We're going to do a little, um, standing and centering before we go into some floor work. Um, my understanding is that what we want is to take this work, the PyLadies work from the floor, from uh, the studio out into moving around consciously and gracefully and with strength and ease. So knees are together, feet are together. Now, even though we're in parallel, I want you to imagine going into your Palladio's fee or a little bit of a turnout and you can feel what that does. Our shoulder girdle, our rib cage, our pelvis, or the bony structures that support the spine. So we want to think about the muscles of the shoulder girdle, connecting to the muscles of the rib cage, connecting to the muscles of the waistline and pelvis so that the spine is well supported. Okay, so you're going to wrap in. Now, Eve, I've asked you to imagine that you're going into a turnout. Now I want you to do everything required to lift your heels, but don't take them off the ground and you can feel a big lift up. I hope inside of yourself. Hey, so we're just going to take in a little air. We're going to take a little sip of air in through our nose, bringing the arms open and on the exhale like you're quieting the child, you're going to bring the arms open and on the exhale as the arms come down, you're going to get taller and taller and tall, or two more times.
Inhaling the arms open. Exhale like you're pressing something down and getting taller. Yet last time, inhale, exhale. You're going to bring the arms down. We're going to take the arms forward and take a little bend to the knees.
Inhale, exhale. Think of yourself sliding down a wall so that you're not going forward or back. You're going straight down and straight up. One more after this and up Shen, last one, and exhaling up. Now you're going [inaudible] bring your arms up.
You're gonna open your arms and lift your chest. Inhale your focus back center. Exhale, lift the chest and open the arms and back to center. Pulling those inner thighs together as you go. And last one, you're going to lift the arms up and stay there. You're going to take. Let your air out. Good. Take a breath in. On the exhale, you are going to rotate to your right, right and center, left and center hip. Stay forward as you pivot the rib cage around.
And last one. Um, back to center. You're going to open your arms, getting taller, taller, taller, little shoulders. Roll forward, back and around. And one more time forward, back and around. Let's take the legs open. Little wider than hip with, and we're going to take a little turnout.
Okay, so I like to change the way we think about the movement in order to feel a difference in the movement. So you're going to take your arms wide, you're going to take a bend of the knees, and again, like you're sliding down a, um, a wall. And we're going to take just a little pulses here, just breathing easily. We're not going to take the percussive breath, just easy. Inhale and exhale as you're working. Now I want you to push your feet away from each other just on the floor. Feel that difference, pushing the feet away. Now you're going to pull your heels toward each other. Very different feelings.
So we're going to pulse to pushing to pulling, to, pushing to pulling. Last one, pushing and pulling. Now land at neutral. You're going to lift your heels in lower than but first, um, barbecue and a drop your ribs. Tip your tail out behind you a tiny bit. There you go. Also, um, re take your tail and tip it out behind you. Tiny bit. We tend to live in a little tuck. We want those sitting bones right down toward the floor.
Now you're not going to go up and down. You're going to go straight side and other side. Push and pull with your feet. Push and pull. Moving through. I'm not going up. I'm not going down. I'm going straight side, straight. Other side. Last two, last one.
We're gonna land back at center and we're going to take our little pulses. Lift your toes up. [inaudible] so you can feel the pedestal of the feet, the tripod, big toe, little toe heel tales out behind you. Ribs or MDU. Four more and two and one low. As you can go little lower, little lower, little lower. Pulling those inner thighs together to come up.
You're going to take your hand closest to the ocean and you're going to take your a little tip of your torso. Take your hand that's closest to your leg and touch the light. Slide down. Reach the arm over, reach the shoulder up towards your ear and bring the shoulder down. Reach the shoulder toward the ear and bring it down. One more time. Reach to the ear and bring it down. Up.
You come back to your tip to the other side and sliding down and down and down. As far over, you can go. Shoulder comes up, shoulder comes down, shoulder, up, shoulder down. Two more and down. And last time shoulder comes down, arm opens and you come back to your center. We're gonna take a little twist in this wide position. Inhale to prepare. Exhale, twist and center.
