All About the Circle

Hi, I'm me Jo. We are going to take a mat class today with our magic circle. Um, one thing I find there are so many different variations you can do with this magic circle. The possibilities are endless, but I find it's really hard with the class to get caught up in the magic circle and all of the transitions, you tend to lose the flow. So today we're going to focus on the flow. The magic circle will follow. I help to guide you through this so we don't have to stop. I want minimum of motion. Okay, here we go. So come to the front.

I want you to stand inside your circle. Stand inside. So that circle is right above your ankle. And I want you to stand open it so you're pulling it open. Okay, now look down at your arches. Make sure your feet are absolutely parallel. Let your arms relax. And I want you to pull up on your toes and pull open that circle.

You feel that outer thigh and easy control down. Keep tension on the circle as you come up. Hold the balance, use your seat and easy down. That's right. Our seat is part of our powerhouse. Here we go right back up, up, pool. Kick your heels open a little bit more. Stay there, reach your arms forward. Keep those heels highs. You sit down and [inaudible] share and try to come down to your mat with control. Yes and easy. Roll back. Keep your circle there as you take the hundred so draw the knees, get your back in the mat. Take your legs long and you're pulling.

Open the circle. Work those hips. Hundred. Inhale, empty here. Now you'll notice when you use a circle, it makes everything just a little harder, so you might have to take your legs higher. Take your hands higher. Yes, it's okay if those legs have to go higher. It's better to keep your back safe and in the mat. Yup. Press that circle apart. Yeah. Work those outer thighs and breathe. Then empty the air with a deep center and take that hundred into the air and empty out your lungs. Nice long fingers. Nice vigorous pumping those arms. Give me one more time.

More breath and easy on the exhale. Bend in your knees. Take the circle into the arms right into a roll up. Stretch, peel, scoop forward and reach beyond your toes. Draw your navel back and squeeze your circle to roll down one vertebrae at a time. Right back up. Peel smooth. Yes. That circle represents your powerhouse. Every time you press it, you're scooping. Work deeper into those abdominals and reach right back up in.

Use your powerhouse. Stretch and roll back one vertebrae at a time. Reach long and skinny. One more. Come on up. We're going to change that circle right between our ankles. Place it flat on the floor. Squeeze the circle and keep your roll up.

Moving one vertebrae at a time. Reach. Squeeze your circle. Use your inner thighs. Reach beyond your toes. Lift your power house and roll back. Smooth. Good. Reach one more in with the air. Empty air stretch, stretch, reach. Reach forward.

Grab your circle, roll down with it again. Deep abdominals. Take your right leg up in your chest, your circles right over your chest. Don't move the circle. Crossover and up one cross. Yes. Stay in the mat with your ribs. Try not to wiggle and cross one more cross end up hold.

Let's challenge it. Reach back now. Reverse outcross a round hole that just got harder. Cross that circle around. If you're wobbling around on your mat, feel free to take that circle back up over your chest to stay stable. One more and good. Switch those legs. Take the left leg up, circle right over your chest.

Press your circle with soft elbows and you cross right back up. Cross and bring it back up and use that breath. It helps MTD air to come up. Crusts right back up and reverse. Reach back further. Here we go. Out Cross your body and really cross around. Good. Keep pressing that circle, but don't let your circle touch the floor.

Don't arrest it on the floor. Keep your arms active. One more and it's uptake your feet down. Lengthen into a roll up. Pull your belly in. You're going to bend the knees and take your feet inside the circle. Pull low on the circle so your arches are on the circle. Drop your head.

Hold the under hand and pull up on the circle. But I think you can get smaller. Knee Hydra. Drop your head, drop your chest, pick up on that circle right there and let's go. Rolling like a ball. Everything back up. Oh, you should fill your stomach on this. Round down and pick it up. Yes. Use your arms very active to lift and pull up on the circle as your belly draws in. Even deeper away from those quads.

Look at that and it really opens your back. Aha. Go. One more. Pull up on that circle and rural. Come up and you stay in balance. Take your feet out. Lie Down for our stomach series into the hands. One knee into the chest. Lift your sternum and reach the circle way over your shame.

