back up. Closing up the feet again. We've been sitting a while. If you need to bend your knees, you should keep it the work in the middle of the body, not at the front of the hip joint. Starting with your arms in the goalposts so that the wrist is over the elbow. Yeah. Okay.

And do one of these, just sort of chop forward and check that your elbow is at shoulder height and that your shoulders are nowhere near your ears. So keep the elbows probably where they are, but press the shoulders down and the chest up that gorgeous. Okay, reopen it. What am I doing right to the front? We're going kind of quick here at center other way. So really what's happening has nothing to do with the arms. I just wanted them in that good spot. Squeeze through the inner thighs, squeeze the glute a little bit, and definitely lift up off yourself, right?

Don't hunker down when you're using the ABS in this way. And exhale. Exhale, center spine twist, and exhale. Exhale, center, and check that you don't move your feet. So what I'm gonna ask of you is that you flex your feet so you can tell that your legs are not moving. Everything's occurring above the waist. Last two here, I'll change it a little bit. If you'll come to the front, just slow this down. You're going to rotate. Inhale, exhale. Extend your arms. Heavy. Shoulderblades light arms. Inhale, float 'em up. Keep that rotation. Legs don't move. Exhale, bring it down. Inhale. Refold Oh, isn't this fun? Exhale center. I will say it all again.

If I remember it. You nail rotate. Exhale. Just expand the arms. Expand the spine to straighten the arms out. Inhale, take the arms up, exhale, take them down and feel your spine get tall or it's some almost image. Inhale. Rebend the elbows. Exhale, center. Can we do it again? Inhale, rotate, exhale, extend and reach. Don't just drop him. Reach a mat. Inhale, the shoulder blades are heavy. As you reach up and exhale, they go back down. Inhale, refold the arms and center and you inhale, rotate, exhale, expand. Imagine your shoulder blades coming apart. Arms float up. Is this shoulders draw down? And then just go back to where you were.

Refilled the elbows and then back to center. Keep it center reached the shoulders down, the arms up. Just straight up, straight up, straight up and forward fold. Excellent. Excellent. Okay, we're going to open link rocker versions. You can do it.

Bent knees with starting with a straight back. You can do the regular, which is why about hip distance. You can put the ring between your ankles, which I'm going to suggest since we have it, uh, if you're, if you've done an OpenLink rocker a lot or you could do feet together. So what you and I are doing is I think we're going to go start from the ground apologists so you don't have to roll through it and you're going to be just back and forth but not landing it. Okay? Everybody else starts up, place the legs. You've gotta be just behind your tailbone tip before you stretch up inner thighs, never more important. Inhale, roll back, exhale up.

Use the back extensors and the inner Xyz to hold you up there. I know that ring is heavy. Inhale back, exhale up. It's a case of where you start. You stay with the exception of that tiny little posterior tuck of the pelvis and uh, and again, you know, roll back. Good. Remember how you lightly squeeze the glutes.

I might've even said squeeze and Milad enrolling like a ball. Do that here. I promise you. We'll help you. You need the support from the other side. That looks really good. Polish. Just don't kick the legs. Keep it nice and smooth. All right. What do you need, Emily? What do you need? You need to relax. That's what I think you need. I don't really know. Easy, easy, easy. And Habakkuk sensors. Ha.

I do know something. One more. When you land at, you can just stay here and then take the ring out. Set it off to the side. Turn to the side facing front, crossing your tough ankle in front. Whichever ankles on top is the one in front. Great. Starting with a mermaid. Just so you know where I'm going. I'm going to go.

Mermaid side bend, twist. Don't you think I'm getting a nod? Do it. She says, okay. So it starts like this. Um, and my, the mermaid is going to be a little different cause I want to be in this position. So you're stretched out. We're basically gonna just do the rotation. So Theresa, just move your arm a little more or your hips down a little. I just want you to spread out a bit more. Perfect. Paula, here we go.

Exhale to rotate. Okay. The hips stay where they are. You are encouraging yourself towards square shoulders. You probably won't get there fully in how reopen there is gonna be a little curve of the back. No problem. Just stay here. Go again. Exhale curve. So the side view, you're getting this gentle sloping curve of the body. Inhale, open and exhale and inhale. Excellent. And exhale. I'm gonna Change this a little bit so we get a different action.