Other side, twist and center. And two more after this one, getting taller, taller, taller, tall. As you twist tall, and let's stay center. Bring the arms up, take your gaze up, leave the gaze up as the arms come wide down and bring your focus forward. Turn in, turn out, turn in legs, right back to center. I'm going to have you shift now and come just to the front edge of your mat. We're going to go down to the floor Dosey doe in a minute. Um, we're going to go down to the floor, but what I want you to do is take an easy roll down, but I want to say something about a roll down. I'm going to use Barbra.
So for me, if a roll down only contains a down, you're missing a wonderful rich part of it. So for me, a roll down is about everything lifting. And then you're just going to spill the rib cage over, lifting, spill the waistline over and you guys can go along, lift the belly and spillover and you're just gonna roll. Take a roll all the way down. No heads bumping. Good. When you get there, you're going to bend your knees a tiny bit. Take an inhale. When you lift your legs, you're going to lift by lifting your belly up.
Inhale, you bend, leave your upper body heavy. Bend the knees. Exhale. Send the hips up, lift the belly to straighten the legs in. One more time. Inhale, bend the knees. Exhale, belly lifts. As you stretch, you're going to take a breath in. On the exhale, you're going to come up one little increment. Stay there. Take a breath into your back, exhale up another little increment, and we're going to go three more increments to come up. Inhale, you pause.
Exhale, you roll up. Inhale, you pause. Exhale, you roll-up. And let's just take one more and coming all the way up. Beautiful. We're gonna take a modified, I'm going to ask Barbara to length in her low back and drop those ribs down. Good teachers have to correct. They can't help it.
So I want you to take a modified polato. He's a descent. So what I'm going to ask you to do is just to take your,
Go ahead and bend your knees. [inaudible] hip with the part. We're going to start. We're going to do some abdominal work, but I want to start with what I call shoulder floats. Um, upper app curls notoriously hard on the neck. So in trying to get a beautiful upper ab curl without using your neck, I'm going to have you just take your hands behind your heads and you're going to put your hands on the big bony part of your head. You're going to let your elbows come open and you're going to make sure that your Chin isn't tucked in the back of your neck isn't flat.
You want a little curve in the back of your neck. So we're just going to think about lifting the shoulder blades up off the mat on an exhale. Exactly, Barbara. And what you want to think about is sequencing. The exhale starts, the belly sinks, the front of the ribs drop, and the shoulder blades lift tiny bit up. Perfect. Okay. As much as you can, leaving the weight of your head in your hands.
So come on back down. So you're not gonna think of changing the relationship of your neck to your shoulders. You're gonna think of lifting those shoulder blades and down. So you're going to do four more of those. Exhaling up and inhale down.
And you can bet that by the time you're on your way down, you've got some neck tension. So when you get down, let it go. Restate that notion that you can lift your shoulders without working your neck. Great. You're going to come on down. Now we're going to take that into an upper ab curl where you want to lift those shoulders all the way off. So just the bottom tip of the shoulder blade is on the mat.
So you're down on your inhale, exhale through your shoulder, float to your ab curl and return. And again, shoulder flow to your app. Curl. Beautiful. Sometimes when you small up the movement you get a much more precise action. Yeah. When we go big, sometimes we muscle, so we don't want a muscle stay where you are. Take a breath in. Little Exhale, a little higher and back just to the shoulder and more up and just to the shoulder and two and you're going to hold this last one. Good. You're going to take a breath in and on the exhale you're going to take your left shoulder to your right knee. Exhale, left shoulder to the right knees, gonna lift and the leg comes down to center. Other side, lift and twist and back to center and other side. Good. And we're going to take two more after this.
[inaudible] and last too. And last one. Good. Come back to center. Bring the shoulders down. Take one leg than the other. Up to your table. Top Position. We're going to do the same thing.
This time your right shoulder is going to reach, but your left leg is going to extend, usually would pull to the bent knee. But this time you're going to twist toward the straight leg. So you're going to take a breath in. W uh, let's, what did I say? Right shoulder. We'll take right shoulder and extend the left leg. Exhale. Right shoulder reaches, left leg extends.
