Unilateral Reformer

Today, Christie and I are going to work on a focus on side to side. So lateral movers and the differences perhaps between one leg, one arm movement. And with that we're going to start sitting on the box. I've got my spring set up on three red springs, which is the spring that I'm going to choose today for footwork. And I'll explain why later.

So let's just take the arms forward and then be here for a minute and just sit in your body, be in your body. And let's just from that forward position, let's take the arms up and as the arms reach up, grow the spine up with the arms and then open the arms out to the side, feeling that expansion through the body, through the arms, and then bring the arms back across the front. So anyhow, let the arms reach up. So just focusing just for a moment on the alignment of the spine. Open the expansion capability in the body and the breath. See that one more time? [inaudible] open, continue to inhale and exhale coming across. So now let's reverse that.

So we go out and again feeling that how the spine can follow the arms and exhale, let the arms lightly go down. Instead of pushing them, let them just float down and then maybe there's a little bit more energy on the out. There's definitely energy on the app, but I feel like pushing the arms down might feel as though we're pushing the body down. So light arms, light spine has an idea. I don't know. I might change my mind in a minute. All reaching up. And then taking the arms forward. We're going to in here, here in a curl the spine. And so now pushing down into the bar with the feet and dragging backwards on the feet a little bit. We're going to take the body down. So from there, let's do that same arm movement. We're going up first. Inhale, open, and exhale three times. Inhale, open and exhale. Last one. This time as we open, we'll reach forward and we'll start rolling back up.

Exhaling to lift. And then let's take the body out, take the arms out to the sides, reach forward and roll back. So now we'll just do you arms in breathing again. So we'll go out. Inhale, feel the ribs, expand overhead and XL, press and overhead. And exhale, press. Just one more. Ah, overhead. And exhale. Press and take a breath to hole. And that's rural and lift up. So now I want to add some legs to that. Reach out. We'll have to do four repetitions so we can make it even reach forward and roll that back. So now the arms are going to go up, Zell, right legs gonna come up, the arms are going to open the leg and the arms are reaching down or forward.

Inhale, opposite, open. And I don't know, I just like had this feeling where I feel like a Ninja. I feel like this is called the Ninja last one. And then here we go. We're rolling up full back with your feet. [inaudible] and lifts up. So now we're gonna add rotation on the second part, rolling back. So we start the same with just the breath. So we take the arms out. This time the left arm is gonna, less legs, gonna lift.

The right arm's going to come across and then we just find center and the right leg comes up. The left arm comes across and find center and Cross and center and Cross and center and pause and center. Who can roll up from here? Oh, we can indeed, indeed. We can reach Ah, and open and around. Pausing again. Just at that low position. You can take the legs up one at a time or both. Together they can float.

We're going to just going to put the hands on. The needs are let nice and high. The arms are going to let go. They're going to reach back. Legs go down and just push. Now I want us to push down with the arms because maybe as we push down with the arms, we feel the spine curl forward. More. Three more. Push. Curl to push curl.

Last one, push, curl, pause here. Rotate to the left leg, hold onto it. Take the right leg down and use your arms to help you find a really strong commitment, committed position, and then rotate. So the left ribs as you go to the right slide across towards the right pelvis, the right ribs, slide towards the center of the spine and rotate it. Feeling that and breathing into it. We're going to do three more repetitions on both sides on one using your arms, not to make it easier, but to make it better, more efficient. Last time here to the other side, find center, hold the legs, just do a little rock on the box.

Little controlled rocking and then rolling all the way back up. The feet can come down, put your hands on the front of your knees and pull your spine out. They let your pelvis move to go ahead and arch the hole back and then find yourself back to straight again. Yeah, so we're done with that. We're going to put the boxes back then. The reason why, so typically I like to work on three reds and a blue spring when I'm doing foot work. But today we're going to do something a little bit different where we go straight from two feet on the bar to just one foot on the bar at a time, which is why I'm choosing a slightly lighter spring. So three reds for me, you decide what you'd like. Well we come all the way down into our back.