One leg in one long, and you change single leg. Stretch in. Now what about the knee? Can you pull it into your ear? In, in, in pull. Bring it. Make it big. One in one. Long and scoop for your doubles. Reach over your toes with that circle. Reach, reach, reach. Now inhale, fill your lungs. Squeeze your circle, but then exhale, gets in Madeira.

Hold that scoop and Xcel gets small in the the or deepen your power and then everything in. One more breath in with the or. Hold your school, bring it in and [inaudible] rest your neck, rest and lie down. We're going to take this exercise. We're going to take a variation on this exercise. We're going to roll to our side on our double leg stretch here. Here we go. Your head and shoulders. Take that circle and as you're stretch out, roll to your right side. Reach and get long and next I'll get small.

Reach for your toes. And now to the left. Twist. Each left holds your belly and exhale, get smell, reach for your toes. There you go. Breathe in, reach to the right, hold your balance and XL everything in. Love it guys. Twist over to your left and pull it in and get nice and small again. Inhale now get longer. Reach, reach, reach, and come in small. That's it.

One more to the left, so you're even bring it in. Scissor, leg, straight up, change, change, change, scoop, scoop, and slowly bring your circle back further back further. Hold that belly, squeeze that circle, reach and reach the rest of your neck. Lie Down. Yes, very intense. When you use a circle, we do have to take a little rest in between here. Okay. Take that circle between your legs, between those angles. We go for the double. So now you get to take your hands behind your head length and the legs up.

Lift your chest, hold your ribs in. We lower down one, two, three and quicker. Lower down one, two, three and backup. Good. Can you lift your chest off the mat? Nadirah there you go. And then up. So it only go as low as you can control and up and down and two and three, and then up. One more, down to three. Take it back into your hands. Then you're almost take that circle over. Head like a halo. Crisscross. Go twist and twist left. Bring in that knee.

Press that circle. Bring your elbows in a little closer and try to touch that knee with your elbow. Come up to touch it. Get off that mat. Good Amy, come up and touch it and then you can rest. Lengthen your body out, stretch your legs, and let's peel you up again for a spine. Stretch forward. Open the feet. Sit Tall.

Lift right in your hands. Here we go. That circle represents your powerhouse. As you press, you pull in an op in lift and release, and again, up off the floor. Flex your feet. Use your seat. Squeeze and release. Here we go. Lift up. Big Breath in. Now drop your head and exhale round. Forward and forward. Reach and reach and scoop. And then roll.

Stack your body nice and tall. Lift the crown of your head again. We go up and round and empty all the or stretch beyond good. Don't let your head go too low. There you go. And then roll all the way up and up and up. This is it. One more lift. Go round forward.

Exhale till there's no air left scoop to come up. Hold that circle there that draw your navel back. Roll to the back of your cock CIC bone. Lift your feet and take them inside the circle. There's a good transition. Now take those ankles, pull the circle apart. Hold high as you can.

We're going to go into an open leg rocker. Look at this. Go Roll back. Pull up in that circle and come up ahead and get into those outer thighs in your hips. Roll right back up to balance. Beautiful. Roll back and up to balance. One more girl. Back up to keep it. Hold. Reach for the ceiling. Hold your hands. Face me.

Hold your body up like you're reaching up there and adjust your circles. Goes down and up. Oh, a nice teaser too. To fit in here and left. Go One more and your circle stays. You roll down. Whew. All right.

Keep pulling the circle open. Let's get those hips. We're going to corkscrew, but your hips stay on the ground. Pull the circle apart as you go over on the right. Pull it apart to the left. Reverse pull. Keep it open to come around. Beautiful. Fill your hips working o over. Full circle, around and up. Smooth.

Don't let that upper body move. Don't let it wiggle. Smooth over. Flee around. This is it. One more. Finish it up. Silver. Even. [inaudible] good. Now take your hands at the side. Long arms. We're gonna go into a little tick-tock here. Pull apart the circle, look to your left, and take your feet as far to the right as you can control and then pick it back up. Reverse. Now turn and look right. Keep your right shoulder anchored.