Thank you all and back to center and other side. Reach and return and reach and return. Beautiful. Last one. Now you're going to come back to center. Now you're going to pull toward the bent knee. Let's start right leg, left knee and reach that left knee in good and return.
And if you want to think of reaching all the way to that knee and you can, why not? Yeah, as long as you keep your middle long and let's just take one more time. Good. That's fine. And coming back to center. Now you're going to reach both legs up toward the ceiling. Come down out of your ab curl for a moment. [inaudible] flex your feet and point and flex all the way through.
Why toes and two more and point and last one. Good. We're going to do the same thing we just did, but with straight legs. So your right shoulder is going to reach toward the left leg, which is going to extend. Inhale to prepare. Left leg goes straight forward and the right shoulder reaches two and back to center and switch and switch and up and twist and up and four and three. Last two and last one. No worries.
Good. Bring your knees in. Place your feet down. Bring your arms back wide to side. [inaudible] feed hip with the part just to take a little pelvic press for release. And I have you have your heels. Not too close, not too far. Take a moment here and uh, Tuck your Chin's. Hard, hard tuck. It feels horrible and it looks God awful. So lift the gins, arch the back of your neck.
In my studio, if someone is a Chin Tucker, I make them look in the mirror and do it at. That puts it into its straight away. Okay, so you're going to take it a little pelvic press. And for me, this is a hip lift. Yes. But if all you think about is lifting your hips, all your weight is going to get shoved into your neck and shoulders. So I think of that hip lifts starting at my gold or blades and pulling this way. Okay? So you're going to take an easy breath in. On the exhale, you're going to reach towards your knees as you peel your tailbone up. [inaudible] take a breath at the top and you're going to keep those hips high as you roll your spine down one bone after the next.
And I say keep your hips high because you're not going to let the hips go down with the ribs. Take a breath at the bottom. Exhale, peeling your spine up. Good ribs drop belly sinks as those hips lift. Take a breath and rolling your spine down. Just a little reprieve there. Great. Take a one knee in either hand. So you're gonna bring your feet off.
Take Cup your knees in your hands. [inaudible] and I'm going to have you take a little roll on your low back. So you're gonna push your knees into your hands. [inaudible]. So knees go as far away from you as you. Yeah, until your arms are straight. Use that straight arm position to help you drop those shoulders down.
You're going to push your knees into your hands so much that it brings you into an abdominal curl and we're not going to go into rolling like a ball here. You're just going to push into a little rock on your low back.
And you're going to rock yourselves all the way up to seated and extend your legs long scoop back if you need to. So we're going to do a little footwork and I'm just going to sit here. Okay. You can put your hands behind you if you need. Otherwise they can just be out to your side and you can work on that tall. Sit. Okay. So you're just going to flex and point and flex and point.
Now you're going to point, you're going to grab a hold of something with your toes and pull it back towards you and let it go.
Just want you to take a little release over your legs. Hmm. Little release.
Good. You're gonna roll your spine up to seated. Okay. So what I'm going to have you do is you're going to take a diamond position. Now I'm going to, I think it's, you guys can see me. I'm going to sit here. We're going to do a little something to the side.
So you're going to be going, so you can see a front image here. So take your um, left-hand and we'll show them both sides. Left hand, right arm is gonna come out. You're gonna slide that left hand along the floor, far as you can go. [inaudible] now your going to lift your shoulder. You're going to lift the hip up off.
You're going to put the hip down and you're going to bring the shoulder down. Shoulder lifts, hip lifts, hip comes down, shoulder comes down. One more time. Shoulder pulls. Feel that beautiful long waist length in the waist, even more. Bring the shoulder down, stay and the arm comes up and you're gonna come to the other side. Put the other hand down.