We don't do that often. Once you get open again. So if you're not already squeeze through the glutes because now you don't want your, your hips to move at all. Open back. Exhale. Good. Inhale back here. Exhale bowl, the whole distance, the whole way forward. Inhale, open. I told you what's coming, right.

So you better be the light on that arm. And exhale. The reason I'm specifying the glutes is if you don't, it's very easy to move through the hip and we want to keep it nice and still inhaling, open. Exhale, close. And, and this time just inhale open. And from here, see if you can slide yourself up. You can give it a push if you want with this position, find your knee or ankle or just, um, you can support the hand in front for a little stretch up. Good, good. And if you, if it suits you, you can bend over a little more. It's up to you.

Cool. All right. Coming down either to your forearm or to your hand for a side bend, so at the same start position, except you slide the legs out a little bit more inner thighs in this version or to stay together. The work happening on the bottom side for side bend, you're going to lift up into a side plank. Excellent. Exhale to lift the waist even more as you make like a rainbow, press your hips forward a little Emily. There you go. And it's just the head that turns. If it's going to inhale, reopen, lengthen, lengthen, lengthen, bend the knees to come down. Good. Inhale, I'm gonna show modification if you want it a either on the forearm or the knee. Inhale up to the side plank. You can do this on the form to exhale.

Lift the waist a little more. Inhale to come back to a long line and exhale down. Okay, I'll just do the forearm version. Same thing. Inhale up. You won't go quite as high, but you'll have that lower leg for support. Then you'll go higher reaching. If you're gonna look down, it's at the last moment. Inhale, reopen and down. Going into the twist.

If you'd never done the twist or you're doing the side bend on the form, you're just doing more side bends or holding, holding an aside plank. Otherwise, if you're on your arm and you want to try the twist, you lift up, you reach across the chest as you pike. The hips back is basically straight. Inhale, reopen to the side. T nice and Ben to come down. Lightly touch. Keep that shoulder ready to go. It's all under here. Inhale, lift. Exhale, pike and reach across the chest. Inhale, reopen and down. You get one more for three. Inhale to lift. Adjust if you need to could and under. Inhale, reopen and down and you go.

Just switch to the other side. Top leg over here. We started with that rotation of top legs are, I'm pretty close. Arm opposite the other one and now you know how much you're going to be honest so you don't want to hang out on it. Lift away. Here we go in here. Exhale. It's as if you get the air. The wind knocked out of you. Pull the ABS in. It's a little bit of a Tuck. Beautiful. Mia. Exactly. Yeah. Jimmy, you need more space. You need more space. Either the right arm needs to move out or your body moved back. There you go.

In reopen. There we go. And again, pull the ABS and give it that little tech. Be Dramatic. Why not? And Oh in here. Oh, kind of take up some space. Yeah. Good, good, good. And exhale, pull. Go ahead. Sorry. Pull. Good, good, good, good, good. Pull this back a little bit. That's it. That's it. It's like a roundness to your low back. A tiny bit. Go ahead. I'll catch up. There you go. That and inhale. One more like this. Exhale.

That's it Jim. Exactly. And inhale open. When you get open on this. Next one, stay there. Squeeze your bum more if you're not already, so you're there. Inhale, right. Exhale, reach back, reach a little further. As you inhale, we're going all the way through. Pull the ABS in and all the way and inhale open. Keep the glutes tight so you don't archer low back. It can be straight but not arch and exhale good.

Making it come more from the spine than it is just the arm if you can and exhale. So be it. Reopen when ready when you get there, stay there. We'll come back to the side. Help yourself out to find your stretch. Grab onto that opposite side, the legs and stretch. Yes. Good.

So what will you'd love to feel in your body is that you're not looking down and around it. Better to be leaning and have, be able to look straight ahead or to be able to challenge the stretch to the lat. Somewhat back. Yeah, as long as your low back is okay. Alright. Back side bend. Right, so you either on your forearm if you did for them on the other side. I would do it on this side to stretch the legs out if I didn't say it. Here we go. Inhale to lift up. Exhale, it's from underside. That pushes you up to reach over. Optional looking down. If it makes you twist, don't do it. Inhale Open. Bend the knees and lightly touched down. Nice. Debra.

