Balance and Coordination Mat

Hi, my name is Viktor Uygan from Konnect Pilates, Mission Viejo, California in Orange County and today we will be practicing a Pilates mat class with you. Thank you for joining to me ladies and the focus of the exercise today, it's gonna be flow, through movement once again and the beginning exercises that I'm gonna do, the warmup, I'm gonna create something, I'm gonna basically connect those exercises and create different exercises at the end so stay tuned and see what we're gonna do with those exercises. To start up, you're gonna stand up, hip width apart, feel nice and tall and my goal is, right now, to trying to warm up major joints and muscle groups. It's a great exercise, we're gonna do a squat, lifting the arms up to the ceiling. This is an inhale and exhale come back to starting position.

Let's go deep, inhale, two and come back in, beautiful. Inhale, three, exhale, very nice, love the breathing, and four, and five, and six. Leave the arm there and straight your legs. Now we're gonna press the arms down when we exhale and we're gonna go up on our toes, lift the heels up, this is exhale and inhale roll down, control the heels, exhale come up, arms and feet should actually match when the heel arrives, hands has to be on top and when you need to be all the way on top, hands needs to be down and down, inhale, and two more. Exhale up, and inhale down and last time, exhale up and inhale down, beautiful.

Let's combine those two exercises together. So you gonna do squat, arms up, this is inhale, arms press down and you go up to roll over, high heels, lifts up and inhale down, and exhale up, inhale down, beautiful, and three, and down, and four, and down, and five, and down, last one, six, and down and relax, beautiful. So, now to add flexion and extension, it's the same muscle movement groups but before we do that, let's do actually rotation, so open your feet wider than your hips, arms to the side, from here we're gonna inhale from your nose and we're gonna turn towards the right side, rotation and let the hip turn with it, and come back in, inhale center, and exhale to the left. And come up, let's inhale to turn, exhale to come up, let's inhale to the left, and come up, one more set. Inhale, center and exhale, center.

Repeat the same thing without moving your hips. Square hips, and rotation just comes from the spine, inhale, exhale, come back in and to the left, as you know this is gonna be a lot smaller. And to the right, to the left, and last set, right, and left, beautiful. Come back to center, hip width apart, this time we're gonna do, once again, squat, you're gonna bring your hands down, and you're gonna come up to extension with arms up, and come back forward, round your spine from flexion, leave your hands down below, and stay in flexion with the straight legs. And then dip in and come up, inhale, and exhale forward and round, beautiful.

And inhale, feel the extension and come back and exhale, two more, and exhale, and one more, and exhale, roll up and relax. So we did some squats, arm movement, rotation, flexion and extension and I'm gonna do some balance exercises to activate the core, alright? So from here, just basic nothing fancy, we're gonna flex your right foot and lift them up, right, 90 degree, and bring them down and alternate to the left. Trying to not rock right to left. And left, beautiful, two more.

And one, and relax, fantastic, and lastly, I'm gonna introduce you a concept that we're gonna use during the mat class. I would like you to go back to right foot up, ninety degrees, hold your knees with your arms, and use your arms to move the legs, so you feel the difference when you activitating your arms, and your legs is kind of relaxed, correct? Good, now I want you to do opposite, relax your arms but still holding, so arms like a rope and press the leg down, and feel that pull, do you guys feel that? So, I want you to feel this because we're gonna use this during the mat class. And let go, let's feel the same thing on the other side.

So, hold your knee and pull it towards you, move your leg first, and now straight arms, and press the left leg down, here we go, feel that energy, feel nice and tall, don't get short, and let go, fantastic. Now we've warmed up, let's lay down on our back and once again, start with the traditional exercise of hundreds. You wanna make sure, lay down on your back, slowly, beautiful, we're gonna bend both knees to your chest, table top, arms up towards the ceiling, inhale from your nose, you're gonna exhale, press your arms down, tuck your chin and extend your legs straight out. It could be as lows as you can, or safe position high, and inhale, two, three, four, five, exhale, two, two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five, three (breathes), four (breathes), five (breathes), six (breathes), seven (breathes), scoop your belly in (breathes), nine (breathes), last set (breathes). Bend your knees to your chest, and exhale slowly, roll down, fantastic.