Sly that hand out as far as you can go. Keeping the opposite hip down. Bring the arm over. Now you're going to raise the shoulder, raise the hip, put the hip down, lengthening the waist, and bring the shoulder down. Shoulder lifts, hip lifts, hip comes down, shoulder comes down. One more shoulder lifts, hip lifts, shoulder comes down hip, then shoulder. And then you're gonna come back to sitting tall.
They were going to work our way into a little roll back. So what you're going to do is you're going to stay in your diamond. This is an old Ron Fletcher here. You're going to, Ron referred to it as, but belly back, you're going to lift, you're going to squeeze your bottom, which is going to make you taller. You're going to pull your belly back and you're going to take a little round and then you're going to come up sitting tall but belly, and then you round your back and coming up. Two more times, x sailing. And one more time. And exhale, rolling back and stay there. Take a breath in.
Prepare yourself because you're gonna raise your arms and it's going to get a lot harder to stay there. Inhale the arms come down. Exhale, seek your belly and lift those arms two more times. Inhale here, exhale as you lift the arms and one more time and you're going to exhale as you lift the arms. Inhale, you come down and exhale, you're gonna reach forward over your legs for a stretch. We'll just lengthening yourself. Now when you're stretching forward, like Nicole is very, very flexible. So I'm going to have her weight down her. I know she's having such a good time, but I'm gonna have her heavy this up. Yeah. And I'm going to have her lift here.
She's not going to allow herself to fall into her stretch. She's gonna make herself work into that stretch. Hmm. Good. And you're going to round your spines up. Okay. So taking that to a little more difficulty.
You're going to bring your knees together, you're going to rock back, and you're going to go to a seated balance. So you're going to bring your arms wide. Don't go too far. There is a point of no return. So you're gonna stop shy of that. You're going to take a breath in on the exhale. You're going to take a little low belly scoop. Inhale, you come up. That's it.
Exhale, rounding back. Beautiful and hot tip. You can extend your legs a little bit if you need. Good one more time and rounding back and coming up. Place the feet down. Stretch the legs long and you're going to take one arm and you're going to wheel it around to your side for a stretch.
You're going to reach that arm back around to the front other arm lifts and you reach around for that stretch and coming up and back. I want to do, um, saw, which I think is such an incredible exercise and I want to take it really slowly for the first round to just, uh, describe what it is I want. And um, I'm going to talk it through on Nicole Kay. So bring your legs just to the width of the, of the Mat. So there are two delicious moments in saw in my mind.
So Nick's gonna start with their arms wide [inaudible] and she's going to twist to her, right? Uh Huh. So this back arm, the first two actions for me, after that twist, this arm rolls and the belly pulls back and this hand twists. Now the belly pulling back on the arm, twisting, kind of take you toward that toe in traditional Saul, you're reaching forward three times for me, the Belize pulling back to try to keep you from going. So yes, the arms reaching forward, but the bellies pulling back three times and two times and the last time. Now what happens first, this shoulder rolls and it opens and you come up and you're going to try to get to the biggest stretch you can get to here.
You get taller as you come to center and you twist to the other side. So all remind you of that. It really is that once you're in your twist, this rolls this polls and you're reaching against. And then notice how I'm unrolling that shoulder and coming back. Okay? So let's start to this side. Okay, so arms are going to come wide. You're going to get taller as you twist.
So we're going to take it slow, this first round, tall, or as you twist, go ahead into that twist. Then you're going to roll the shoulder forward and pull the belly back. And then against that belly pulling back, you reached three times and two times and last one. Now that back arm, Gorgeous d rotates. Find your flat line tall as you can and to center beautiful you guys.
And to the other side, twist. Roll the back arm, pull the belly back in, reached three and belly pulls back. You can barely reach because of the belly pulling back. Di. Rotate that back arm. Find that flat line, come back to center. And one more. Each side twist. Roll the back arm, pull the belly back against the reach three times and two and one and d, rotate that arm. Find that beautiful flat line back to center. And last time twist and belly pulls back and reach three and two and one.