So like I mentioned earlier, the focus today is just what happens when we, when we work from side to side. So let's start, I've had my headdress up and my arms are going to be down at my side and we're gonna flex through the feet. Starting with heels parallel, we're going to just press out, pause at the top for just a second. Feel the pelvis in neutral, feel the heaviness through the rims and then bring yourself back in and stretch up feeling the quadriceps, supporting the knees so that the knees never go behind me and goes, let's just in front of and are supported by that quadricep contraction. Last two like this and last one. So we come all the way back in. We're going to right away, lift the left foot up. And then the right leg presses out and then presses out and Benz and feel as though you're trying to scrape the heel down the bar.

And I just want us to notice as we work this way in our foot fi foot work where it's different for you from side to side. He'll down on the left right footer and reach it. Ah, and now I'm thinking now that I'm on my single I work, maybe that was a pretty generous spring I gave myself. Okay. Okay. Christy is fine. [inaudible] okay. Coming all the way back in.

So we come back down onto the toaster. So we're going to do that through all of our foot positions. So again, we press out and pull. So once the legs are straight, the feet are nice and pointed, but we've got weight on all of the joints of the toes spread evenly through the foot. We're not just pressing, but we're dragging. And here's our last one. Reaching out and coming back. Keep the right foot on the bar, lift the left leg up and reach out and haul two and three tailbone. Heavy weight of the body are weighted, the pelvis, even from side to side. Here's our last one, bend in and then how can we or can we stretch out and then do that transition from side to side without a lot of pelvic motion that a lot of shifting the body last two holding the opposite leg at affirm tabletop position.

Last one. So we come back in, let's move to our small v-shape. Inhale pelvis heavy and reach out and pull. So I, in my experience right now, this, this when both feet are on the bar feels really light to me, which is a good thing when we take one of my legs off. So using that just to kind of reset the body back to a centered position, pause, left leg, Asta bar and out and I'm keeping it turned out. I've just basically picked it straight up off the bar last too. I suspect that when the legs go wider, that's when the challenge might be a little bit greater. I don't know. And then that foot comes down, the other foot just picks up off the bar and here we go. Five pull in.

Okay. Siri [inaudible] too. And once we'll just go out to our wide V he'll positions. Interesting for me this. So why the heels and then we had three cha setting up for one leg, reach out using the breath, monitoring the position of the pelvis.

I sometimes like to take my hands in and feel where my pelvis is in space because my body, I sit cheat without me knowing it. Sometimes I believe this is five here. So let's come in. So we just keep the right foot on the bar. Yeah, it's a little bit different here isn't it? With a wider leg and back. Uh, and pushing into the bar but also keeping the backside of that moving leg real heavy. [inaudible] last one.

I am coming back and we'll change sides. I'm going to give myself just a minute to find myself and here we go. Five, four keeping the carrots. Quiet both hips heavy. Three, two and [inaudible] I don't come all the way and we'll just do that one wide position today. Let's come into onto our toes and we reach out.

So we'll go down, up five down, up for getting out big stretch under the bar, three feeling the work, travel all the way up through the backside of the leg. Here's one. What I want us to do here is either above the bar or below the bar I'm going to go below, makes more sense to me. And then we're going to go down with the heel and five down four. So we've got to hold that floating way with control too and Hawaiian.

And then we're going to change. And here we got down, pulling up, pulling up through the backside of the leg as well as through the well through the backside of the lower leg for sure. But can you make that travel all the way up through the back cause I'll like Nah, there we got. Thank you Christie. And now we're just gonna. Now we just alternate. So find your stretch. Good lift and make the legs match each other in the middle. Great. We'll just do two more.

Oh one more. And then pause here and just give yourself a little stretch and switch and then bend and bend the knees. And then I'm going to come up [inaudible] change our springs. I think I'm going to go with one red spring. I could certainly go heavier, but it's going to be a good challenge for me. So we're going to come all the way down.

Now we're going to play around with some opposite arm leg movements, but before we do that, let's just get right into our center. So taking the straps in, our hands coming up with the arms so that we've got a little tension on the straps. The legs are going to come up off the bar and I'm just going to hold them in a tabletop position. So what I want us to think about is with straight elbows, feel that you're moving your arms as though you would maybe be moving into spinal flection, but you're not moving into spinal flection. So I'm thinking about in a different way to say that is feeling almost as though I'm going to lift my head and Jess, I'm pressing my ribs down into the reformer. That rib cage connection is bringing my arms through.

