Coordination & Control Flow

Hi there, welcome to class. I'm Christie and we are going to do a reformer. Um, maybe on the higher end of things we'll see how it goes. Um, you will need a sticky mat for stomach massage a little bit later, a box of chorus and set yourself up for foot and leg work cause that's how we'll warm up. So I have three red and a blue and I'm ready to go. Let's just lie down and get moving. Not Too much adjusting. We're already ready to go. Heels are parallel. Nice long spines. Out we go, we progressed out.

I'm exhaling on the way out of inhale, draw back in. I'm going to go a little quicker before I really do any adjusting. Here it is. Exhale, press out and pull and just kind of getting yourself going. Okay. All right. And you might be noticing, well do I, how do you feel?

Are you even on your feet? We don't have to adjust just yet. Just kind of move. Where did you naturally set yourself down? We'll do about three more and then adjust if you need to without changing the foot position. One more time, come back down and then take a second and adjust if you needed to. Now from here, a little bit more intention. We exhale. It's not much difference in terms of speed, but now it's a little bit more awareness as to where you are, how you came into class and how you want to leave class.

I'm going to do five more. Exhaling. One inhale, pull in to finishing the moves. Three and draw and connecting to the back for one more time. All the way in. Lower the feet down at the same time. Balls of the feet. Heels, a bit lifted. Pressing out. Pull it too. [inaudible] I'm trying to start connecting with your breath. [inaudible] two more. One more. Nice and long.

Stretch through your waist. Bring it back. Swivel the whole leg so the hips are involved here. Small Pilati stance. Here we go. Pressing [inaudible]. Hold for a second. Stretch more proven. Nice. Long. Next inhale, bring it back. And, and the re there's energy through your feet. Doesn't mean they're straining now.

[inaudible] connect. Just getting ready. Three more. [inaudible] last one. Come on down. Take the feet out. Heels wide, knees angled, really still aiming for your shoulders. Don't go so wide today, that year. You're out of alignment there. Press it out.

Pull it in. Engaging through those inner thighs, right, keeping the feet very flexed. Right. Again, trying not to do it with a lot of strain, but they are in fact flex. Give yourself four more. One and two. Here's three. Come on back down. We'll do one more set here off the balls of the feet. Hopefully you're warming up a little and we can go and we bring it back.

We reach and we pull, we reach and we pull. Imagine or even do get more length in the waistline with each repetition. Giving yourself four more here on. Bring it home. Paul. Resist too. Well, I think that's for, come on back. Go back to parallel.

This 10 feet totally together for us. Out and lower the heels. Two, three and up to three. End Down. Watch that you don't hyper extend and up and reach. Get Long. Get long and up to three. End Down to three. Reach, reach, reach. Notice if you're driving energy through the knee joint, I could show you. I'm not going to cause I don't even want you to look for it, but it's a sense of energy stopping at the knees. Just keep going. You want to lift up off your feet as if your heels are following your intention. One more time, go to the high point up here and now into sort of the running here. It's down, up, down, up. One at a time, alternating brushing the knees together.

And if you're not warm enough to keep it slow or you can even take a break right there or go a little bit faster. Down, up, down, up. I'm pushed so hard through the feet that you start moving your reformer around. Your energy is going the other way. For three. Here's two and one both feet up nice and high. Imagine leaving the crown of your head out there. Even as you bend the knees, help yourself up. Lower your springs. I'm going down to a red and a blue [inaudible] to grab your straps. So if they're not near you, get them. Now you've already measured. I keep my head rest up most of the time, but it doesn't really pertain to the exercise.

Bring your straight arms just above your chest and let the knees come up or into your, your chest. Going right into coordination with straight arms. Exhaling up legs open. Bend the knees. Go all the way down. Stay connected. Arms on your back. Number two, open, closed, pull. Inhale, three. The long exhale. How about inhale there and come down. Exhaling. One, two, three. Start. Inhaling their you resist to come back down. Take up, boom, boom, boom. Bring the knees in. Weigh in this time.

