Class #284

Fluid Abdominal Mat

60 min - Class
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Description

Meredith leads an upbeat group through a level 2/3 workout. This smoothly flowing class focuses on abdominal work and spinal rotation. Side Bend and Crab are just a few of the challenging exercises included in this class.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Oct 02, 2010
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Transcript

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I feel like standing. Let's say that. Okay. Just because, so, um, Stan, probably off your mat and face inwards. So just to the side, either the inside or the back or whatever. And stand tall. Take a moment to collect yourself together. Start to reach your fingertips down.

Just the outsides of your thighs. The top of your head reaches straight up about a reach forward over the toes and then lean back towards the heels and do that a couple of times until you find your way into what feels like a tripod. Like position in the center of your feet outside of the feet. Insides with feet and heels connected. Inhale, exhale. Let the head go forward. Feel the ribs. Connect backwards. The abdominals. Come back, connect backwards.

We're just rolling ourselves down, letting the head be heavy, feeling the arms heavy, but the shoulders pulled back away from the ears. Inhale, pause. Exhale to lengthen yourself back up. So you're pulling up from your waist, your shoulders are dropping down. We're going to lift your eyes at the very last minute and then we go straight back down again after it. Any else? So here we are. Exhale, head goes down. This is our opportunity to check in with our body to see where maybe we're leaning over to one side or working one side more than the other. Inhale, exhale. Restack your spy.

It's also an opportunity to link our mind and our bodies to start to let the outside world go and bring yourself in inside your body. Exhale down. No matter how fast or how slow you go, you can still put some focus into the exercise. Let's think about tonight in here, the principles apply ideas of precision, concentration of efficiency. Let's see if we can bring those into practice.

We're going to go down there one more time and say when we get this, so here it is. Exhale folding forward. Once I get to the bottom, bend your right knee and allow your right hand to come just in front of both feet. So open up your left arm towards the ceiling and turn your ribs around with it. Let your eyes go up towards your fingertips full back forward. Straighten the right leg, bend the left knee, reach the right arm up.

Think not of rotating around, but also lengthening outwards out through the top of your head. Hold yourself back down. Heavy, heavy head. Inhale to exhale and come all the way back up. Shoulders reaching away from the ears. Let's start with a little bit of balance here. So as your head comes up, you're gonna just step your right leg back behind you.

I want you to think of that like as a lever so it's never going to come out again. I can't think of what I wanted to say. Reach your arms down your size. I'll think of it in a minute. Lift your back leg. What I want to say is that your body's never gonna go lower than your leg is lifting up. So what you're looking for is a straight line from to head and inhale. We're going to stand back on. Just allow those back toes to touch.

We're just going to do five or so. You do not have to go all the way parallel to the floor, although that would be the ultimate goal someday. And then you release down. What you do want to do is feel your upper back working so the arms are still reaching down the sides of the thighs, like you're trying to reach and touch the outsides of your knees. And you do want to support yourself from the front of your body.

So the abdominals will do a great deal to help you here. Here's our last one. And what I want to do here is as you come up, flex that foot, swing it forward, raise it up in front of you as high as you can without deviating from a neutral position. And then bend the like that you're standing on and stretch and bend and squeeze from your bum. Hadn't squeezed from your abs. So you're allied on the leg that's bending and straightening. He goes to this, our last one. And then slide the foot back and just a little waking up in the body. Left leg, reaches back, works as a lever, right leg, strong arms reaching down. Here we go. Bring the back leg, uh, letting the forehead reached down towards the ground in Yelta. Lift up, maintaining a straight line with your body throughout.

So even if you just hinge on a little bit forward on a slight diagonal and you want that long line back extensors, working abdominals, working and hip extensors working here, our last three, maybe that's going to be one of those days where I'm not going to count. Well for a change. Big Surprise, Huh? Let's too. Yes, I last one. And this is the one where when we're bringing our bodies up, the leg just passes over. The floor comes up in front of us, maybe even putting our hands on our hips to feel that they're level lifting up through the chest. And then we just bend our standing leg and straight and bent and we're rising about of the foot. So there's more work above the pelvis and below the pelvis.

Ideally or in an imagery sort of way. That's one. Put the foot down. Take one last breath in. Exhale, roll yourself down. Maybe you'll feel a little different. Flexibility wise. Maybe you'll feel a little bit more one warmed up, more connected. Who knows? Lengthen a little further at the bottom and exhale. Roll Rola all the way.