Inhale. Exhale. Up to go over. Inhale back to the tee and exhale, hinge down. Keep going, Deborah. Keep going. Keep going, keep going. Keep going. Good. Right there. Inhale up. Hit the tee. Don't go quite so high on the initial t. There it is. And up and over. Yup. Good. Inhale back and down. One more.

If you're slipping, not worth it, right. Rather wipe them off. Sit One out. Go to the forearm. This is it. And down. Excellent. Okay. We did the twist, so take a second and by needle towel or anything, I'll get one. I'm happy to get up and walk around. Emily's got a good idea moving forward. Here we go. Lifting up. If you're ready, take your time. I'll wait for you. Same start. You kind of lift out of the waist and a reach across for twist. Inhale, reopen.

Remember if you're on your elbow, it's not a great exercise. It just becomes kind of tweaky in the shoulder. So you'd rather just go back to either, go ahead either the side plank and up or side. Yup. And reopen. And Dan, I'm going to spot you just a little bit on this Jim and down.

Last one. Guys, when you get down, just stay down. Now as you pick, I'm going to lift your hips up here. Reach across your chest. Go ahead. I got you. Nice. Flat back. You're good. Yeah, you can use that bottom arm. I won't let you go, I promise. There you go. Head, head down. Head down. Yes. Now reopen. This is the focus right there. Okay. And reopen and carefully. That makes sense. Good, good. All right, enough with that, huh?

Come back to the facing front again. Let's get you off your arms for a moment and okay. Roll all the way down. When you get there, bend your knees going into the shoulder bridge. So if we're going to use the arms here, you're going to press the back of the arms into the mat. Inhale. Exhale. Rolling up. Your feet are apart. Just like the original pelvic curl position.

We did sitz bones distance. Take a second. Find the back of your legs. I'm sure I can feel myself a little bit more. So what I'm going to ask everybody to do. Inhale, it may not be a big move. Exhale without pressing any higher yet tried and just tuck or tilt the pelvis so the pubic bone comes closer to the chest and the low back is longer. If that's good. Breathe however you want. A little tiny bit higher.

Maybe from there, pick up your right leg, straight up. Hips. Don't change in here. XL kicking down on and come up and reached down. Two and up. Three and, Huh. Hip Extensions. Three to go.

One more time to the top. Keep it up there. Hello. Little higher. Use that bottom leg. Point the toe and change. You're right back into place. Changing legs and here we go. Exhaling down. Inhale up. Exhale.

[inaudible] he mindful that the trunk doesn't move around as you kicked down, Eh, two more. Come back up. Keep it there. Can you bring the pubic bone closer to the sternum or the chest? Lift a little higher. If you've got it in you. Come on. Challenge, challenge, challenge, point the toe, replace it. Inhale and exhale. Down we go.

Yeah. All right. Let's do a rollover prep then. Those of you who wish to stay there, you can, but for now, everybody bent knees a little bit. A little bit. Knee arms are down. You just did a pelvic curl. So you know what this should feel like. Squeeze your glutes a little. Inhale, exhale. Slowly tuck in, lift up and down. And teeny tiny Theresa. Teeny, tiny, teeny, tiny. No kicking those legs.

Good and and good. And up and down. I wouldn't even expect that much if I weren't here. Right? So it's just a teeny tiny good. Excellent. That's it, Paula. If it feels okay, my knee's fine. I doubt you're gonna want to roll over with a headache. Okay. All right, so then let, if you're up for the full roll over, if you don't mind, we're going to go straight legs.

You have part in Hilton 90 XL to roll up and over. If you don't know it, rather keep it with that prep. That's the hardest part of this. Anyway, inhale, flex. Separate. Lowering the feed. If it's available to you in Exhale, roll down. Good. You're back to the idea of control, right? Circles and close. Inhale. Exhale.

Up and over. Okay, good jam. God flexing the fee separated. Relax your legs a little. Keep them straight, but relax them. Don't turn out quite so much. This is far enough enrolled on there. You go and you pull the abs down and I'll support you. Exactly. This next one will be the last one point and close. A little more.

