Progressing to Intermediate

All right. Today I am going to do an intermediate a with a few advanced exercises. I've done a beginner series that took you from what is Peloton to an intermediate level and sometimes people wonder what class can I do next? And you can do pretty much any class if you have the basic [inaudible] principles. But I am going to take this class to add a few of the next advanced exercises.

We're going to be adding the roll up. We're going to be adding jackknife and swimming in these. So those might be a little slower than other exercises. But most of all, I am going to do the Mat class myself today to give you a little different feel to the flow and the energy. I really enjoy feeling great when I'm doing plies. That's why you should do politeness to feel really good.

So I want you to try to just let go of any idea in your head of maybe what you can't do or any doubts you have of your Palladio's abilities and just really think of in a positive way. I'm going to be using a lot of images today on what helped me feel great during an exercise in my head, what I'm supposed to be looking like and feeling like it really makes a significant difference in your work. So, uh, again, it's going to be more of a intermediate introducing advanced exercises, moderate pace and uh, I hope you enjoy it. All right, so we're going to start off with our Pilati stance toes two to three inches apart and you want to take this moment to really get the mind to connect to the body always. Okay? It's what's going to give you that willing spirit to do a wonderful, great, uh, Matt. So I'm lengthening my tailbone to the floor rather than having it lift behind me that my lower back loves to tighten up on me. I'm gonna think about my powerhouse pulling in behind the line of my hipbones and not only into my lower back, but also lifting my ribs and my sternum away from my pelvis.

So I don't have this heavy short body. I'm going to be lifting nice and long. Always lifting my head out of my neck, out of my shoulders, and the crown of my head to the ceiling. All right, we're going to put one arm over the other, one foot in front of the other and keeping that length. We're going to lower down onto the mat. Put your hands behind you and lift back and then reach out. Reach your arms back and just stretch.

I love to think about a horse on each limb, pulling me in opposite directions. Just really stretching, stretching, stretching. And then I'm going to pull my whole body back together. We're going to start off with the hundred. Draw your knees into your chest. I think about the wall exercises here. When you finish, I love doing the wall and you should be able to have your back flat against the wall in the, in the wall exercises and then you, your feet also against the wall. So if this was the wall, I'd be standing nice and tall and my feet and plotty stance and my lower back would be anchored. But usually that's very hard. So we'll have to bring our legs a little bit away from the wall, probably like here, but when the hundred it feels very different. When we start up and we lower our legs, I want you to picture yourself against the wall. Again, knees into your chest.

We're going to draw the head up, bringing you're using your powerhouse, and I'm going to extend my legs for very comfortable level. And inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. I'm warming up. I'm thinking of my arches, pulling up my inner thighs and my powerhouse, but now I'm thinking of that wall, right? So my back's against the wall and I'm trying to get my legs closer and closer to the wall. The goal is to have the legs at eye level, so you're thinking about this goal. If that's hard, bring them up to where it's comfortable. And in two, three, four, five, exhale or keep trying to go there, but you're really trying to pull your belly in and up. And XL, notice I'm not bouncing my head and shoulders up and down. I'm saying really grounded.

Two more at exhale. Last one. And excellent. Lower your legs down, reach your arms back. The roll up begins here, but if you have a really tight back, let's go ahead and sit up and start with your knees bent and your hands under a new start. The roll back and stead. But I'm going to go ahead and start lying down. Okay. Because this is now more again, intermediate to advance.

So in with the ear, the arms come up, head to your chest, exhale, curling forward. So what I'm picturing here is a spaghetti noodle. You're trying to see if your spaghetti noodles ready. It's cooked and you can slap it against the refrigerator and it rolls itself down so it stays really tight. It's not a big [inaudible] like almost sticks together.

So you're like trying to put your chest onto your thighs, onto your calves and rolling back and same thing slithering down, staying really close so that you're articulating the spine and you're really getting a good stretch on the back of your legs. Cause the next exercise that we're going to introduce is the rollover, which is the exact opposite of the roll up. We're going to do one more. I also want to add that you really to enjoy [inaudible]. You want to feel like you are listening to a radio, not watching TV.