Keep a minutes. Okay. If the tilt one comes up a little and out, push, pull, drag and push. Pull, drag, resist, resist. Find something else in there. Press [inaudible]. Two more. Push. Pull, drag it, get, get, get it, and one more. All right, changing it. Go right on. Back Up. Extending the legs to turn the arms and legs out. You're an rotation open. Exhale, close. You don't have to go so low that the foot bars down, but go ahead if you want to. Next time you do it rich, it says if the arms are coming right under the legs, go, go, go, keep reaching.

I play with the little, get more stretch. Flex the feet on the way in. Oh, can you do without changing your wrist point then flex point now flex or not? Two more. One more. Alright. Bend the knees. Come on down. Step out on the bar. If you have the foot bar with you, walk right into your straps. External rotation at the hip, right? So it's not just from the knees, which is possible sometimes from here, come up to your level where you can still keep the hips down.

Circles down first around up. [inaudible] so let's not overwork this. Sometimes if we do, it's really hard to find. If you kind of let your leg bones be free and stabilize elsewhere, can you start to work a little harder? I think by default breathing. Yeah, I do believe my heart rates up a little, which is great. I'm just doing one more here. Finishing it on the down. Pick it right back up.

Inhale up, push open. Exhale, inhale, bring it up. Push it out and our [inaudible] filling up your back. Really filling up your lungs with that breath. Getting three more here. One Hand. All right, here's two strongly connecting through those inner thighs last time. Down and around and from there keep it long reach and let go in front of the hips a little bit. I'm going to separate the feet and bring it back. Trying to keep it on that same level. And by that I mean the feet, the carriage is going to move, especially if you're flexible.

Being mindful of the knees again, you're not hyperextending let the inner thighs help you. Breathe open, reaching through the strap beyond your leg. Find that energy far out in the room. I'm doing one more here and then just a few frogs. So you flex your feet. Let's keep the frog relatively narrow, but bring the knees in as much as you can.

So the hip joints just set a sort of soften out. You go one and two. I'm reminding us in this moment, hopefully have a hamstring connection here as we get ready to do some short spine. Two more of these though. Here's one. Burning it in. Here's to bring it back. Put your head rest down, arms down. Off We go and reach out. I'm keeping the hips down for this version. Legs are turned out but straight and come all the way to the stopper. Then roll up. You don't come off that step or one bit. Bend the frock. Keep the body open, meaning don't collapse on the spine. Roll it down.

Oh, milk. It goes far as you can without pulling how though? I just did flex the feet. It's about the hamstrings and getting your spine back to the carriage. All right, and have small talk. Off we go. Inhale. Watch the back of the knees. Exhale. Roll it up. Oh, let it feel good.

Keep opening the spine even though the knees Ben did. Deep down, we go from the throat, the chest, the front of the body, all the way. Pull to the glute and off you go. Exhale. Inhale to hinge with a straight legs. Exhaling up. You can use your arms at least as a base bend. [inaudible].

Flex the feet. Draw the heels to glutes, to the girl. Reaching longer. Finding more space each time you go up deepen, come on, get in there and now, oh, it just, it can feel good. It doesn't mean you're just going slow. You still have the hamstrings involved. If not, it's not quite as fun or safe. So last one is just the subtle, a sense of I'm about to pull on those straps.

Not Cause I could cause it's not that heavy. Right? Bend down. We got them. This is the hard part. You might even flex your feet a little and act like you're pushing up to the ceiling so that you keep that little bit of hamstring connection. All right, bring it down and we'll just take her feet out of the straps. Come in for a landing. This is the time you're going to get your sticky mat.

I'm going to do something without now. So it's time placing a sticky map pretty close to the front in a few days to say the least. Since I've done this, I am going to leave my bar. I think that's a bit high for me. No, I'm not. That's crazy. I got to do it. Well. Right, so I'm taking it down to the lower one from me and I'll just bring my mat a little closer to read is what I'm doing. Okay, so getting close to your low back is your whole back is going to be round, feet up on the bar in that Small v position, holding the front of the carriage, get the hand right in the middle and really apply pressure so you can feel that connection all the way through your back. Here we go. Exhale, press down up, bring it in and it's if the belly, we're the reason you're moving, not the legs initiate there and [inaudible] it's quick. It's supposed to be down.