Feel that shoulder blade anchor down into the mat and then back up again. Look left. Pin his shoulder blade down and stretch and back up. One more. Turn the head stable shoulders. Anchor them. Anchor them. A good reach to center. Good. Bend the knees, grab your circle for another roll up. Lengthen.

Pull your belly and roll your body up. We're going into the sauce of open the feet, flex the feet wide and take that circle high up over your head. Flex your feet. Now keep that beautiful lift as you twist it, your waistline. Big Twist and go reach down and stretch forward. One More to keep your left hip back and rolled your body back up to that ceiling. Now twist your waist and go around.

Forward stretch. Reach beyond your toes. Keep reaching with your right hip, staying back and roll back up. Two straight twist. Drop your head, stretch, reach, and reach and reach and roll back up. One more big twist and drop your head. Stretch forward and reach one scoop to scoop. Three, pull everything tall. Good. You're going to turn on your stomach facing me. And instead of a swan dive, let's do a different extension for your spine.

We're going to take the eagle. This is something we usually do on the one to chair. So we want your arms straight out in front of you and your hands. Not Quite on the platform of that circle, but to the side of it to keep your shoulders open. Okay, the head is down. The circle is up. So before you press your circle, can you draw your shoulders into your back, lengthen your neck and slowly lift your head up. As you press the circle, lift your head, lift your chest, make sure those shoulders are collected into your back.

Press the circle to get your chest up off the floor. Keep that beautiful lift and then easy. Let your circle up as you lie back down again. The shoulders are first. Pull your shoulders back, lengthen the neck, lift your head, lift your chest, keep anchoring your shoulders as you pull up and up and look up a little higher there. Look up there. Good. That's it. And easy come down. Good. We keep working that the racich extension. Here's our last chance.

Shoulders or first lift through the crown of the head. It reaches out to come up. Press into the circle to lift your power house higher up off the floor. If you can look at that inner thighs together. This is gorgeous guys. And then smooth to come out of that. Sit on your heels.

After that one round your back. After such a beautiful extension like that, stretch your arms. Draw your belly in and we come right onto our stomach against single leg kicks. So let's press your circle in. Lift your power house up off the mat, and we go kick, kick, kick, kick, pull, pull, lift the gaze. Don't look down. Keep it snappy. Kick, kick, kick, kick. Keep it moving up. Lift, pull, pull and release. Good.

Turn your head to the right. Take the hands behind. Take that circle behind you. Here we go. The double leg kick together. One, two, three. No pressure. Circle. Oh, aren't you glad we opened that chest first and let it go. Look left and kick and two and three. Now press up. I know this is a killer. C'Mon. Lift. Squeeze that circle.

If you can there Amy and let it go and little kick one and two and three and you arch your upper back. Your legs are in the mat and you look up their pressure circle and release. Last one to be even kick and two and three. Come on up here. Lifting. Squeeze. Whew. Let it go. Enough of that one. Ooh, that's a tough one. Sit on those heels again. Round your back. That one's nasty. Stretch. I don't know who thought of that one. Scoop in and roll up.

We're going to take a neck pull. Keep your circle where it is. Flex your feet and pull those heels. Yeah, right in there. Now hold those speeds. Steady hands behind your head. We're going to start sitting up nice and tall. Nice lift. Open up those elbows. Hinge your body tall. Pull the ribs, enroll one vertebrae at a time. Nice.

Control all this rolling we've done. Now come up scoop and exhale, rounded forward. And then sit up and get nice and tall for me and then pull it in. Take your time. Work into your power house. Two rolled down. Smooth. No crash landings. Beautiful control.

Right back up. Breathe in around an exhale. Draw those ribs way back. Aha. Now you're going to take that circle and take it like it's almost like the toe corrector at the top of that Pinky toe there. Yeah. Now Flex your feet. [inaudible] we want that circle. We don't want it too low. Take it at the foot. Now press into it.