Okay. And come and sit down on the mat. We're going to start with our knees bent, but together hold hands, holding on the backs of the knees. Gently guiding ourselves upright. In healing here you can either, we're going to start moving rollback, let go or slide your hands down the outsides of your legs, putting a little pressure inwards. Inhale as you come to about the bottom rib cage. Start exhaling now rolling forward, forward, forward and lifting the spine.

So feeling free to use your arms if not just reaching forward. It's up to you. I might hang onto my thighs a little bit. I like the back work that it gives me, so exhaling to roll and I liked that little assist at the top personally. And let's do three more. Exhale, rounding back. So you're just mobilizing, stretching out through the lower spine or letting the abdominals move the lower side. Next. So like as you come up, inhale as you feel the entire spine length and upwards and let's do two more. Excelling, roll back, breathe in and squeeze your stomach in. There's a challenge on its own and exhale come up and least is the last one rolling back.

I mean he'll pass and exhale to come on. As you get to the top this time, definitely use your hands, guide yourself towards straight and then slightly beyond straight. Lifting the chest in the eyes and then heading back to a neutral spy. We're going to start rolling down again. I'm going to encourage you that you hold your legs for now until you see where we're going. So pressing into the legs at the hands, find yourself just to the bottom of the rib cage.

Please try to stay unless it creates low back tension in which case come higher. Come towards me. Open out that arm, look back at it. That's our inhale. And we exhale to come back. Center in. He'll turn the palm up open out. Feel free to hold on with your office at arm. Now you know where we are. You can let go if you want to. And Xcel back and in.

He'll stretch and exhale and inhale. Reach an Xcel back. Last one. And he'll two reads. This is for you. Candy. So back here. Welcome. He and he'll hold. Let's go down. Slide your feet a little closer to you. You're heading into the pelvic curl arms straight down along your sides.

Exhale, curling through your spine. Lifting the hips up, reaching the knees towards the toes, the arms along in straight. There's an inhale at the top and then we just make our way down. Starting from the chest, finding the rib bones individually, the low spine bones individually tailbone releases to the ground. Exhale to roll again, the creating an even movement of fluid movement. Inhale, we pause and exhale. We rolled again. Breathing in, breathing out, feeling one vertebrae at a time. Come up away from the ground, letting the ribs be heavy, so it means they definitely don't arch.

They just stay below the pelvis at the top and then exhale, making your way slowly down. Really dropping the spine down bone by bone. You guys look gorgeous. Let's do two more. Excelling as we roll this time. When you get to the top, raise your heels. Oh. And then give yourself a little bit, or now you have a little bit more room to roll down through your spine. Use the room to maximize the curvature of the lower spine.

Let's do that once more. Excellent as we come up. Feet flat hood and put your heels down. But I hope you did. Knees parallel to one another. Double your just a little slight too high in the ribs. There you go. Uh, we're up on our toes and then we're coming down. Moving down, feeling the arms, the long, strong, straight arms. When you arrive at the bottom, pick up one leg. Use Your abdominals to do so.

And as you pick up the other leg, gluing the legs together so that there's no shifting in the body at all. Low v position with the arms, palms up. Inhale spine, twist to the window and exhale back to center. Inhale spine twist to the back of the room and exhale center. If you need a little bit more balanced room, you can separate your arms from your body slightly. If you're happy where you are, that's fantastic. Oh, we love look so good and back and turn, rotating, pulling the belly. It's here's the thing to think about.

It's almost like your belly button. It doesn't want to leave the floor. It does, but it's magnetically connected. So as your knees move, you're still pulling way back with your stomach and then you deepen as you come back through center. Let's do one more time coming back. Place one foot down at a time. Reach back. Interlace your hands. Fully pleased, creating a hammock for your head. And inhale. As you exhale, pick your head and chest up. Looking just above your knees. Look for neutral spine position and breathing. Hold as UXL length in the body back down. So feel work as you come down. Inhale, exhale to lift. So again, inhale, exhale, release down. I'm looking for precision.

Feeling the work in the abs as you come down. Exhale, lift. Inhale pots, and exhale. Work your way down. We're going to stay up at the top this time. Here we go. Lifting none. Hold there. Reach your hands behind your thighs. Use your arms for assistance as you just curl your chest towards your pelvis a little bit, not necessarily higher. Just think forward. Let go.

Pick up the left leg. Inhale, hold. Rise up onto the right toes. XL, change, lay and change things. So Marina, keep trying to press the chest forward towards the pad. That's it. And you could even hold on, right? What's most important is that you're getting really solid work, whether or not you're using your arms or not. Shoulders are pressing towards the waist. Let's go faster. Can we go faster and still say precise? Two, two, two more. Both sides. Three, four, four. Everyone bring both knees that take the leg.