I'm going to do just one more like that. The ribs. Press down, slide the arms down towards the reformer. Okay, so now we're going to play with some alternating patterns. Bring the arms just over the shoulders. We're going to take the right arm straight down and the left leg straight out. And just noticing and then center noticing what happens in your body and how you have to stabilize to try to hold the body stationary. One arm obviously won't have any tension that we can keep.

Just reaching that arm straight up and back out and back and out. So we'll do one more and then coming back out. So from here, let's bring the arms out to the side and play with the same idea. So let's do three. Just pressing the air out of the body, really going deep in the waist here. And then inhale, filling up the ribs like a bellows, and then we press the air out of the body. Press the navel to the spine, feel the pelvic position. And last one, so I've never done this.

We're going to find out if it works right now. So let's go right arm down, left leg straight. And then back. It works. It's a little tricky. Left arm down, right leg straight. The hardest thing for me in this is yeah, shoulder stability on the pulling arm. [inaudible] and spinal stability too. But it's interesting. I like it. Let's do one more to both sides and then coming back, bringing the arms down all the way.

I'm bringing the arms up all the way. Reach back, set your straps down. That's going to be our ab work for today. For now. And then what we're going to do is take our, I like to have my headdress down. You can decide we're gonna do some lateral hip work, so I'm going to take my bar down. That red springs going to be perfect for me. Am I going to take that strap onto our foot?

I have one red spring on. What I do is just put my arm through the head rest and lie on my arm, but could certainly get a pillow or put your head rest up. It's not everyone is a little bit different, so we're going to put the top foot in when you want to get organized and maybe they should have done that before the leg went in, but you want the spine, the pelvis and the spine to be towards the back of the reformer. Okay? So once you get there, then we'll just lift that top leg up and then pushing through the heel of the foot. The leg is going to trace the outside of the reformer and then and trace the outside of the reformer and maybe we could even feel the whole side of the body length in as that leg reaches out. And again, pressing out and bend and I'm taking as my knee bend my knees going just slightly underneath of this strap.

Okay? Okay, we're going to go eight times. Christie, maybe you can help me count. This is six. Usually I'm better. I'm okay on the first side, but on the second side I sometimes get lost. So here's number eight. We're going to take the leg back now and I'm so far back that the spring or the strap will come and press up against your body and use that to find the hippest sensors at the back.

And then keeping the spine still bring the leg forward in front of you. Connect right at the very base of the hip. Bring the leg back and forward and back. If you don't feel the back of your leg but you feel behind your knee or in your castle a lot, he would wouldn't be the worst idea to soften the knee. [inaudible] five, four, three. This is why I can't count for myself.

[inaudible] good. So we'll do three more here, but at the back end of the third, we're going to turn it into a circle. So here's the last one that stays just the same and I think we'll do five circles in each direction. So we're going to go back. Now here, you don't want to take your like so far back that it brings your whole body with you just far enough that you can start to rotate the leg in the hint, bring it around to the front of you, line it up level with your hip joint and press back, roll up and around. You have to stay just high enough so that you don't run into your shoulder block as you go back. And then the rope might brush against you a little bit. It's not a big deal. Last two [inaudible] and last one. Okay, so now from the front we're going to do that in reverse. So we go, ah, we reach out and back and then let the leg swing forward.

Making sure that we are concentrating on keeping both sides of the body long and level. [inaudible] last two and that'll be just about enough for me. Okay, so let's bend the knee and we're going to do a little arm exercise here. So when did you take your foot out and then take this strap in your hand? So again, lining the arm up just above the, just straight up into the air, right next to the body, right in line with the body.

Now we're going to press down the side of the body with the arm and then we resist lifting the arm back up and press. And I'm by seeing as my arm comes down to my side, just slightly towards the Pinky side of my hand or biasing towards keeping my shoulders in an open or slightly externally rotated position. We're gonna do four more. So the challenge for me, I think is the up and stabilizing that up position. Here's three, here's two. And here's one. Pausing here, bend your arm and straighten eight keeping the shoulder held back.