It's almost like you can't believe your heels or all of a sudden going the other way. Three more down, up, pull in, press down, up, pull in. Last one down, up, pull in hands, go to the back, hold onto him. If you're short, you can bring them down. Lift up the spine. I'm just just barely making it myself here. Down Up, and hold yourself up with your back down, up. I shouldn't be leaning back if I am. Well, I shouldn't be. You want to be upright almost as if you're not gonna use your hands from the belly. Reach and pull. [inaudible] a little bit of bend in the elbow. Few cancer.

You're not completely relying on the support of the shoulder. [inaudible] let's do two more. Oh one more town up. Come income, income, income and all the way. Reach the arms in front. Get up tall, get up tall. Go out and stay out for one second. You're out there.

We won't be doing the heel part on this one. We are going to get up off the way. Squeeze the inner thighs. Lean forward a little now. Just come on in. Keep those heels high. Imagine you're holding something out in front of you. Stay up there. [inaudible] more space hills are still three more.

One pool and to the belly is just strong. Here's three coming in and changing it. Swivel to the right. The right arm goes out and just hold for a second. Get there more, more, more. Come back other side, reach for it. Look for to go. Go, go. Don't lean back and bring it back. The heels stay aligned. Stay there more.

Twist more twist. Press the heels, come back. Last one. Reach healed. Taller or I'm leaning. No, come on. Enough. You come off. We're going to go into a, I'm going to go into a lunch here. I'm going to just put my bar back where I'd normally have it, which is middle. If you didn't change yours, bare with me. You may want the sticky mat for this.

I'm going to put the foot on the bar. Um, I, I don't usually use it. So it's just for sweat if you need it coming aboard and stepping back with your, let's say left heel partway up the carriage, right? Follow the foot straight in front of your hip. Maybe not quite in the center. All right, so you're just holding on and um, basically knee over ankle. Okay. From that place with an intention of reaching the crown of my head.

Forward in the heel the opposite way. Press the leg backwards. Uh, the straight leg, the one on the character to push it backwards, but don't move the forward one. Now if all of a sudden you've dropped into your low back, I would encourage you to continue doing that with a straight leg, but slightly tuck the pelvis and you should reach back and feel your bum that's engaged from there. Exhale, straighten the forward leg, right? You may have to pike the hips on that. That's okay too. What you really want is the hamstring on that front side and the hips to be level breathing. Extend your spinal pain. I'm not going for a rounded back here. You'll lose a lot of what I am going for, which is that hamstring and glued on the front side of the right leg. Let's come back to the first time you bend. Nice long spine.

I'm not just dropped into the front of the hip. I'm pushing that straight like away. A little sense of a posterior tuck from me gives me that glute. Press it out so maybe we'll go a little further. It's a sense of reaching the tailbone up is sense of reaching through the crown of the head. If you're feeling super flexible, you could spread out the split more or you could reach the heel under the bar.

I'm happy. Right. Bring it back and we just changed that other foot up. Oh, it's a different side. I think I'm on like this side a little bit more. We'll see. Use the back glute. Right. And it's all in preparation for the next thing, isn't it?

So it's not just that I'm trying to stretch out the front of that one hip. I am. I'm really trying to remind myself how the whole body works together. We're just breathing and enjoying a stretch. Hopefully here it is. Extend the left leg, Pike, the hips if you need to. The side is a little tougher from me on terms of the hamstrings, so I am going to let my hips come up a higher than normal and draw that left hip back as I encourage the left heel forward.

More importantly maybe I'm not sure is to try and straighten my back. Yep. You could even slightly bend the forward knee, but you know, before long we just want to do different exercise. Right. Let's go back to the first part. And as you bend that forward, knee, you're resisting or, or hoping to keep the right leg way back there energizes. You could almost, you know, just take off your hands. No big deal. Deep breath in and when it feels right to, you're going to go ahead and do one more of those hamstring stretches.