Bring your heels down on the mat, hands on the floor as well. We're gonna get into bridge position with arms. First, we're gonna inhale, stay in neutral position, lift your arms up and over, this is the inhale, exhale, tilt your pelvis posteriorly, and lift your hips up while you're pressing your arms forward down to the mat. And inhale hold, and exhale roll down, and bring the arms back. Inhale hold, exhale, tilt your pelvis, and push up, nice and long, don't over extend your back here trying to be nice and long, and inhale, and exhale, roll down, one more set, this way, inhale, exhale, pelvic tilt to bridge, pressing your arms down, inhale hold, exhale, roll down, very nice.

Now, inhale from your nose once again, keep the arms up in air, exhale, let's go up with the bridge, we're gonna do single leg, alternating marching, and when we exhale lift the right leg up and press the arms down, inhale, put them back, arms over, and other side. Exhale, left up, and over, inhale hold, exhale roll down, beautiful. Inhale, arms in the back again, exhale, let's go up to bridge, inhale, hold exhale, arm and leg goes up, and down, and left, and down, inhale, hold, arms there, and exhale, roll down, one last set, inhale, hold arms, exhale, come up, and right leg up and arms presses down, exhale, inhale back, and exhale. Inhale back and slowly roll down. Fantastic.

We're gonna reach towards your knees, you're gonna lift your chest up, and bend your knees to your chest. Unlike pulling all the way in towards you, I want you to introduce that concept we talked about, push your knees away from you, that's gonna help you to lift your upper body up, and sink your stomach in as far as you can, beautiful. From here, we're gonna inhale, just arms, extend up and over, and exhale come back in. Inhale, and exhale, inhale, exhale, every exhale try to come up higher, four, and stay there when you do arm circles, five, one more, six, now bend the knee to your chest, and roll down to stretch your neck, and rest. Making one small circle, and maybe you can reverse it, and let's go back to same position, now just the legs, hold this position, and leg goes out, exhale, sorry, exhale, come back in.

Inhale, extend the legs out, beautiful, exhale, come back in two, don't change anything upper body, and exhale, three, and reach, reach, reach, reach, reach exhale, four, and reach, reach, reach, reach, and five, one more. And relax, fantastic. I know what's going through your mind, right? And you're absolutely right. We're gonna now mix those two together.

And exhale, come up, hold your position, inhale, extend your legs and arms together, don't change the body position, exhale, pull in, inhale, exhale, inhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, two more, one more, and lay down on your back slowly. Extend the right leg out straight, you're holding the left, we're gonna use that concept that I mentioned, you're gonna push the left knee away from you, tuck your chin and it's gonna help you to roll up, feel nice and tall, change legs, inhale, and exhale roll down, use that leg to roll down slowly, beautiful, that leg is always pushing away from you, nice, inhale, and exhale, let's go up with the right, and hold here, feel nice and tall. Now, right leg is bent, left hand on top of the right, and you're gonna open up opposition this way. This is inhale, then you're gonna bend the opposite leg, so you kind of round tucked in ball position, cross, and we're gonna open up the other side, beautiful, here we go, that's it and come back in, so the bottom arm opens up, and that leg, and open, inhale, exhale, cross, round, inhale, open. How is that feel?

Nice, now let's make it little bit challenging, each time you open up and close, you're gonna lean back little bit. We're gonna work our way towards the floor, and inhale, and exhale, round, round, round, round, and inhale, we're going down, now down, down, down, so my lower backs touching, my feet is off and come back in the cross, and open up and cross, and open up, inhale, and cross, two more, inhale, exhale, feel the twist, last time, come back, twist, and bend your knees to your chest, and relax. How is that feel? Great. Alright. Left foot straight out, and help yourself to come up.

Feel nice and tall, from here you're gonna extend both legs, reach up towards the ceiling, inhale, you're gonna reach forward, stretch your back, point your feet, and brush your hand on the mat, and bring it, come back forward, so you're doing a spine flexion, and stop your hands right behind your hip, yeah, beautiful. So from here, we're gonna inhale, and we're gonna do back support, you're gonna push both hips up, hold it there, we're gonna reach down with your tailbone, all the way to the floor, inhale, and come up with your arms, and exhale, roll down again. And this is a long exhale, bring the hands behind you, inhale, push up and exhale, reach back with the tailbone, inhale, reach up to the ceiling, exhale, roll down, this is the third one, and exhale, long exhale, come back and reach back a little further with your hands if you want more stretch. And inhale, push up, inhale, tailbone down, and exhale up, and forward, nice. Next set, we gonna do leg kicks, so go back, inhale, push up, alternating, right leg up, and down, now left, up and down, reach down with the tailbone.