And coming to that gorgeous flat lines stretched yourself taller and coming back to center and bring the arms down. Beautiful. Um, I'm going to have you roll back and we're going to do actually stay where you are. Come a little bit forward and bring your legs together. So those of you who work on the reformer, um, very challenging exercise for me is rowing. Yeah. To get all the specifics of that very similar kind of shoulder thing to the saw. So what I want you to do is you're going to start sitting tall.
Now I'm gonna make a little correction on myself because I am human like everybody else and I need to put my shoulders into my back. So what you're going to do is sit tall. You're going to take your fingertips toward your center line. Now you're going to reach your arms behind you. Yeah, you're going to die your torso over your legs when you get there. Lace your fingers together and stretch your arms long.
Lift your arms as high as you can. Now you're going to try without going, bowing to release your arms. Bring them past your toes. Good. You're gonna Round your spine up and you're going to bring your arms to here to go again. Draw those fingers towards your center line. Reach the arms behind you without moving here. There you go. You're gonna lace your fingers together and back.
You're going to lift your arms up and dive your torso forward. You're going to release the arms and come back around, reach past your toes and round your spine up. And I'm gonna lead you through one more time, but I'm going to do it right this time. Fingertips pull in. Good. Reach your arms behind you. Now take your torso forward and grasp the fingers together.
Reach the arms up, squeeze those shoulder blades together for a stretch. Release the arms, trying not to go bullying, bringing the arms past the toes and rounding your spine up. And now, just like rowing a boat, you're gonna just go back. Arms come around and forward. Rounding up, rolling back, coming around and forward. Two more times when you come around forward. Barbara Lee, those arms, shoulder height. There you go.
And one more time. Rounding back, coming around and forward and just let your legs reach and your hands just draw up your legs to come up to seated. Hm. Beautiful. I'm going to have you scoot forward and you're going to lay down onto your back.
So do you know, um, helicopter,
[inaudible] keeping the ribs, gathering the belly, sinking the chest. Open that little arch in the back of your neck. And one more time. Good. Now how do I say this? You're going to take your, let's see. You're going to take your right leg down and your left leg towards you.
You're going to come out to a split, to the opposite split and just pass three more of these down, out, split and up. There you go. They pass. There you go. And up and last time and now you're going to reverse that. And I can't tell you how to do it cause there's too many right and lefts around here. Yep. So [inaudible] uses the legs as weights to challenge you to keep your torso stable with integrity. That should be your last one.
Okay. So now we're going to take leg circles just as we would with legs and straps on the reformer. Legs come up in parallel. They turn out to come open and around, parallel to come up. Open to come around. One more time here. Up Open and around. Good. Once you come up, you're going to reverse those for three down, open and around. Yeah.
And the more you stabilize your shoulder girdle, your rib cage, your pelvis, the less work your neck is going to be inclined to want to do. And that's your last one there. Bring your knees into your chest for a stretch.
So you're going to, let's have your heads at this end of the mat and you're going to be on your stomachs. And we're saving our sideline leg work for when we come up to standing. We're going to do a little sideline like work, but we're going to do it standing. So what's you're gonna do here is you're going to Tuck your toes under and you're going to push yourself into a down dog or a pyramid position. So hips go up. Yup, there you go.
Now when I think of a plank, I imagine that I have the most of us. Think of our back as the plank. I want you to think of the front side of your body as a plank that is supporting you. So what you're going to do is you're going to pitch yourself forward into a plank. And here's our pattern. You go to your plank, you take a little tricep press bend and straight [inaudible]. You take one leg off the mat, put it down other leg off the mat, put it down, press back to your down dog. And we're going to do three more of those. Forward to your plank. Shoulders right over your wrists, little tricep press.
Careful not to Tuck your chin. One light comes off, other light comes off and back. Push. Last simple one coming forward. [inaudible] little tricep press with your chin up and a little arch in the back of your neck. One leg off. Go ahead and lift that chin up. Nice, long throat. Good and pressing back to your down dog. Just bend one knee for a little stretch and bend the other knee.
[inaudible] so go ahead and bring your knees down. Go ahead, Karen's got a good idea. Just put your knees down and go into your child's pose for a minute. And I'm going to tell you what we're telling you. What we're going to do. So this time you're going to do four times on one side, four on the other.