Cool for this away from me to the ground. Turn towards the leg closest to me and put both hands on the outside of it. Don't rely on your arms for dear life, but use them. Push into them to rotate. Find a good rotation and then just change. Let's find that on the other side. So it's a feeling of across the body with the outer ribs.

Then into the body with the inside ribs. We're going to keep that going and here we go on. Press in with the upper back. As you rotate to the leg, if you wish to not use your hands, they will do just as well behind your head, but it'll be harder. [inaudible] and then here's five. I guess that's not lots too and got to go one more time to the back of the room to be even. Bring it back to center. Bring your knees into your chest, lower your head and chest down.

Ah, sometimes it's nice to help yourself and makes you feel more, I think lift your head and chest. We just pushed your thighs away from you. Your arms are gonna come next to your hips. We're going to drop the toes down, raise the arms up, keep the upper body stable, bring everything back in. Here we go down. Exhale, we squeeze in and push against an imaginary solid or imagine that you're pushing through cement, wet cement. Anyway, good. Challenging the curling forward of the spy. We're going to do three more. Keep the back flat as your legs go down. That means you might not touch your toes and it's okay.

Last time, bring your knees to your chest, lower your head and chest down. Oh, can I do the hundred? Do we have it in us now that one says something modified. Double leg stress. Do you want a rest for us? Okay, let's do it. Hold your knees. Push your hands into your knees, curl yourself up. So right now you've got all the help in the world. We're going to change the a hundred a little today.

Feel free to keep your knees bent or stretch your legs. All we're doing, I'm going into external rotation so I can focus on my glutes. I'm reaching the arms towards the knees. I'm trying to lift a little higher and I'm pressing down and I inhale two, three, four, five and exhale two, three, four or five and breathe in and breathe out. Pressing the shoulder blades down the back. That legs can be higher if necessary.

The head can come down if necessary. Right? Lots of things you can do to make it work for you. Let's do, I think there's four. Oh, you were there. Thank you. Who's counting for me? Bend your knees. Bring yourself all the way in. Hug your knees into your, ah, stretch your right leg out. Lift your left leg towards straight. Flex it arms down at your sides. We're going to swing it into the body first. Think about stable stabilization of the pelvis around the neck. Exhale, the same circle is drawn in space.

We're pressing down through the right leg pretty actively. We're going to do two more and one more [inaudible] and then we're reversing the direction of our circles. Swinging the LIGO around and pull up from the ABS. NRMN well, ah, and here's C and here's two guys. One Bend Uni stretch over to the opposite side. So you just hold onto the outside of your thigh. Allow your eyes to go in the opposite direction that your knee is going.

Do you want this stretch? Okay, come back through center. Stretch that leg down onto the ground. Ben. The opposite one right away. Start to anchor the bottom leg as you stretch the top like it's okay for the top leg to be a little bit if necessary. Let's cohort most the body first as we inhale and exhale, go the same way.

A man to exhale. Imagine a string. I think this is our last one. Attached to your thigh and to the mat underneath you. That string or rubber band is pulling from your thigh through your waist and into the ground. I'll sign then Johnny.

Stretch to the opposite side. All right, let's stretch both legs out straight. Bring both arms up over the shoulders. Inhale, picking up the head and chest. Drawing the abdominals down in, in XL Rola. We're going to take just a moment and stretch all the way forward here because it feels good. And then we're going to come up keeping the legs together and straight if possible. But if you can't sit straight with your legs, right, please bend. It's worth it.

Make a job. What is this shape? Goldwell shape. Global shape with your arms. Inhale, please lift a little taller as you exhale, turn in this direction. Inhale, come back. The arms stay consistently where they are just still. So the work occurs around the waist and if anytime we're working our way, so we have to think about our abs, right? Not just spinal extensors, not just shoulders. What's happening in our middle turn. Hold.

Raise your arms, grow up in the direction your arms. Bend your elbows, but pull yourself taller and then come back to center. Here's some breathing. Uh, inhale. Now exhale, stretch in. He'll pull down, but pull your spine straighter and XL. Return Center. Well that feels good. Inhale. Exhale. The arms are light. The shoulder blades are super heavy ribbon. The elbows, boat lift. That's where the shoulder blades get even heavier. And back to center.