Sorry, I'm not going to do too many, just one set is enough and push forward, and we are gonna do two more sets, though. And inhale, exhale, up and down, exhale, up and down, excellent, reach, inhale up, last set, and roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, inhale up, last one ladies, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, reach back with the tailbone, inhale up to the ceiling, you wanna make sure now you are on the edge of the mat, here we go, keep your heels close to your glutes, tuck like a ball, you know what's coming up next. We're gonna roll like a ball, main thing, never put pressure on your neck, you only roll back to your shoulders, really get small and tight, as much as you can, and slowly balance first, first is the balance, you could do one neck up and the other toe up. Once you feel the balance, inhale, round your spine and tilt yourself direct back and come back to balance. And back, and front, beautiful, and three (breathes), three more.

Two more (breathes), no pressure on the knee, I mean on the neck, and last one, feel nice and tall and extend your spine, put your feet down. You can scooch back just a little bit, extend your left leg straight out, bend your right knee and get help from right leg to go down, beautiful. Now, from here, exhale, crunch up, we're gonna do criss cross. Bring your hands behind your neck, we're gonna turn towards the right leg with the left shoulder, inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, that's a one set. So we're gonna start, inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, two, two, three, four, three, two, three, four, four, two, three, four, five, three, four, six, two, three, four, and come back center and slowly roll down, fantastic, how does that feel?

Love it, you guys made it look so easy, so we are gonna do the exact same exercise with the straight legs. You're gonna reach up towards the ceiling with the right leg, cross with the left shoulder to the right, left leg down straight and, inhale, two, three, four, exhale, two, three, four, sorry, inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, four sets, exhale, exhale, fifth one, (breathes) last one, and bend your knees to your chest, and relax, beautiful. Who believes co-ordination matters? (laughs) We all do I guess, right? Alright, let's try to co-ordinate our movement, so one set bent, one set straight, alright?

Here we go, so bent one, get ready, so we gonna do inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, bent, so, inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, straight. It goes, inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, straight, straight, exhale, exhale, bent, bent, exhale, exhale, straight, straight, exhale, exhale, last set, inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, yes, bend both knees to your chest and relax. Only thing I have to work co-ordination on my keyring and fantastic, beautiful. Now we done that, we gonna turn sideways, and we're gonna lay on our side. You have a option to support your head or you can extend your arms and relax your head.

The top arm is gonna be used to support you, here we go, alright, so from here we're gonna do both feet on top of each other, flex foot, you wanna make sure that you're not sitting on your side that you laying, it's lifted, hips on top of each other, from here we're gonna go inhale, both leg up, and down, and two, and down, and three, beautiful, one straight line, four, and five, very nice, six, one hold there, top leg only, up and down, and two, keep them parallel, three, four, five, six, hold it here, bottom leg only, down, up, down, up down, up, four, five, hold it here, top leg, front, and back, and front, down, and back, down, here we go, beautiful circles, yes, and five, and six, good. Both legs on top of each other, and relax down, don't relax too much, just bend your knees and send your heels behind your knees. 90 degree, from here I still want one straight line from knee to top of your head, fantastic. Both legs down, both heels down, now I've keeping the heels glued, you're gonna open the top knee, and close for glutes, flex for both, two, nice, and three, nice, four, stomach in, and five, and six, come back in, bring the top heel on top of the bottom knee. And, open, close and squeeze on knee, open, and squeeze, hello gluteus, and four, and five, and six, come back in.

Reach with the bottom hand, hold the top knee, press down and open up the other side. We all know how to do this, breathe, relax, two more breaths (breathes), one more breath (breathes), and bring your top arm in and we're gonna lay down prone, beautiful. So stay that traction, you're feet facing towards each other, we're gonna start with baby swan. So lay down on your stomach, engage your abs, you can keep your feet a little bit apart if you want, you can keep it together if you want more challenge, press the top of your feet down, pubic bone pressing down, reach forward with your arms and a little bit wider than your shoulders, and let the palms facing towards each other, so from here, I'm gonna scooch back, just to show you that I will be on the floor this way. So we're gonna inhale, we're gonna do extension, and you're gonna use your arms pressing down, to help you to lift up a little bit, and then exhale, roll down, beautiful.