See if you get any further. Yeah. Going just a little deeper into your work here. [inaudible] all right, bring it back and then just leave the right heel where it is. You're on this carriage. Bring the left heel and just lower down to your knees.

Um, you could do this. That W we're on. We were on one spring, red spring. Um, or one red and blue. That's fine too. You make a decision for knee stretch. You could do a red and a blue. In fact, I will usually do a red, but I'm going to go a little bit heavier cause I'll take the knees off for us. Would that be fun? Okay. It's heels back into the carriage. Get this deep scoop arms are wide and strong.

They don't move from for a little while. Let's push the legs out. Don't move the spine. Exhale, pull in. It's in a little bigger. Let's go. Three, four more. One, two, three. Hold it in. Flatten out the back. It's almost an arch, right? Your head comes up but sticks out. Your ads are tight. Stretch it out a little more for 10. One pushes your feet. Two, three, four. Here's five. Six. Keep the eyes still.

One more time. All the way in. Let's go for it. Round the back, putting weight into the heels. Lift up, push the legs out and lets go. 10 keep the knees low. Two, head down. Five more. One. Come on, keep that background. Two, three, four. One more time. Five come in, set it down. I'm gonna lower it. You may want to keep this spring tangent. I'm gonna lower down to one.

Read to help myself up to the pyramid shape for just what we call up stretch one before going into it. Settle your arms there on that bar about shoulder distance. Reach the tailbone so your heels partway up, hands glued to that bar. You'll see me pick my fingers up, but you don't have to do that. Then long spine, just a little move like an elephant. Exhale, bringing it back. I'm de emphasizing the curve to the back. That sometimes done. I'm letting the spring, that late spring. Bring it back in.

That means I'm lifting up. All right. We'll change it to what we call a stretched too from where you are. You'd push out and come into a plank. One right back to pyramid. Who said the body moves a lot. The arms don't inhale. Start the exhale and bring it back all the way to the stopper.

Inner thigh connection helps open and close. One more time. Open and close up. Stretch three open plank. Bring it all the way forward. If you can go to the stop or you do hold it on the stop or come back to the pyramid. Open plank, bring it forward. Keep those heels in contact with the shoulder rest and back. Inhale right up to the stopper and one more time.

Here it is. [inaudible] holding on the stop or if you can lower yourself down for the down stretch. Feet are back at the shoulder rest still as much as possible. I'd like to go into this by rolling into kind of tucking, going into the arch, push into my feet to go down. I'm going to inhale coming in. You can reverse that and keep pushing those heels back. You want to feel those hamstrings, help yourself.

And one more coming at Ya. Okay. And up all the way and come up to the fingertips. Arms up and wow. All right, let's move on to arms. So we're going to go into side arms here and I would go with the latest spring. You have a yellow if you have it or one.

So what I've done is I've moved the, this is a rebel bar by balanced body because I don't have the yellow spring on here and I know that's what I want to use. I moved the bar and if you have that option I, you might do it. I'm going to have to move it back out in a minute. But that's what I'm doing. So as of now I have a blue on with the bar in just to touch. You could put a handle on, but who's got time for that?

So I just kept this bootstrap hand right close to your ear, not in front of you and not in back, but hopefully right close to your ear. Other arms held up against you best you can. We allow the shoulder to fall as the arm goes up and down to [inaudible], so it's nothing that you have to drive the shoulder down, but you do have to kind of watch that. You don't elevate it. You get to a straight of an arm as possible, which doesn't always happen and you do not lean away, which is really what you want to do probably. Let's do one more with all that in mind and now you change hands.

Body doesn't really change. I've just got a nice grip of the palm of the hand is in their hand just about maybe a little beyond the sternum. I'm holding it in my right hand. It probably looks like my left to you and it's literally I'm going to pull my upper arm, then my forearm and Voila. It's like almost like throwing a Frisbee. You could add the wrist, make it kind of a three parter, but I'm leaving the risk straight. [inaudible] things to watch for when you go out right about here, the elbow will wanna dip on you. We're going to avoid that. Keep it in the post, your delta, the back of the shoulder as opposed to that reach.