Less tension in the lower legs. Everybody, here we go. Exhale up to go over. Yes. Inhale, flex and separate. I'm just going to say, don't turn out. Just turn your toes to the floor. There you go. That's all. Now you pull the abs away. I'm gonna hold your feet here. That's it. That's it. That's when you get down on this last one. Circle the legs. Point close.

Hug your knees to your chest. Did you feel the difference on the last one where you, I'm kind of pulling your feet that way and you pulled your abs this way. It looked really different and I would guess that it's more intense. I don't know. Maybe easier. Okay. Right. Just hugging your legs and close the hold on behind the legs for a moment.

[inaudible] take a deep breath and just sort of let go for a second. I've got more in store for you, but I think I want to throw in a quick stretch for you. Let's put the left foot on the ground. The kneel remain bent. So just set that down. Take the thigh that you're holding now closer to you if that works for you with the foot going toward the ceiling. So Yup, exactly. Just like Emily here.

Exactly. If it's available to you, you're going to reach up and grab outside that foot or higher on the ankle. So they were right. We all on the right leg. Yeah, right hand outside. Right foot. Yeah. And then just so you can even use both, if it works for you and pull straight down if it, you can't reach your foot, just grab your ankle and pull straight down. Now exactly as you do that, you may find you need more room. Right? So you can let the knee come just outside the body. Just like you're, yeah, good, good. Just move it just outside. Good. All right, so I'm looking for a little inner thigh, a little hip, certainly a lot of low back if you think to keep your tailbone down as much as possible with your head. Right.

All right. Then slide your hand back to the calf and see about straightening that leg. Yeah, support it somewhere. It can be behind the thigh. Then if your tailbone is down and you're not feeling enough of a stretch, you would then slide the left leg are the, yeah, the left leg down on the mat. But yeah, you know, we don't always have to make it extreme.

Dewey can just feel good and sometimes when we do that, it goes a little deeper. I can't let you leave without doing something with your feet. So a couple of a couple of flexing points just to really articulate through the foot, the toes. Circle the foot one way, circle the foot the other way, and then we'll change legs. Cool. So if you're on call, we started now, it'll be the left leg. Just hug it and close the opposite knee, the right and you would be bent if you can stay at any one of these spots, right. Otherwise help with the foot so it faces the ceiling.

Either pull straight down and again, you're going to want to go just outside so you don't bunch up at the front of the hip flexor, left-hand, outside, left foot. If you can reach it, you could do both. I kind of like just doing the one side and then pull straight down. Half a happy baby. It's real tempting to let the [inaudible] come off the floor here. Don't let that happen. Um, we want to just sort of isolate it out.

Check the back of your neck too. If you find yourself looking behind you. If you don't have a little pillow or towel nearby, just put your hand behind your head so that you're not overarching that neck. You may find you want to pull the foot more overhead. It's not gonna be big, but just in that direction is all I mean. And then guide the, uh, knee a little closer to center. If you were pulling it way out to the side and let's head towards straight leg [inaudible] one of the another concept, not really a principle, but the concept of opposition in is, is key. So if you're going to stretch your hamstring, you got to have a basic idea of where it is crossing the knee in the back and also up to the hip.

So the hip has to be going one way and the foot the opposite in order to maximize your stretch. If that doesn't do it, straighten out that lower leg, reach it. That gives you opposition. And then let's flex the foot point, flex point, circle one way big as you can. Let's hear all the snap, crackle and pop and then the other way. And with that, bend the knee. Hold on somewhere, not behind the knee, but the calf thigh and rock yourself up to come over onto hands and knees. Cool. Alright, we've done a lot on the wrist.

So what I'm about to do can be done on the forums. In fact, I'm going to do it on the forums. Everybody down on the forums. I think it can actually be tougher this way too, and that's what I know some of you want. So elbows below, shoulders, pull the shoulders down your back, your hips are going to be higher for the moment. Extend One foot back. I've curled the toes under. I'm about to put weight on it, so adjust if you want to be on your mat. Now if I'm actually going to ask you to leave your button up in the air as it is now for the moment, put the other foot in place and I have them slightly apart. Okay? Now tuck your pelvis a little.