Let's do the other side. Let's say three more. So reaching, feeling the upper back, strong. Bend the arms. Pull yourself back to center. Last time. Each side, work a little deeper. Stretch a little more, feel a little stronger and come back. Last time. [inaudible] the new mediums. [inaudible] returning our bodies to center and rest the arms down and your knees want to do a modified long back stretch. Sorry. A sudden in my eyes, fingers facing in or to the sides. Not Behind you, please. A parallel feet lift up out of your shoulders, press into your legs.

You're going to need strong legs here and you're just going to hover your pelvis. Perfect. From there, Tuck your tail. Then like you were doing a pelvic curl in the air. Roll yourself forward, reaching the knees out past the toes. Press the pelvis up and get a little shoulder stretch and a little hip stretch. Inhale. As you exhale, come back through the chest. Keep squeezing the backs of the legs so the pelvis stays as high as possible.

As long as possible. Marina, go up. No, you're good. You're good. Just lift up out of your shoulders. It's good. And then release all the way down till your strike. We're going again. Exhale, so just don't let your shoulders sink and you're going to be great. Exhale rolling. So the muscles responsible for keeping your neck long or keeping you from Making V's with your collarbones as you come down, are the muscles just underneath your armpits.

You're pushing up from there as your, the weight of your pelvis is coming down. It's better roll backwards. You got it. You got it. You got it. You're there. Rolling up. One more time here. Yeah. Staying up at the top. Looking slightly forward, little pressing. I want you to pull your abdominals in and try to Tuck your tailbone just a little bit, and then I want you to squeeze your bum trying to talk more just three times, but only goes down. Bump squeezes, just opening up through the front of the legs. That's it. And then roll back.

Don't give up on it. Now. Keep reaching up away from the floor with the shoulders. Go ahead, sit down, stretch your legs and stretch forward. Does that make anyone else's hamstrings, scram, or just mine? Okay, thanks. Thank you. All right, let's separate our legs for a little bit of spine stretch.

So envisioning that your back is up against a wall. Reach your arms forward in front of you. In here. Start with your head as your head goes down your ribs. Pull back your abdominal skull back. So there's a curvature first, and then you see, start to lean forward with the abdominals again, pulling back. Inhale, exhale. Guide yourself back up. So feel the bones of the low back, five of them. Stack feel 12 bones in the middle back stack.

And then the neck lifts, the eyes go forward and we go again. Inhale, exhale, forehead goes down, ribs pull back, abs, Colin's shoulders. Stay down, reaching forward, reaching forward. And he'll pass [inaudible] and Xcel to Rola. Articulate the spine. Grow Tall, make space between the bones, allowing some space again. Exhale, rolling down. So as you go forward, just make sure that this stays well. Oh, you're good. You were just hiding into your hair. I came to bug you and you're fine. Sorry. And then like back up.

Let's add some extension. So sitting tall to begin. Exhale we go down. Keep space between the shoulders and the ears. Maybe I just didn't want you to look down on such right there. That's perfect. We're taking it into extension. So raise the arms up, press the chest forward. Look just between your feet. So there's your [inaudible] fat back, nose down, just a little bright there. Hold.

Take it back down to you're looking for a long diagonal position. And then you just articulate back up. That was lovely. Inhale to sit tall. Exhale to articulate first down or it reaching the shoulders. Pull back just as much as the abdominals pulled back as the spine lengthens. Inhale into back extension, pressing the chest forward, lifting the ribs away from the front of the pelvis and exhale. Yay. Perfect.

Except for your head just there and then take it down and then roll up. Let's do two more. Don't don't make money. Hands you making bunny hands answer will come on camera. Okay. Hold at the top. Arms by your ears, eyes down long spine. Press your arms back just a little and raise the sign for it.

Now Marina, lift your chest. There you go. No your eyes so much and reach forward. This I agree with you. He is one of the hardest exercises to get right now for me. Anyway, let's do one more. Let's do one more. Come on buddy. Hands Rolling forward.

Really, I'll leave your arms alone. As soon as we stopped doing this. Kristy don't start. I won't be able to stop if you start. Okay. Chest up, ribs, back, ABS, and arms back, little teensy, tiny presses with your arms. I'm teensy, teensy. The last two [inaudible] the last one. Reach all the way from roll yourself up when you get to the top. Ben Johnny's Oh Ben one neither. [inaudible] turn your body just a little bit so you're facing your leg. Walk forward.

Hold on. Where every it feels good for you to hold on. Ankle motion, foot mat, guide yourself just a little further into the stretch. Always supporting yourself from behind or from the front. Reach your right hand past where you're holding on to. Just let it go and reach past. Then start to turn your right rib cage towards the ceiling your arm will reach are around.