So you want to think about my cues more like you're to them rather than having to see every single thing. So try to really connect your body. So we're going to do the roll over, which is the exact opposite of the roll up. Roll Up. You moved your upper body to your lower, like that wet noodle roll over. We're going to move the lower body to your upper body. So I'm going to scoop in my powerhouse, squeeze my bottom and use that connection to go over.

Open the legs and roll down with the legs. Shoulder width apart. Go as low as you can. Scoop in it when I see low as you can. That's with your powerhouse still in and your back anchor. One more and then we're going to reverse down. Long back, let's reverse.

So I'm going to click my heels together separate and over, squeeze them together and I'm trying to keep my thighs on my chest as I link them my spine down. That's that wet noodle image. Two more. Squeeze those inner thighs or lengthening down. Well last one, it should be a nice stretch work but stretch. We're going to keep your right leg, stretch it as that left leg goes down cause down the middle of your body. And here I'm picturing myself doing the splits again, picturing myself cause I know it's far from it.

But imagine you're really doing the splits and that's where you want to go every time. If you're tight in the hamstrings, you can always bend this knee but always work towards your goal of having a long leg on the mat. Arms press down by your side and I'm going to cross. I'm going to open as wide as I don't move this hip. It stays flat on the Mat. Doesn't rollover with my leg now to Tampa four times, cross around, up chorus, around, up to around, up one, around reverse.

The other leg works just as hard, but I'm trying each time to bring the leg up to split. Reaching out, up to split two one more, and then I'm going to bend my knee. Switching legs, right leg goes down, hugging the left, extend the left stretch. Feel the muscles on the back of your right leg, pushing down into the mat. Arms down by your side. Feel your belly. Pull the left leg up like you're splitting and cross around range of motion. Trying to find it. Okay to tempo for cross around up.

Don't forget about going out a little bit if you can to more reaching all the way to the bottom foot. Reverse open around that sink in your powerhouse, stretching the spine. One more. Really important for corkscrew that you get the connection of your and the legs circling. All right, both legs down and we're going to do the rolling like a ball. Inhale, lift up your head. Exhale, roll up so it should still look like the ruler. Same control and you're going to lift your seat to your heels. I'm going to do it with my hands on my ankles. But you could, if your spine is stiff, you could go back to the roll up right here and just go down and work on your strength.

Or You could do it with your hands underneath your knees or we could advance it to hands on your ankles. We're not doing super advanced where we've crossed our hands, but I am having my hands on my ankles here. I love to picture a tennis ball. So the stitches on a tennis ball. What does that look like? That's going to be my head with my ears in between my knees and my heels are going to try to stay glued to my seat. So I'm gonna pull my lower belly really far away from my hip flexors.

Head between the knees. Inhale to roll back. Exhale to come up. Five morning hand rolling. Trying to keep my head full between my knees, trying to get my heels on my feet. It's my bottom and my belly that lifted my seat over my shoulders. Let's do one more just in case we need to. Okay.

And rest your feet down. All right, we're going to lift your bottom back and now we're going to do the series of five on the series of five. I want you to be nice and controlled and we're going to draw the right knee into your chest, right hand on ankle, left hand on knee. How are we going to lift the left leg? It's like a sharp knife cutting down the middle of your body. We're going to use your lower belly to keep pulling the um, leg in to you and to you. And we're going to balance right here.

Great. Okay. Stretch the left leg. Quite honestly, the image I use here because I could do this all day with my strong legs, is I really picture myself in a bathing suit and how I want my stomach not just to pull in, but to pull in and up. So whether you're male or female, I'm sure you want the same thing and pulling in and up. Really challenging your belly and two more sets, cause you could do this all day with your hip flexors and with your quads, but you want to do it with your powerhouse. Double leg stretch. I picked your two arrows in opposite directions, reaching, reaching. Pull yourself together in with the exhale. Five more exhale, arrows reach.

You don't lose your center. You try to touch something on that wall. Touch something on the wall behind you. Three more. Yeah, I'm a lousy counter by the way. Last one and right into single straight leg, right leg goes up. Try to really picture like you're lifting up to grab something.