That means you've pulled your abs in and you've made a little roundness to your back. From there, continue lengthening or rounding. It kind of feels like I'm rounding forward until I come to straight. If you feel so when you'll end up having to move your feet once you almost come into plank, if you feel like you're too top heavy, just walk your feet back. A step that looks good, Emily. Okay, hanging out here. If this doesn't feel good today, put one knee down, okay, lightly and breathed there.

Otherwise you're stretching through the heels, meaning flexed feet. You're stretching through the crown of your head. You're not rounded anymore. You're long and breweries at any point you can take a break. Otherwise it's all take the right leg off and lifted for five one two coming from the hip, three foot still flexed for change legs and reachable to Domino's. You're helping to support four and five toes down, knees down.

Stretch yourselves back just to let the arms lengthen out if that feels good. I know a lot of you have versions of this that you like. I sometimes like to just rest my arms behind or even assist a curve in the spine by holding my heels with the forehead on the ground. Sort of ask yourself, what do you need? If you need your low back to be stretched and you're comfortably just laying flat on your thighs, you're not getting a low back stretch.

You're just getting a break. So you might need to think of tucking this Thomas. Alright, then let's come all the way down onto our forearms again, but let the hips be on the ground this time and the legs fully stretched out. All right, so we're up. Actually, we're not up as much as we normally are. Let's move the elbows out from underneath this a bit so you have more of your rib ribcage touching. That's great. Then if you are in a bit of a triangle, which is perfect, Deborah, I'm you actually inspired me with this. You're in a bit of a triangle.

Pull yourself forward and I don't mean literally cause you're, you can't where you are, but it's the action of trying to pull forward that auto open your chest and if that's all we do, that's a lot of work right there from this point. Draw the abs in enough that you maybe get [inaudible] close to clearing the hipbones. You maybe you won't because we're so far forward, but try to pull the abs up. All right. Reach both like so far they haver tiny bit relaxed feet right there.

We can even go more. I think that'll feel better. All right from there, just lift one leg a tiny bit and again, up. Same leg. Same like up. Okay. Trying not to bend the knee. So you want to feel like you're being pulled right out of the hip. You look good, Emily. You look really good. One more time. Change Lights. If you need to let that one rest you can, but try to keep them barely Hubbard.

Other leg two and three. It's pretty, Ooh. Ooh. Both glutes tight the whole time. Two more. Okay. Little mini break. Let your feet relaxed. Lower your body down just a moment. Just a little bit.

Yeah. And while you're down here, maybe if your forehead's not on your hands yet, do that. Just take an inhale. Noticing how relaxed your shoulders are on your exhale. Attempt to pull your abdominals off the floor. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but that's, I want you to feel what that is without straining. So Emily, that's you're taking you even a little more literal than I met. There you go.

Can you take your elbows more forward, Emily? Yeah. Now do it. So you want to feel that lift of the belly, the length of the low back. It almost feels like you're talking. All right. Keep that sense that help yourself back up a little bit. Elbows are still out from underneath you. Adjust your hands for comfort.

Re-Raise the legs as you did before. Palms up. Now taking the right arm. Fortnite as soon as you lifted, I'm going to ask you lifted. It's going to shift you, so you want to try to not let that happen. So I'm just going to start to reach the right arm forward. Just straight out in front of me for now. Start to find the opposite leg, right the left leg and raise it as the right arm goes up. Back. Doesn't change. Not at all. Not even a little bit. Come on, come on, come on. Come on. Up. Up, up, up, up. Go ahead. Go ahead. Beautiful. Windy.

Yeah, and bring the arm down. The leg lowers a bit, but they're both still off the ground. Start with the arm. Okay. Start the left arm. By the way, I don't know how to say this exactly. I'm going to just exaggerate as I'm reaching my left arm forward. I'm pulling back on this right forearm just a little just to help me. Then the opposite leg starts to raise too. Not Real high.

That's it. That's it. Good. Think more arm height than leg height and everything down. All right, that's enough of that. Press yourself up, round, back. Curl the toes under so that you're going to stretch those out. Okay, and that's half the reason I'm doing it this way. We want to hook those toes underneath. Exactly.