This is great for somebody with weekend goals. Pull the ball of the foot back there so you're flexing and pulling the circle apart. Now take your hands behind your head. Can you feel your ankles now? Roll one vertebrae at a time. Just holding that circle like that as an exercise. Smooth crunch. Draw. Beautiful. Now Roll up scooping round forwards the other feet.

Want to sickle and sit up nice and tall. Now keep the feet and roll into your powerhouse. One Vertebrae at a time. Think of your heels pushing forward and your toe pulling apart. Press into that circle. Beautiful. This is it guys. Round your body up and stretch it forward.

Sit tall and left. Stay there. Let's do a spine twist. Reach side the side. Lift through the crown of the head. Not all. Let that circle move. Feel your seat. Lift Tall. Lift that head. Bring your head back a little more. Okay, let's go to the right twist. Tall and tall. Hold.

We need to have a straight line fingertip to fingertip, which is here, and then come to center. Lift. Hold the line. Good. Amy, hold the line. Hang on. Reach it there. Go Taller up. Out of those hips. [inaudible] yes, and come center to the lift and go tall. Aha. Let's get this one going. This is the weaker one and center. Good for you. Pull it back there and go one more to the left breast.

There you go. Good knee edge or that's it and let it go. Beautiful. Let's take a jack knife. Let's take that circle between your ankles. So you're gonna lie down first. Take your legs up, 90 degrees. Take this between your ankles and your hands. Press into the mat and we go scoop over some.

Rolling over. Feels good. Now lift that circle high to the sky. Now control down. Get off your neck. Roll one vertebrae at a time while you're still squeezing your circle and energy to get over and then up. Look at your feet at a sickling. Keep those angles straight. Squeeze really in inner thigh and then roll. Yeah, that's it.

Straighten out those ankles and roll to get over and up. Look at the feet. Fix them if you need to. No sickeling now control down. Squeeze to get down. Last breath. Come on up. Inhale. Take it over with a tight seat. Squeeze your way up and he's long, lean thighs and rolled your body down.

[inaudible] take your circle into your hand and you're going to turn over on your right side. Let's do some sidekicks. So right onto your side. Your left hand presses down on the circle and you want to really align your body to the back of the mat. Tall lifted spine. [inaudible] your shoulder down this soft and pressed tall chest. [inaudible] feet a little bit more forward. Okay. That top leg up, only hip height control to the front end.

Stay point your toe. Pull your hip back. Rip supposed to be there you go. Now reach back and back and back and go from front and control and then reach on back and back and back and go front with control and reach back. Okay, let's take a different tempo here we go to the front, to the back. Swing Front. What about back swing front, come on in and get it back there.

There you go. Front reach back. One more. Up to gather long legs kick up now make it longer to get down. Kick high reach, reach, grow tall. Work into directions. Kick up as you come down, make your body get taller. The head reaches to this is it up and reach your leg length on the spine.

Hold. Circle one, two, three, little circle and circle and circle and circle. Nice and low. Reverse two, three, circle. Circle and who gather. Okay. Take your feet in the circle. So your top leg is on top of the circle.

Your bottom leg is in the circle. Now look at your body. When you do that, did you shift your hips as your body? Straight on, a diagonal across your mat. Keep your hips back and your feet forward. Okay, here we go. Lift your spine tall. This leg reaches for me and then squeeze down. Keep reaching. I want to see those legs reach for me and release.

Reach for me first. Now press down. Think of that top inner thigh coming down next. Squeeze your bottom in her thigh and release and lengthen to press and keep it and keep it any come out of it. Now take your top leg in the circle as well. Good. Collect your hips. Turn out good. Nitro work that foot. Rio. Oh, there we go.

Hit back rich to me. Now lift your top leg. Only pull up on the circle and return. Pull up on a circle. And one more up on the circle and return. Here we go. Let's lift that whole circle up off the floor.

Strong women love this and circle up off the floor and let it go. This time lifted. Keep it now circled all circle up off the floor. Yes. Circle that circle. Circle that circle and stay there. Turn right on your stomach. Yeah, one hand on top of the other. Make your legs as long as you can and I want you to pull open your circle and release. Oh, you feel this one right? You can't cheat on this one.