And now I imagine my legs aren't legs. Spring's working, those legs springs, I switch, I switch and now I pick up the tempo, right, have left, right, left, right love to more sense and you know for hands behind your head, one over the other and you're going to pull up both legs or in those legs. Springs reach them to the floor in pulling them. Reach and pull up. Pull up three more and reach double leg springs here. And now Chris Cross, I picked her a straight line from elbow to toe and I tried to pull to that knee and switch.

Really trying to twist and rotate my fine and up up up shoulder blades. I'm imagining that they're lifted and totally lost and had both knees in. Okay, we're going to sit up for spine stretch forward. [inaudible] alright, so heals. Go on. I'm using a grads mat. If you don't have a grads mat and you just have a regular yoga mat, just have your shoulder hit your feet three inches wider than your shoulders.

All right, so I like to have my heels right in the middle of each block. Really important as those sit bones pressing through. And I want to picture really an old fashioned magnet. You know those big u shape magnets. So I'm going to pull in and exhale down. So while I'm doing this and screaming into the microphone and rolling up, I also picture a um, like a firework right here like, and because I want to last space, a lot of energy between my lower belly and my hip flexors, I want them to separate instead of cramping and coming together.

So while I'm going up off my sip phones, pressing a little down with my triceps, I want to articulate, but again, really creating as much space there as I tried to touch the crown of my head down to the mat and inhaling up. It's a lot of work, but a wonderful stretch. Lifting the belly in and up, keeping that space. We learned spine stretch forward first because it's gets a little harder when we do saw. So this is like this basic basic exercise. Last one, exhaling all your ear and inhale all of it up and relax. Now we're going to go into open leg rocker. So I'm going to always move from my powerhouse.

I'm going to bring my legs together centered on the Mat, draw them towards me, hands on my ankles. If you're a little stiff in the hamstrings, you can place your hands behind your knees. I'm going to do it with my hands on my ankles and I'm going to scoop in and I'm going to extend my legs. I'm going to always try to focus on something in front of me and always try to use my power house, not my back, although my lower back is part of that to lift forward. This is now a rocking chair. Magine. There is a rocking chair, right?

I'm sitting on one and I'm going to rock back and rock right up. Working forward, forward, forward, and five more. Always inhaling back and exhaling forward. [inaudible] even here, I want to see that burst of firework that lift away from my hip flexors in one more lifting, lifting. And now we're going to go into corkscrew. So I'm going to squeeze my inner thighs together.

I'm gonna reach my hips away from me, lowering down my lower back, middle and upper. All right, so I'm going to keep it still intermediate here. I'm going to try to stretch my legs to the right circle around and pull center. I imagine two anchors left around and center. I've dropped anchor from each oblique into the mat. Nice and feeling my waist muscles. Always want to warm those up.

We're going to do saw next left. Try to keep a Palati stance and a mermaid tail reaching away from you. One more. Okay. And now we're going to do saw sit up heel on each block.

All right, so the most important thing is to feel those sip bones deep into the mat, arms out. So I'm going to twist my waist, pulling it in, good. And now I'm going to exhale, reaching my baby, my pinky for my baby toe. Exhaling, keep in mind that starburst is that firework and inhaling up so that you're not lying down on your thigh. You're creating a lot of space still. My right cheek is still down, I'm not falling off and I'm really trying to create as much space here as I can. And inhale, breathing, exercise, twist.

Exhale as you pool into your lungs, squeezing out your hair in with [inaudible] twist and exhale. My tricep here is working to lift my pinky up. Inhaling up. One more set twist and exhale, pinky up. There's a modification for this exercise. If you have a bad shoulder, you'll want to watch that breakdown. Exhaling very nice Orrin legs together. Let's turn onto our stomach and we're going to do neck roll.

So if you're lucky enough to have a [inaudible] mat, you will have this bar here that you can put your hands on to do the neck rule. If you don't though, you want you to really use the image of your hands being suction cups and you're going to put your hands under your shoulders on the Yoga Mat and then a little forward and a little out to the side. If you're stiff in your spine, if you've got a really flexible spine, go for it. Keep your hands underneath your shoulders like this with your shoulders away from your ears. This does it help. Okay, we're trying to length and really think about what the exercise is. It's called neck roll, so you're trying to stretch your neck. Okay? We're going to squeeze our seat, scoop our Bellion, lift our stomach in and up, lifting up our sternum in the opposite direction.