I'm only doing one more, no big deal, right? All right now. Then the fun part, hand goes to the shoulder rest. You're going to scoot out hopefully as far to the edge as possible. A little bit wider stance as appropriate for this one, but you want to stay as if you're in between two plates of glass. They're trying not to rotate hand on the shoulder rest.

You take that opposite arm up nice and high. So again, try not to round. If if your shoulders aren't open enough for this one, you don't do it. This is a pretty advanced one in terms of that. From here, I'm going to just leave my upper arm where it is and bend and straighten. Looking down at the shoulder rest or that hand. Three we're only doing six.

Here's four. Don't let the butts to get behind you. Ooh, that could have been six right there, just in case. Okay. And if we come from here, I'm going to move in just a little, cause I know this is going to be heavy even still. And yeah, my mom stop her. So you're gonna hear me hit there, but that's okay. So now it's like both arms going up, up, up and out. And I'll stop. Just shy that stopper, just kissing it up. And now again, you don't want to use your back to lift you up. You don't want to lean away from it. You're just staying with it. And then there we go. That might've been five, possibly six. Let's turn around.

So I'll step off cause it's light, right? And we're coming in close to the shoulder, rest, touching or near it. All right hand closest to the shoulder as has this drag from here, you're just gently depressing the scapula. Just gently and it's straight up and straight down. As you look straight ahead, you're, you're maybe in your peripheral vision while hopefully you can see your elbow and it's not coming in front of you. It just stays out there doing your best to keep equal weight on both knees throughout.

I'm going to do one more switched it, so the handles and the other hand and it's, it's just an opposite. My sternum, a little bit beyond a crossing the midline of the body towards where the straps are hung up. Here we go, we stretched it out, we bend and come across I think upper arm, then for arm and then the palm faces front. It's upper arm, then for forearm, then upper arm sort of sequentially moving [inaudible] and one more. Whew. That or large, loud tap. If I had my handle that wouldn't happen. Um, it has a little to do with me moving that whole bar in, so I'm getting used to that. Okay. I see. I'm still in the same hand we were in, but now as I move out toward the edge and the edge of that carriage, I'm going to side bend, hand to the shoulder, rest, lining up my knees, and then open up that top arm. As I look down from there, it's up one and bend to, some of these are harder than others depending on which side of the body you're on. So you're just watching for not much changing. Once you start, you get two more [inaudible] just like that. It's over. Come up to the firsthand, the hand closest to the shoulder rest, reach it out. Um, for me to start totally level, I'd go loose, which I'll show you and then I'll catch the tension and in my mind's eye I'm trying to make it so that I'm not aware of which hand has the strap. That means this other arm is not just going up and down, but it's trying to go along for the ride. Oh, there's dolphin right there. I wonder if you can see one more time. Okay, great. Dan, let's put that away.

I'm going to put my bar back so I'm back on normal tension and it's time. I'm, I'm using one spring. We're going to go into a couple of things. I'm going to start with putting our bar back up to your normal spot, whether it's m middle, high or low. If you have those options, put your bar back up. And what I want to start with is, um, another stretch, but it's more or less a balanced. So you're going to just step up on top, hands at the shoulder rest, and put your head rest up as well. At least halfway, if not the whole way. All right? You need to place your right foot partway up the shoulder rest. Okay, so I'm not fully on it, but I'm corny of CR, partly on the carriage and partly on the headrest.

And then from here, the back foot is turned out on the arch of the foot, not quite to the far end of the bar. These bars are wide, so it's just basically off center from my hip, maybe a little wider. We come into that lunge again. All right. Now more than ever. You're thinking about that back leg being strong from here and forward. Like try to keep the hips square, bend it, your light on your arms to bend it. Three, bend it, hold it bent. You're not on the stopper, right? So you need to know what this forward leg is doing. You're in control of that.

Back leg is absolutely straight and strong. You lift up, take the arms out and extend again for three. Try not to raise up and down. Here's two back, leg straight and one more. Three. Bring it back. Lower yourself down from there. Just come all the way back to the stopper. Bring your feet back to the center just to make the transition left leg goes forward. Now part way up so you have something to push on, right?