Seven, six, five for try not to let your elbow go behind your body. Three, two, and one. So by my account, that was eight and eight again, good. Maybe let's give herself a stretch. I think we deserve it. So same strap, keep it with you. Push off with the leg that was on the bottom and take the leg that was just on top into the strap. You have two choices here with the leg that's not in the strap.

It can either just rest on the bar. I like to bend my knee and put my foot on the floor. And then you can use your own. You can use your arms to pull that leg back. Really work towards a straight knee can always, always, always get a little bit more of a stretch just by reaching through the heel of the foot. Yeah.

And then we're going to take the legs. So I have my right leg in the strap. I'm holding the strap with my left hand. I'm going to bring the leg across my body. So you do want to two things. You could let the hips stay on the carriage or you could let the hips start to travel up off the carriage so you get more of a rotation in a different stretch.

And then I'm going to come back to you, send them an a bend. My right knee, that top leg, the one in the strap. I'm going to bring my bottom knee up to meet it. I'm just letting the weed of the um, reformer pull me into that stretch. Hmm. All right. I've got a second side to do. So take your foot out so that your strap back onto the hook intern sites.

So what I didn't say in time before was it's good to, before you put it in your self, in the strap, get towards the back end of your carriage. That will keep the strap out of your way. And then I use my bottom like to push the reformer away. So I've got some space for my, from my top leg to move. And here we are.

So we start by just lifting up that top leg and then we press through the heel and it reaches just right out along the frame and then bends. So don't think about this as pushing from the front of the leg. Um, it won't be as, as well as focused in where we're wanting to focus on you to think about the heel connecting to the back of the leg and working from there. We're going to do three more. We're going to do three more. Christi says starting now. That's right. Okay, so here's the end.

We're going to start to bring the leg back there. It is touching the body and forward connecting through the back of the leg. Pull the leg back for two and forward and letting the neck just rest in the hands or the arm and forward. Here's four in our halfway point. You reach out through the leg, keeping the spine stuff for more theory. So this is the last time where it stays exactly like this member on the last one, which is coming up right now.

[inaudible] go forward and then we start our circle. So we go back, we lift the leg, it rotates in the hip joint, comes around to the front and pull back, left and bring the leg around to the front. And here's three more air reaching back and I and around and too, and a rotating the hat and one. Okay. And then from the front we reverse. So we go up, take it around and back. This is where it's real easy to just pull the whole pelvis with you. So just look after yourself, lifting up, rotating through the ham and forward. Yeah. Three more.

Two more and last time. Okay, so let's bend the knee, take your foot out of the strap, keeping your body where it is. We just take the strap in our hand now and I'm a holding onto the frame with my feet a little to give myself a really nice set up arm. Reach this straight up out of the shoulder. And then here we go. We press down the side of the body. We're not going in front or behind us.

Just straight down right near the seam of your shirt. Noticing again, is it more wobbly on one side? Easier. Oh, we're halfway. We're going to do four more. And that sometimes the side that I think is stronger a surprises me and it's really not last two biasing again for the slight pinky finger pressure or more weight on that pinky finger side of the hand. Pause at the ribs. Remember we're not letting the elbow go behind our body.

We're keeping it right next to us. And then we just press and then and press feel here as you're straightening your arm that it starts from underneath the shoulder blades. So we work for control first we've got four to go and three and to, and one, let the arm come back up, let the carriage come into and onto your back. [inaudible] so the top leg, which is now my left leg, going into the strap, I like to put my foot on the floor, but again, you can just reach out and arrested on your foot bar. Let me just give ourself a little stretch here.

[inaudible] and then let's take that leg and just start to reach it across. I like to keep my pelvis down initially. Right? But you're always allowed to play with your own stretches. Then I personally may not let my pelvis lift up off the reformer, so I get a little bit more stretch in the outside of that hit and then center. And then bend the knee. [inaudible] [inaudible] okay. And then go ahead and take that leg out of the strap. Come all the way in.