Legs are trying to stay together. Look over your right shoulder that hasn't moved down over to your left that hasn't moved and look forward. Look left down over to your right and look forward. Now those suction cups are pulling the map behind you as you lengthen your spine. One more set. Squeeze, zipping up, everything behind. Scoop your belly in and up. Lengthening out the crown of your head. Shoulders are away from your ears.

Let's look left first this time and then circle the chin down over to your right and forward. Look right over to your left and forward and now coming down powerhouses in and up. Lengthening your Suction Cup. Hands are pulling the mat behind him. Let's go into single leg kick. You're going to be up onto your elbows like a sphinx and then turn out the elbows a little bit and push the knuckles together. All right, we're going to scoop in and I picture here my toe touching my head. It's might not get there, but the visual really helps me to work a lot harder.

I keep my knees up off the mat and I'm going to go one, two to my head with my right foot. One to left, one, two, right? Two Romana used to grab my ponytail and pull it to touch my foot. So Magine your head doesn't want to go away from your foot, wants to go towards us, you're working your back extension one legs, reaching away, one legs squeezing and last left and right facial cheek on the mat. And now we're going to do double leg kick on double leg kick. You're gonna put your hands up behind in between your shoulder blades.

And here I picture my old school days of doing um, a lot of machine work and I'm doing a hamstring curl where there's a way across my ankles and I'm going to pull into my seat. I'm not going to be explaining much when I flip my head here cause you'll hear too much noise on the mic. So I'll only explain things on this cheek. So I want you to really press your hips down into the mat so that there's not a tunnel and you're going to use the hamstrings and glutes to lift your knees up as you kick three times into your seat. Kicking one, two, three, stretch out long. Preparing for your Swan. One day. How high can you lift? And we'll switch cheeks back up to your swan. Three kicks in, taking one, two, three and lifting. And now it's up to you to keep that rhythm and lift two, three and let's go and stretch your back. Nice work. Flip onto your back for neck pull.

I'm going to use this strap here because I have it and I'm transitioning from intermediate to advanced. But if you don't, you could put your legs under a couch and that works. Or if you're strong enough, you don't need it at all. So we're going to do the neck pool. All right, so there are two bones that stick out at the bottom of your skull and they're called your occipital processes. But I want you to have the part of your thumb like Ray, where it hits the middle of [inaudible], your hand w each and part cupping under. Try to do that with my mic here underneath cause that's why it's called neck poor.

You're lengthening your skull away from your spine and that creates a long neck. We're going to draw the inner thighs and powerhouse and up to scoop it and come forward. Elbows wide. Inhale, sit up tall and then lengthen that neck. Of course, it's from your powerhouse. You're lengthening, lengthening, lengthening from your past four more. When I go back, I'm pulling my baby toes back with me, my inner thighs, my lower belly, everything. Three more. Exhale. Inhale, sit up tall. Pull on those bones and two more. Rounding forward.

Sit up tall over those sit bones pulling back. And one more time curling up. Still thinking of that wet noodle. Inhale up tall. But now that wonderful length. All right, so the next exercise we're gonna add is knife jack knife is just like the roll up and the rollover, the reverse jack knife and neck polar. Almost the reverse. If you have had the privilege of working on a Cadillac, you want to picture yourself doing the tower.

My feet are on a bar and I'm going to use my house and hips to push that bar over. And now I'm gonna push it up to the ceiling and control down. Another image I really like to use to work hard is I imagine that there is an escalator going up between my bottom right up above my shoulders and my hips have to go up the escalator for control. So I'm going to pull in and I'm going to go up the escalator and squeezing up. Easier said than done and down. And one more.

So you don't just fling your lower body over up with control. Squeeze up to the ceiling and down. Nice job. Let's do sidekicks. So we're going to lie down on our left side all the way on the back edge of your mat. Okay.