And again, inhale, come up, use your arms, activate your arms, lengthening shoulders away from the earth and relax down. One more, go up, and down. I know it's boring so I'm going to add something. Next three, we're gonna come up again, inhale, and exhale, lift your right arm without changing anything and put em down, and exhale, left arm up, and down, and relax, that's it, two more, inhale, up, exhale, right arm up, and down, exhale, inhale, and exhale, last one. And exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, lift, and roll down, beautiful.

Make a fist with your hands and rest your forehead on your wrist, that's one way to do it, option. Or we're gonna put your arms this way, elbows on the floor, we're gonna do single leg kick, feel nice and tall, we're gonna do inhale, and kick your right heel to your tailbone, towards your tailbone twice, flex foot, and extend point, and left, flex, two, extend, inhale, inhale, exhale, engage your abs, stomach in, don't put any pressure on your lower back, beautiful, two more sets, five, two, extend, five, two, extend, last set, and relax your back down. Push yourself up and over to your heels, and stretch (breathes), beautiful, continue breathing, inhale from your nose, exhale from your mouth, and slowly stack your vertebrae on top of each other, and come back to extension. Now we gonna turn other side, still make sure your feet facing toward each other, if you like, or that's not gonna work right? So you gonna have to this time face towards each other and lay down, there we go, beautiful.

Take the same option, if your hand was here, keep it here, or down, or if you want to change it, you're free to do that as well, top leg is stabilizing you, both leg flex, ready to go? And inhale up, exhale down, and two, mess, three, and four, and five, and six, hold it there, the top leg, up and down, keep it parallel, keep the bottom one activated, four, nice, five, six, beautiful, bottom one, and down and up, down and up, and three, and four, and five, and six, and left one, doing arcs, front down, and back down, front down, and back, three, four, five, six. Both together, and down, knee flexion, heel behind the knee, alright, one straight line, and ready, heels glued, open the left, and close, the top knee opens up and closes, three, four, five, six, and bring the top heel on top of the bottom knee, and you can even squeeze it down, stretch that, and then open and close, squeeze down, open two, and down, three, four, five, and six, beautiful. Reach towards the knee with the bottom arm, press that knee down and open up the opposite direction, twist your spine, inhale from your nose, exhale from your mouth, let's take two more breaths. (breathes) One more breath (breathes), fantastic.

Bring the top arm forward, and we're gonna go back to prone. And guess what guys, our baby swan grow up to be a swan, so we're gonna lay down and we're gonna bring the shoulders right in front of the shoulder rest, feel nice and tall, same principles, nothing change apart our baby arc just got bigger, or baby swan I should say, and from here, we're gonna inhale and extend your arms to come up all the way. And exhale slowly, roll down, if you bring your hands closer to underneath the shoulders, the arc is gonna be harder, if you move it away from you, it's gonna be easier, it's gonna require less extension. And exhale down, so you can decide where you at, and practice that way, and inhale, feel nice and tall, and down, beautiful, and inhale, exhale down, two more, inhale, relax your shoulders away from your ears, exhale down, and last one, inhale, and exhale. Face towards me, beautiful, and drop your head down, we're gonna cross your fingers behind you and relax the top of your hands on top of your back and relax your shoulders.

We're gonna do double leg kick series. We're gonna kick this time, three times, so we're gonna go, kick, two, three, exhale, entend, and one, two, three, exhale, two more sets, one, two, three, (breathes), kick, two, three, (breathes), last set, two, three, (breathes), one, two, three, (breathes), and relax, bring your hands underneath your shoulder, and push yourself up and over to your heels. Inhale from your nose and exhale, one last time, inhale and exhale, slowly transfer your weight back to your heels, and stack your vertebrae on top of each other to come to straight position, beautiful. We're gonna come up on your knees and you're gonna step forward with the right foot. We're gonna do kneeling lunges and you're gonna extend the left arm up towards the ceiling while you're going forward, and come back in, fantastic.

And inhale, and trying to get some extension, and come back in, and this arc, it starts from the top of your fingers, and down to the knee, and come back in, protect your lower back, do not sit on our lower doses, you wanna make sure your abdominal's supporting your lower back. And last one, sixth one, and inhale, and come back in, beautiful, let's change legs. So left foot front, we're gonna repeat the same thing. Now we're leaning forward, right arm up towards the ceiling, and stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, and come back in, and the second one, beautiful, and the third one, good, and fourth, nice, two more, last one, and come back in, beautiful. My intent was to prepare you for the next exercise.