Is that the strap back and come up? Okay, so let's put the bar up and we'll just do a quick stretch. So I'm going to put my bar up. I'm going to, I'm going to stay on my one spring. I don't know if I'll deviate much from that. For the rest of the class, I'm going to take my knee and bring it right up against my shoulder block. So I'm trying to bring my Shin as upright as possible. The other leg is going to step forward and we're just going to press out and we're going to go into a low lunge today. I just enjoy it.

[inaudible] so knowing that if you allow your back to go your low back specifically to to arch with this stretch, that's potentially a way to take some of the functionality away from the stretch. So I mean your low back will be in an position, but if you buy a slightly on pressing forward in, in opposition, that will, that will be a better scenario I think. Let's keep that outside hand on the bar. Lift the hand of the same knee that's on the reformer and then side bend over. Hmm. Breeze. [inaudible] then that hand can come down and just real easy.

Bring the knee out from underneath you slide out. I'll go round and we'll switch sides. So again, the knees up against the shoulder, Bach, the hands around the bar, the foot's not quite as far forward as it would normally be for a regular, say ease lunge. And then we just start making our way down. Now here is where I have, there's a huge difference between my sides, like it's like a two different bodies really in Kane. So they're going to keep the outside hand on the bar.

The same side arm reaches up and then we just side bend over. [inaudible] then the hand comes back to the bar. We're gonna bring ourselves back in easy. I'm gonna let my self ease out of that stretch. I'm going to keep the same spring and sit down.

[inaudible] so we didn't go into some arm work. So stretching the legs out in front of you. It's hard for if if tarp for you to sit with straight legs. Prop yourself up on something or bend your knees. I'm taking the arms out straight. Let's start with just three biceps, regular biceps, keeping the elbows in line with the shoulders, just feeling what it feels like to work from both sides of the body and have the trunk nice and stable. Okay, so back to straight arms. Now we're just going to bend right arm and straight in and left are so now that one arm is having to bear all the weight and is the torso rotating from side to side. Left arm, Nice.

Right arm, left arm. The arm that's not pulling the strap might feel like it wants to get a late, lazy and drop, but we're going to keep it lifted. Left arm one more time to each arm. Right arm left are again just an interesting way to to to check your stability. We're going to bring the straps over the Elvis next, so bringing the Alba's, just step in front of the shoulders, sitting tall again. Inhale here, both arms out to the side. Feel that the shoulder blade stay broad. Elbows go slightly forwards of the hands in your mind's eye.

And then we bring the arms back and again, two more like that. So it's just like you're trying to take your arms out of your shoulder joints. Stretch them away from one another. Okay, last time. So now let's just take the right arm out. Keep the body straight and back and the left arm and back and the right arm and back and the left arm. Let's do that one more time. Through it was noticing what the body wants to do to adjust.

Making sure the hand of the moving arm, both arms stays right over the elbow. Let's take that into rotation now. So we'll go right arm, rotate, rotate back. Arm comes home, left arm, rotate, rotate back. Arm comes home again, right arm rotate, rotate back, arm comes haul, left arm rotate, rotate back holding that arm still arm comes home last time. So it's just arm. The arm stays still. As the spine goes through rotation, the arm stays still. As the spine comes back through rotation, the arm moves.

Last one on the other side. Arm stays still as we go through rotation still as we rotate back center and all the way back and that was challenging for my arms. Why don't you turn this way, Christine? We'll go into the mermaid. So we'll do just three regular mermaids and then some mermaid with a twist. Okay.

So I'm inside hand on the bar looking for length in both sides of the body. The opposite arm reaches down onto the headrest and we're gonna press the carriage out. Trying to line that bottom arm up with the floor, keeping the shoulders still. We're gonna pivot around that shoulder joint and finding the stretch. Pivot back around the shoulder and come all the way back up. Weight on our length, on both sides of the spine. Inhale as we go out.

Exhale as we pivot and pivot. Yeah. And yeah, slide. And last time I'm going to keep us at the bottom. So Inhale, Huh? And have it sets the hand. Take the opposite hand to the outside of the bar. And then just in rotation we're going to bend the arms, lowering the forehead towards the bar, and then keep the rotation.