And bring your feet forward. Now if you're advanced, who are working towards advanced, flex your feet, bring the top leg in front and then slide your bottom under. So it'd be about here. We could probably work just a little more forward, but I'm telling you that so you don't get comfortable working quite like that. Alright? This part of your body is square as if you're against that wall. Now I want you to think of traction like someone's pulling your right leg out of your hip socket, and if the foot is touching that wall, and I want your foot to touch the wall the entire time. So we're gonna kick forward touching all the walls and touching all the walls back and forward and back.

It stays at hip level and it doesn't roll in and out. You work in a little turnout from your powerhouse. Let's do five more reaching out of your hip pollen and reaching and scoop and reach, and two and one more and now legs together. Now in a picture of my leg springs, again, I'm going to kick up to the my ear and Dan, they're gonna kick up and squeeze working against my spring and up and squeeze working against guys wearing three more, still trying to reach out for traction, pulling my belly in and up the opposite way. One more. I'm fine. I'll circle circle one, two, three. This tribute, full hips and legs. Reverse one, two, three, four, five. We're going to add bicycle here, so bicycle should really work your legs as well as stretching your quads. So we're going to reach out and kick forward as far as you can.

Then bend your knee into your chest. Just like single leg stretch right now. Keep your heel on your seat as you take your knee to the other knee. Then keeping your heel on your seat and have always your powerhouse in. Take your knee as far back as you can. Then keeping your knee there. Straighten your leg, reaching out behind you.

Using your hamstring and glute to more flowing forward. Need a knee all the way back and extend one more. Take the leg forward. Knee to chest. Need a knee, knee behind you and extend it and legs together. Reverse back the fine Gluco behind you. Keep your thigh at that angle as you pull your heel to your head member and then need a knee.

Need a chest and extend to more reach touching all the walls, toe to your head. Need a knee, need a chest and extend one more all the way reaching behind you. Towed ahead. Need a knee, need a chest and extend and then legs together. Let's turn onto your stomach. Keep me my legs lifted cause I'm working my hamstrings and glutes. I'm going to open my legs, the width of the mat and squeeze them together. And now 20 times super fast. What? Three powerhouse.

Always in 10 more. Six. Don't use your lower back. Use your powerhouse and the other side. Now we're going to roll over to our others. I'm going to have my back to you and we're going to bring our legs forward. So here with my back to you, you can see if my hips, my sacrum is in line with my shoulders. And if my elbows two four, that's not good either. So I'm going to pull it back to challenge myself.

The back of my ribs need to not move either. Alright, so I'm gonna again, think about my bottom, my top leg traction, reaching out, stretching to touch that corner where my two walls meet and I'm going to kick forward and kick back. And use my powerhouse and use my hamstrings and glutes and forward and back. Seven more reaching always out. I'm not tightening my hip flexor to do this. I'm not rolling in and out with my knee.

I'm really focusing on working those leg muscles to reach out of my pelvis and to more forward powerhouse and back and last one and back. And now I'm going to pretend my leg springs are on. I'm going to kick up to my air and squeeze, pulling down a really heavy spring and up. And now I'm also gonna focus on two opposite arrows. As my leg goes down, my powerhouse pulls in and up, stretching my back and up, almost like neck pull, pulling my neck this way and up.

And one more outer thigh, inner thigh, five circles, one, two, nothing in the square. Politely. Xbox moves reverse one to try to hit the arch of your bottom leg rather than the ankle and enough bicycle. Kick that top leg forward. Bend the knee into your chest using your powerhouse. Keep your heel on your seat as the knee goes to the other knee. Keep your heel on, your seat is your knee goes back and extend.

And then two more to Tempa forward. Need a chest. Need a knee, knee, back extent. One more forward. Need a chest. Need a knee, knee back and reach behind. You're using the hamstring and glue yet still like someone's pulling on your traction. Reverse back, back of the leg and glute toe touches my head. Romana is pulling my Pintel to my toe. Need a need a chest and pretend you're doing the splits up here. Two more.