Like back turned out, it feels secure before anything else. Right? Then with that back leg straight, you come down into that lunch. It's real tempting to bend the knee here. So I'm, I'm keep saying it for a reason, but it's tight. Here we go. Extend the forward like one, bring it back. Here's to bring it back. Three, bring it underneath you and prove to yourself that you have that. You know, you do, you bring it up if you want to and back like straight forward, like reaches one. Oh really challenging me too.

Here's three. Oh that feels kind of good. Bring it down. All right, now changing things again. Both legs come down. I'm going back to left foot on the bar, but this time it's the ball of the foot and I'm parallel. I'm going to push out to straight until again. I know that back leg is going to hold me. My arms now going to have to hold me too cause I'm gonna take the right leg off and put it up there as well. Both legs are on point. The toes, nice long body. Exhale. Just the arms go forward. One.

Nothing else moves for five. Here's to bring it back. That body doesn't move. Just the arms. Three I suppose that's part one more time and watch carefully put one foot down. Then you bend the back leg and so you find the stopper and step off the side. The twist. I'm going to lower my bar again just a bit. You can take it all the way down. If you're not used to doing the twist, you don't need to use the bar at all. I'm going to give it a shot.

Just two or three one hand on the shoulder, rest other hand forward as a carriage on the edge, so if I'm, I've got my right foot back as I face. You have my right foot is on my left leg is going to be in front of it. The leg closest to the foot bar would be the one that goes back here. We go to my best. I'm still on one spring. Depending on your height, weight, you may need a one and a half. Here we go. Oh, I had to use it. Place, have other leg looking for a nice long back. I'm going to press the carriage out and make my rotation. Swing it back up, extend the back. Here we go. We can do three.

Use the breath, bring it in. The lighter you are, the more the spring can help you. Meaning energy. This is it. And step it down. Walk around to the other side. Hand to the shoulder. Rest right hand, shoulder rest, left-hand edge of the carriage. Left foot up in the back. Nice little hop that make sure you're ready. Oh, I gotta work on that. Here we go. Head down. We pressed it out. We swivel.

Both arms are straight throughout and up. Extend the back, your stoop, swinging it up. Exhale all the way in. One more time and step it down. Okay, let's come back and do that one again soon. Shall We? All right, grab the box please. Long box and we're gonna do breaststroke. So back to a lighter spring one is probably fine. I'm going to do blue. One should be good though for most of you if you've done it.

If you don't have a box, you could do this on the floor. Okay. Um, you can just simulate it on the floor. Truly, I do it all the time in Mat and you don't have to deal with this part, which is to protect yourself. Thumbs are in the straps. Reach forward, grabbing on chest, just over the box. Or if you're on the floor, you're going to bring your hands right in close. Okay. You're not right close. I'm not going through that imaginary floor. I'm working just as hard as you are. If you're on the floor, we inhale, extend the arms, circle them all the way around. Exhale, bring it down. Inhale, I do internally rotate my thumbs down a little bit, just feels better and I don't get hit with the straps. Get him up, get him up, get him up and be mindful of your neck. The heavier the spring, the more you can kind of use it to lift you. I'm staying kind of low here.

Two more. Let the leg lifting me higher. Get him down. One more time. Inhaling all the way around and I exhale home. Alright, step off the side or into child's pose. A few are on the floor and then with that I'm just going to come to the side. If you're not using a mat, I'm sorry, a box. You can just step to the side of your reformer and do exactly as I'm going to do in here and just exhale.

Let your head fall forward. Find the box or the carriage and just let your hands be where they want to be so that you can get a little rounding. So my body at this point is round. Then I'm going to use the leverage of the box with the carriage to extend the spine. Okay. Random. Just a downward pressure to kind of give me the sense of traction and reaching and then around and rich. Inhale, just more or less trying to bring the breathing down if it is high or [inaudible], whatever you need really to release.

One more time in inhaling this time I'm going to bend my knees so I can actually go into it further watching neck. And then with that I'll push into my feet, round the back, allow the hands to just drag towards me and off. We're done.