You have to use your seat. Here we go. Lift and pull it open and release it. One more. Pull it open. Release now, little pulse. Press open to pull. Open, open, squeeze. Stay there. Roll to your other side.

Beautiful transitions. Bring your feet forward. Tall. Okay. Now from here we're going to do that whole series reversed. Keep that circle, keep it where you had it. Lengthen and your top leg pulls up and release. Top leg reach to come up. Good. Keep your head nice and high. Remember you're reaching in two different directions here and release it and the top leg up. It stays. Release. Now let's lift the circle, pull up the circle, hold the rips and return and circle up.

Pull it up and one more. Keep it up. Circle the circle one. Circle to circle three. Release it. Good. Now take your top leg on top of the circle. [inaudible] that's it. Lang from the leg. Reach to me and then squeeze down and release.

Squeezed down. Release one more. Squeeze down. Hold it there. A little pulse. Work that upper inner thigh and let it go. Good. Take the circle into your hand. Now we go front. Back up, down. Here we go. Hold the circle. Keep your feet forward. [inaudible].

Collect your powerhouse. Top leg up. We go to the front. Hold. Correct the hip. Keep it back. Now reach back and front hold. Are Your hips still stacked? Now reach away. Back. Further back. Bring that leg back and to the front.

Hold [inaudible] and reach back. Alright. Tempo to the front. Reach back. Swing front links and on back there. Good. Now try not to wobble on your mat down there. Your left side is long and in the mat it doesn't sway. Ferment. Reach back one more front. Everything together. Long leg kick up. Now make it longer down.

Kick up instead of flexing. Can you reach your thigh more to me? More to me. Keep going. Keep reaching. I want it longer than the bottom leg. Now kick Amy, but then show me the reach. Don't just come down. Reach to get down. Oh, that's nice. Up and lengthen that thigh. Stay there. Circle one, two, three, circle little circle, little circle and reverse. Go back and do and circle that leg and circle that. Any good control and good. Let's lay on her back for teasers.

Okay, let's take them on one leg. So lie your back. Your right leg is bent, but your left like I want long. Squeeze your inner thighs and take that circle up overhead. All right, think of your roll up. Your ribs are down, your powerhouses in and this right foot that's on the mat. Don't let it move. Peel in your power house to come up. Yeah, just like a roll up. Now lift that circle high.

Draw your power house in and roll down one vertebrae at a time. Complete control and in with the year smooth ribs in to come forward. Once you've got balanced, lift your whole chest up. Now reach that. Circle out the back window as you go down this time. Beautiful. Let's do it again. Come on up. Give me some energy around forward.

Stay there. Reach the hands to me. Your legs. Don't move now let's twist. Squeeze, center, twist, squeeze, lift. Now roll out of it and let's do the other side. Switch your legs and energy. We're right back up. Scoop to come forward. Lift.

Squeeze your inner thighs and roll one vertebrae at a time and inhale round. Reach for that toe. Now show me a good lift up and smooth. Draw the power house deep or to get down. Let's add the twist. Here we go. Round forward and Domo.

Now keep your sitz bones right in the mat where they have where your they are. Don't let them shift, twist, ripe center or twist. Twist. You fill in your obliques. Yes. Now reach up, roll everything down, one vertebrae at a time, and bring those these into your chest. Beautiful. Drop off that circle. We get a little rest. Let's swim. Here we go. Head up on this end. Reach for me. Long arms and long legs.

Everything lengthens out. Everything. Lift up off that mat. Go breathe and do the long arms. Keep your head up out of the water. If you can make this look this beautiful. I love it. Good guys.

And sit back on those heels round and stretch your arms in front of you. Draw your abdominals in. [inaudible] from here. Take a pushup position. Keep those speeds steady. Lift your legs up. Hold your belly in. Show me the pushup position and I want you to lift your power house up and walk your feet to your hands. Walk in, walk in, hold, or your hands still on the floor.

Push the heel of the hand in the floor and try to walk your hands. Walk your feet forward, walk forward, beautiful knee and your, come on. Bring those feet beyond your hands. Keep going. Look at that. It's gorgeous. And then walk back. Oh, I love it. There's a stretch. And do it again. Lift your belly and walk forward. Walk forward.