Back toed ahead. Need knee. Need a chest and extend one more back toe to head. Need a knee. Need a chest and extent and reaching long. Good. All right, we're going to lie on our back and we're going to bend our knees and Cherchez and we're going to kind of throw a Tantrum here cause we're going to do not one but not two but three different teasers. So we're adding teaser two and three as well. I forgot to mention that. So shaking out my legs so that they don't grip.

Because when we're not super advanced, they tend to try to help. So I'm gonna extend my legs up and I'm going to reach my arms back. And now the teaser was created because you used to have your feet on his, um, top of his thighs on Joseph Fly's thighs and you tried to come up and touch his shoulders. So I use that image. Okay. So I'm gonna start here. I'm gonna use my hips to reach out and my legs arresting and I'm gonna roll up and try to touch his shoulders, shoulders, shoulders, and then roll away from it to more in with your exhaling shoulders, shoulders, shoulders, and pulling away. One more. Using my powerhouse to keep rolling up until I touch his shoulders and down.

Now we're going to go for teaser two. So I'm going to keep my upper body. I'm going to keep my hands on his shoulders and my legs are going to go down and come up to him and down and up to him and Dan up. And now I'm going to lift my arms up for teaser three. Everything goes down. Now I'm like a tulip. A flower. Ramani is the love to use that image. So in the middle in the night, the two of closes. So I'm going to use my power house. I'm going to lift, lift, lift to look closes. And now the tulip opens. Two more up and one more to his shoulders. And Dan, nice job. How'd you knees in?

Let's go into swimming. Just three more exercises here. So flipping onto your stomach, we're going to start off with more of the physical therapy or PT version of swimming. So you want to keep your frame, your [inaudible] box nice and square on the Mat. And we're going to keep your left hand and arm and your right leg on the mat. So you're gonna pull your belly in and lift up your right arm and left leg higher, higher, higher and down from your powerhouse. Other leg and arm. One more set.

Working the hamstring and glute and keeping your body square. One more other side. And now we'll do the plot. His version. You're going to lift all your limbs and inch off the mat. Long out of the center, right arm and left leg higher.

Head up out of the water and swim. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. One more sec. And exhale two, three, four, five. Melt into the mat. Round your back and stretch. [inaudible] am I going to turn around for seal? We're going to do six seals and we're going to stand up. So make sure you have a little room in front of you cause you're gonna end up standing up for pushups. Okay.

Always using my powerhouse to bring my legs towards me and always thinking about massaging my spine when I'm doing a rolling exercise. Clap two, three in with the air. Exhale. So I'm clapping an inch off the floor in front of me and I'm trying to get an inch off the floor behind me, but I'm not trying to put my weight on my neck. [inaudible] two more. Try to keep this space two more and then we'll stand up. Kay. [inaudible] last one. Let go. Cross.

Use your hamstrings and glutes to push into the earth to stand up. Really important. Knows my weights forward, not back in case you felt like you had a fall back. My weight really lifted forward. Okay, so we're going to turn around and finish with our pushups. If you can only hit a plank position, that's fabulous. I'm going to be working on my collarbones and my triceps and my chest muscles, so I'm going to reach up always picturing a wall [inaudible] stance.

All right, and we're gonna roll off an imaginary wall. Hands to the floor. You can bend your knees if you're not flexible enough. Walk out. Try not to sway your hips side to side. Hands get in place. Now Watch how I lower my hips and my power house.

Now I'm a straight line straight piece of steel from head to heel and down. Up One go as low as feels good to you. Again, if you're just holding one more the position and great, and now I'm using my power has to live. Walk back to my heels and roll up. I'm going to keep the weight of my body on the ball of my foot, never pushing my bottom too far behind me. One more set for that whole body workout. Rolling off the Magic Mirror, lifting in and out, walking out without swinging too much, and five push ups. Here we go, and lifting with my powerhouse. Three more and pulling in, walking back to my feet, keeping my weight on the ball of my foot, and I'm going to roll up using my powerhouse arms lift.

I'm going to go ahead and separate my feet, let my arms drop in front of me and lift into a nice backpack and then arms back up. Lift and turn my poems up and push down as if I'm hanging between two buildings. I've got to pull myself up, up, up, and I'm all finished. Thank you and I hope you enjoyed that class.