The baby swan that became a swan is rocking now, so we're gonna do the swan dive and that was a stretching exercise to open up the front chain of our body. So, we'll lay down on your back and I would like you to watch me, first one, because I'm gonna give you option, you're gonna inhale, don't do it, extend your arms from swan, we're gonna release the arms, and we're gonna rock forward once, dive, and come back and catch yourself again. So inhale, and catch. Or we're gonna do rock and back, and rock and back. Come up and once you come up, you can relax and go back.

So if you choose, you can do swan dive once and catch yourself between, or you can trying to do two, three, or four, or you can do all six, ready? And, we're gonna lay down on your stomach, feel nice and tall, inhale, push straight out, hold, and let's rock, exhale front, inhale, two, three, four, five, six, and come up, feel nice and tall, and lower yourself down, and push yourself back to your heels, and breathe. You guys rock, beautiful, and slowly roll up, come back up to your knees once again, right foot in front, left foot on top of the right knee, right hand reaching forward, we're gonna do lunge, and we're gonna add rotation, and exhale come back, inhale rotate, exhale, and three, and four, five, last one, six, come back in, bring the right leg back. Left foot front, right leg on top of the left knee, left hand reaching forward, inhale, lunge and twist, and come back, inhale, come back, third one, co-ordinate your movement, rotation and lunge, and coming back. And five, last one, six, come back in, and on your knees, and relax, beautiful.

One of the last exercises, we're gonna do the pike position. You have a option to do on your knees, or knees off, we're gonna do one push up, let's do it together, it's better you guys don't know what's coming up next, (laughing) it's much better if you guys don't know what's coming up next. So from here, we're gonna do one push up and we're gonna turn, face towards me, and sideways, fantastic, and come back in, and repeat, down and up, alternating, smile to the camera, good luck, and come back in, and down and up and turn, beautiful, and, down and up and turn, last set, and down, up, smile, and down, up, turn, smile, come back, bend your knees, sit on your heels, and breathe. Very nice. Slowly roll up and we're gonna stand up, very nice, so, as I mentioned we started with the set of exercises that warmed you up, now I wanna put those together and finish the exercise series.

So what did we had? We had the balance, so we're gonna lift the right leg up, open up your arms, and hold your knees, make sure the opposite hand under, and the same hand on top of it. From here, inhale, extend, we have extension, exhale, flex and pull the knee to your chest. Keep the balance. Inhale, extension, again, exhale, reach forward with the right arm, the top arm, inhale, add the rotation, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, come back, exhale, inhale, hold extension, exhale, flexion (breathes), inhale down, extend, exhale reach forward, inhale rotate, almost done, exhale come back in, inhale hold the knee, extend, last set, exhale flex, inhale extend, exhale reach and inhale twist, and exhale come back in, inhale reach, smile, and relax down.

Fantastic, all of those things we did for warm up, now we doing it to finish it and now it makes sense. Let's do other side. Here we go. Ready, Houston, let's do it. Inhale from your nose, extend, exhale go flexion (breathes), inhale extension, exhale left hand forward, inhale rotation, rotate, rotate, rotate, exhale come back in center, inhale extend, exhale flexion, pull the knee to your chest, inhale extend, exhale, inhale twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, use your right arm to pull, come back exhale, inhale extend, last set, exhale pull in, inhale extend, exhale reach forward, inhale twist, twist, twist, exhale come back in, last inhale, put your feet down, feel nice and tall.

Open your arms to the ceiling, turn your palms away from each other, close your eyes, exhale, press the air down, and close your arms next to you, keep your eyes closed, continue breathing, feel the energy floating in your body, it's rocking you front and back, right and left, don't try to stop it, but try to control it, take that energy and centering it, enjoy the feeling and enjoy the movement that it creates in your body. Continuing breathing and smile, show your appreciation. Not just with your lips, smile with your shoulders, smile with your ribs, smile with your abs and hips, smile with your palms, smile with your knees, ankles, and who doesn't like happy feet? Smile it, beautiful. When you're ready, open your eyes.

Enjoy the smile you have and maintain it as long as you can, fantastic. Thank you so much, joining us for this class. I appreciate it, (clapping) and I'll see you next time.