Just like that and then push back. Okay. If you can't be in a knee position like this, what you do instead is start from up here. Lift up the heels as high as you can and just go to what knee bend works for you. It's the same thing. I'm just trying to stretch out the bottoms of the feet and like everything you're trying to keep the feet balanced, so don't roll out on those ankles. If you tend to or don't roll in, you can put the ankles together.

If that works for you, that's easier. If you can be down, stay down, right, and then what you'll do is lift and push down and lift and push down. Letting your body weight be the weight so there's not much traveling forward and back. If you're in the upright position, it works just the same. Lift and heels down, lift and heels down, working those feet. Work in the calves. Same exact thing. Yeah.

Let's go 10 more. We go one and down. If your hips are low, you're not going to get your heels off. [inaudible]. If your hips are high, you will most likely, or at least try harder. Oh goodness. Six Ish. Seven right on. Okay. There's our big last one for everybody. Guide the heels toward the floor. As soon as they can get down, they go down.

Fold yourselves in half hanging your head, bend the knees a little, drawing the abdominal side away from the thighs and then straighten the legs. See if you can get closer to your legs hanging your head. It's not critical that the legs actually get back to a straight bend them again. Then we're trying to get a little closer each time. Exhale. Keeping the ribs even closer this time, getting your face a little closer to the knees than they were without strain, right? We're getting, we're nearing the end here, so let your body do what it needs to do with this gentle guide towards stretch and again, I, I bent a little and then I straightened down. Basically as I inhale, I'm bending in, releasing and I'm going to do two more [inaudible] and as we exhale we see can we fold a little more?

If you feel like you're in a really nice forward fold and you don't want to release, don't just inhale and maybe on your exhale become a little heavier. If you want more, you can hug your calves from behind or you can support yourself from the front. Whatever you need. What do you need? [inaudible] whatever you do, I would make it feel as though the tension is leaving or the energies returning, whatever that is for you. Carefully release the hands if they were behind you. Bend the knees, everybody start to Tuck the pelvis. Probably a good idea at this point to put your hands above your knee or on your thighs and use the arms a little bit for help to roll up all, not all the way gang.

I'm just going to a really deep sea curve and then I'm going to stick my rear end out and I'm flattening my back and I'm passing through flat to lift my head and my chest to go through a gentle arch and exhale, pull abs and around basically staying in this general area in space. And one more as you go through back extension. And on this one we'll exhale and we will roll up. Once you've rounded, you can generate energy through the feet to straighten your legs just straight in your body, taking the arms up and around. Inhale and exhale. One more time, bringing it back, finding your support, being glad you took the time anyway and exhale and I'm glad you took the time. Thank you guys for coming.

Comments

This was an amazing class!
I've been doing Pilates for quite some time but the tips that Kristi gives through out the class are great and really helped me.
Fantastic!
Thank you very much!
Isabel
Hopefully PA members will remember that there are great classes like these from WAY back when (it appears to me) PA was still a baby. Great class full of variation and energy!
Yikes! Thanks Valerie... Indeed we were still feeling our way through the first few months of PA with this one. Thanks for checking through the archives!
Enjoyed this one Kristi! :) Really like how the use of the MC deepened the focus on the power house ~ love how props can give or remind us how to connect with the body even further...and then to apply that to the next session without the prop! Nice!!
I agree with Valerie! Perhaps it's time to remind all PA members that not only the newest clases have inspiration. Each time I try one of the "old" classes I am equally rewareded!
So good to hear Joni! Thanks!
For me personally, it is hard to look at that curtain that we used back when the studio wasn't ours and we were hiding a mirror. I'm really glad to hear the workout stands the test of time!
Oh this one def holds up...yes you can be strong and easy at the same time! Thank you...can't wait to share
Samantha F
I’ve just found this beautiful Magic Circle class and it definitely stands the test of time🙏❤️
I’ve taken a lot from it, thank you and great reminders of the glute squeezes and making sure it’s the abs doing the work👍
It’s also great to see that you still have as much fun now teaching as you did then, if not more, I guess that’s because the curtain has gone👍😂
Thank you Kristi xxx

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