Pull up your belly. Keep the heel of your hand on the floor. How far can you go? Keep on walking, Amy. Come on. Come on. Push the heel of, look at that. And then easy. Walk yourself back. There we go. And come to your knees. Sit back on your heels and let's take that magic circle with boomerang. Here we go. Take your feet to the front. We had to sneak that one in there.

Your money used to give that a, kind of reminded us of the elephant, but literally trying to get your feet front. That was a beautiful stretch. Let's take your time. Feet in the circle. Both feet. Come in the circle. Pull it apart for boomerang. Straighten your legs. Squeeze it open. Okay, ready? Let's go back. Squeeze it open. Roll up in. Reach for a teaser.

Yep. Keep the circle and take your hands down. Stretch behind. Control your body forward. Reach for that circle and adjust your circle if you need to. Uh Huh. Here we go again. Start up. Nice and tall and scooped to go back. Take the circle.

Everything goes with you. We're all back. Here we go. Now Roll back and find your teaser. Nice. Hands down. Pull that circle open. It's now an oval. Go ahead and control it. Adjust your circle. When you're forward. Sit up tall. Hands at your side. [inaudible] long legs and goal. Rolling back. Beautiful. Right back up.

Show me the teaser. Keep your teaser hands stretch. Control your circle down as you reach. You can adjust it here. Once again. We've got one more. Now make it smooth. Keep it quiet. Smelled, smell smooth to come up. No noise. Looking back. No noise and down.

Quiet. I can hear you. Breathe. Control. That's it. Take the circle into your hands. We're going to roll like a ball. Hold that circle tight. Drop the head. Get tiny and we're going to roll back once. Come on up and stand up tall and back. Down. Goal.

Roll your body and come on up and reach for the ceiling. Right back down. Scoop. Roll in. Pull yourself up there. Love it. Give me one more. Roll down. Get those hips in the air. Reach yourself up in hole. There it is. Turn to your rights. Stand on the floor. Beautiful. Here we go. Pull the circle in front of you. I'm going to take my shoes off.

I'm going to do this with you guys. We're going to take some side splits like your on the reformer. Here we go. Take it out. Pull it in. Take it out, pull it in. These are on the floor. Vent. Squeeze. Look at my foot. Press out and hold. Now as I come in, drag your toe into the floor.

You're pulling your thighs together and go, oh, pull it in. One more. Oh, hold in and hold. How about some side lunges? Squeeze the circle out there. Pull it back in. Squeeze it out here. Press that circle, pull it in to the right. Bend the knee. You get lower, and now lift your belly higher there. Now pull it back in and go get you out there. Rachel, lift your belly, squeeze the circle and pull it in and you stay. Hold the belly in.

Hold your center. Your heels are on a teeny little plaque form. Think of them in the wrong. A little saucer for your tea. Tiny. Stay on that little saucer. We're gonna March. Every time you land, you're gonna land right back on that little saucer. Squeeze up, up, up. Don't get why Paul. Scoop. Lift. He was your stomach in and up and hold. Take your feet wider. Reach up sides. Sit ups. Ooh, the barrel. Pull up over.

Pull up now. No wiggling your hips. Solid. Pull up other side. Yeah. Oh, reach. Pull it up. Stretch. Pack it up. Stretch. Stay up. Open your feet wider. Come up on your toes in balance. Oh, a big twist. Twist to the right.

Twist to the right. Keep going, twist. Squeeze the circle. Reach back for your heel. Now come back up and up and up. Here we go. Twist left land your friend foot as you continue twisting Amy, bend your bottom leg, your back leg. Now you can twist more. Bend it, bend it.

There you go. Now reach to come back up. There you go. Twist. Right. The right foot comes onto the floor, but my left heel is still up. Bend that left leg reach far and everything back up to balance. One more. Give it a twist. Now your left foot comes down, your right knee bends. Keep twisting, keep twisting, keep twisting, all the way up to come home. Beautiful. Thank you ladies for joining. Rate.