You're in your down dog stretch or your pyramid. You're going to go into your plank, you're going to pull your knee in, you're gonna reach your leg out. You're going to bring the leg down. Little tricep. Press back, back to your plank. Knee in scoop, reach out, bring the foot down. Little tricep press. Okay, two, two sets, right, left, right, left or so. Okay, so in your down dog or your pyramid. Good. So you're going to take yourself into your plank.
Let's take your right knee into your chest, and when you pull it in, pull it a little farther and round your back. Stretch the leg out and up. Take a little arch, lift your chin, place that foot down into your perfect plank. Little tricep press. And let's go ahead, back to your down dog and let's do the other side. So you're coming back forward. Bring the other knee into your chest and when it gets in round your upper back, pull that knee in.
Now stretch that leg out and reach it up and arched through the chin. Bring the leg down, back to your plank, little tricep press and back to your down dog. And let's just call that good right now. Just lift your heels and lower them. Lift and lower and lift and lower. And one more time lift and lower. You're going to bring those heels down.
Now you're going to try not to wag your tail as you walk your hands towards your feet. So you're going to try not to wiggle your hips as stable as you can. Keep those hips good. You're going to take a breath in on for exhales to roll up. Pause on the inhale, move on the exhale. And remember your mechanics tail is dropping bellies, lifting tail, dropping belly lifts.
Every down has an up component in it with this work. Good. When you get there, take a moment, lift your shoulders up and around. And one more time. Up and around. Okay. And let's go back to standing. You can face me. Yeah, face me or you can be on an angle, whatever you like. Okay, so you all know your stat, your sideline legwork.
We're just going to do it standing. If you have a balance issue, um, I'm happy to have you use the table, but we're going to keep it. I don't want the leg way out. I want the legs small because what I want, that standing leg is going to get a whole lot of work going on. So standing, let's take the, uh, let's take everyone take their right leg and you're going to take that leg and you're going to just touch it out to your side. Let's take the arms wide. Now trying not to tip your torso. You're going to lift and lower that like four times, three times, two times last time. Flex the foot.
Bring the leg forward and back and forward and back. And one more. Each and forward and back. Good. Now you're gonna take that leg forward, up and around, through center, up and around, through center, up and around one. And God darn it, we got to reverse that back out, back out, and around. Two more. Beautiful work. Last one. Forgive me if I don't look at you now. You're going to bring that knee up and you're gonna bring the leg behind you.
If you can. You're going to take a hold. Take that opposite arm up. Push the knee towards the floor. Stand as tall as you can. Drop those shoulders down. You're going to try to release that leg and swing it forward and up. If you can just pull it up and bring the leg down.
We'll do the other side much harder when you're standing up. Hey, take that other leg out. Okay. Arms wide. Uh, easy to do this. So we're going to stand nice and tall. You're going to lift the leg and lower three more and two more and one more. Leave it lifted until the train goes by. Still take the like forward and back and forth. We won't say anything. We'll just move two more. And last one.
Now you're going to take it forward. Out and around and out and around and two more. Out and around. And last one to forward and reverse back out and around. You have to slightly move your foot as you come toward the floor. Two more.
And last one coming around, bringing that leg down nice and easy. Yeah, Dude. Give yourself a little wiggle side to side because we're going to finish. Inhale to prepare. Exhale. We're going to bring the arms down and lift the heels.
Four and and three and two. And last one here. Lift. Let's see if you can keep those heels high and bring the heels down. Take your arms up. And we didn't do any upper thoracic arching, so we're going to do it here. Hands come together. You're gonna lift your chest as you open your arms and bring the arms back and the chest lifts in the belly lifts in your tall as you can be and coming up and last one, lift and come up.
Now keeping your hips where they are, keeping your ribs where they are. You're going to try to reach
And last time, give your knees a little shake. A little shinny shake. Good. Close your eyes for a moment. Rock your weight to your toes a little bit.
You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.
Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.