Keep the shoulder stability, keep the abdominals functioning, working. Bend in here, slide the shoulder blades down to straighten the arms instead of pushing the hands into the bar. Ben. So I'm not thinking about my hands, thinking about my back. Pause here and then we're going to come up into a back extension. So bringing the spine through, lifting up, [inaudible], stalling cause it feels good. [inaudible] so maybe I can stall for the greater good of us all. We'll go slow pulling up away from the bar when we're like that.

Reaching up, up, up, up, not taking too much in the lower back, using the front of the body to support you. And then let's take it down again. Take the underneath hand back to the center of the bar, unwind through the spine, lift all the way up. Then I like to take my free moving hand and just hold onto the shoulder blocker. That handle. Lift the opposite arm up. Get Tall and stretch over to the side.

Okay, so switching sides to three, three, three [inaudible]. So I think that for most of us, just finding this position feels a little different on both sides. That's worth noticing. So here we go. We in house, we press the carriage away, lifting the opposite arm. We exhale as we spiral the spine around handguns to the bar. Inhale as we reach back, open and lift back up and in Jose, reach out, letting that free moving arm just float through space until maybe when it gets to the bar, it helps us a lit on this, my idea anyway, and then reach out and then the left last time here, reaching out.

Here's where we stay. We go into our rotation, we lose that hand, come down. The opposite arm comes towards the opposite side of the bar. We square the shoulders and the trunk and then the elbows bend wide and low and we stretch out. So here's the place I use this cue a lot where I feel like I'm trying to pull the bar apart or stretch the bar. Mostly. I just mean keep the shoulder blades wide. That's how I feel it.

Then we stretch out and pausing and now the back lift, the chest comes up, pulling out, lifting up, up, up, up, finding the stretch, stalling. I mean pausing, enjoy and press out. Yeah. So we allow ourselves to go slow. I need to enjoy that work, that sensation to sometimes I like to even just pause and stop and move around in a little bit in a position and see what I can discover in my own movement. And here's our last one. So we're going to come on, we're gonna press back out. I'm gonna readjust that outside hand.

Come back over, sit up and comes down opposite. I'm lifted up off to the bar. Well, let me just stretch all the way over and then let's go down to a light spring, a blue spring at most, and we're gonna finish on our knees with a little kneeling, um, extension work. So we're going to go facing the shoulder blocks. First thing we're going to do is climb up to the risers with our hands. Okay. So I'm wondering again, if this is a possible for a one arm to do it, but let's do three. Pulling straight through and focusing, not just on being straight, but being in just a little bit of thoracic extension and two are coming from straight into thoracic extension. And when, what do you think, Christie? Do you think we could do a single arm?

I'm gonna try. So be careful. I'm going to put my left hand on the reformer with me and I'm going to do one pole. It's possible, but I don't, it's really hard. I'm going to change hands and put both hands down. I haven't gotten back to straight arms. I've got to do it on both sides. Much easier on this side. What do you know? And then both hands back.

Let's just do three more. So sometimes checking in, finding something that maybe isn't available right now, but maybe, yeah, in a while or, but with practice is possible. Here's our last one and then I'm going to have us come all the way back and then release yourself and just sit. I'm to sit cross legged. You could sit with your legs out straight. It's not really important. And we're just going to finish by taking our straps in our hands. We're gonna let both arms do the work here so I'm not going to have tension right away on my straps. They're more like reigns at this point.

And want to bend the elbows wide and then from there I'm going to turn, so I'm externally rotating my shoulders and I catch the straps in my thumb and then I'm going to reach up and back with my spine and with my arms. Stretching up, bending the elbows, elbows forward towards the ropes. Spine comes straight as my arms come rotating down. Let's do that again. So rotating the arms. Let's inhale here. Exhale to reach up in stretch.

Inhale to bend and exhale to come back. Stew to hurry, rotate, reach up and stretch. Ben and back. [inaudible] last one, rotating the arm, reaching up, lifting the spine. That's from here. Just bring the arms straight down to the side, wide and open. And as we bring the arms back towards the hooks, we can just let the straps rest on the hooks.

You can take a mini forward full, just a small round over the length and then come up and I think it's worth it to change the cross of the legs there when finding a straight back and then folding forward over the legs. Again, I'm coming all the way up when we're done.