So with comes that roll around near your ear and there was just a lovely side stretch available to you there. Then fold back forward me eyes. Go with the spine as you returned back to center and roll that [inaudible] and we'll just exchange legs. So the right leg goes straight. The left leg bins does not feel good. Yeah. After that you go to go. One more compliments please. I don't know. Sorry, there's something wrong with me today and here we go.

You're holding on with your right foot. Your left arm is going to reach past, so it's not just the hand, right? It's taking the spine and then you turn and you just reach around with your ribcage. The arm doesn't pull it, it just comes around with you. Really. Okay. And then you go back forward. When you're ready. Take your time. And with that, let's roll up. Okay, couple of rolling like eyeballs into open leg rocker. So let's warm up with rolling like a ball or get ready for the movement with rolling a ball.

Your knees are close to your body or further away if you need it to be easier to feed up off the floor. Spinal flection, shoulders down. As you inhale, rock yourself back towards your shoulders and then roll back up balancing just behind the tailbone and he'll rock back. It feels real. Lift up mean Hilter rock back. Exhale to Rocca. Last one. Hold there. Just let your feet come down for a second. Hold on behind the knees.

Pull with your arms by pull. Pull with your arms and pull your shoulders down and then flap your wings. You feel the muscles. I'm not like a chicken. I agree with you, but you feel that the muscles behind your, underneath your shoulders and in your upper back working there, those are the muscles that are responsible for helping you find your balance and open lake rocker. So you can think of it from now on as the chicken dance. Here we go. Rocking back, rocking up.

Think about flapping your wings and lift. It helps rollback rule up children's down. Chest stuff, spine long. Let's do a couple more. Avoid Rolling back all the way on to the next. Okay, two more.

And last one. Hold it up. Can you pull with your shoulder blades a little more? I lift your chest a little more. Lean back with your spine a little. So you're really, really straight. Now can you let go? Just hold. Just see if he can hold. Bring your legs together. Separate your legs. Bring your legs together. Separate your legs, lower your legs down, flex them and stretch forward. [inaudible] okay. This saw sitting tall, knees bent or straight? Never matters. Even if you're just a little tired in your hip flexes, sometimes it'll benefit you to, do you have enough space or should I make different arms? Okay, here we go.

Come to the window. First. Rotating the spine. Take that outside arm and reach a crossroads. The inside foot, the back arm pulls around. So the arms are reaching in two different directions. In heel. Lengthen on the diagonal. Exhale, return to center. And we go again to the opposite side. Breathe in. Breathe out in each. Pull the abs back as the spine travels forward. Inhale, link.

Yeah. And Return Center and reach and analyst and center. Um, n lifts. Gorgeous. [inaudible] let's do two more. A little faster, more like a dance. We dive down, wheeling, we come back to center. No movement in the lower body. Stretch. Lengthen home and turn and lift back. And last and back. Bring the arm.

It's down. Bring your legs together. Roll yourself down onto your back with control. And once you arrived there, Ben Jeanice please heading into the shoulder bridge, shoulder bridge, um, pelvic curl position first. So here we go there. Let's do one pelvic curl just to stretch out the back for fun. So you find your optimal pelvic curl with your pubic bone higher than your hipbones and your ribs down and you inhale and just exhale to come down.

So if the shoulder bridge didn't feel appropriate to you today, you could just do this XL to come up. Here comes the shoulder bridge. Keep the left leg on the ground. Lift the right leg, keep it Ben. For now, if the full straight leg didn't feel good, you could keep your knee bent. And here we go. Straight. Push the back of the leg down. Push the HIPAA and lift to lift. Checking with your arms. They should be long and straight. Your neck should be tension free.

Your abdominals should be pulling your leg through space, your hips, your hamstrings, and your glutes should be pushing your leg down. Last three two lift two to lift one and we come up, fold the knee back in. Place the foot down and let's roll all the way down. Take your time. Don't let your shoulders lift into your ears. Release down. Inhale again. Exhale, rolling up. Failing the backs of the legs, stretching the knees over the toes, holding in and pick up the left leg and stretch it and push it down to pull it up. When I say push down, I'm talking about push from the back of the leg, not the front of the leg so that the hip can stay lifted. Here's four and a little faster enough. Five. Ah, pull from the front.

Yeah. Last three, two, one. It lists, it bends, it goes to the ground and we slow up. Raise your arms over your head. Reach your arms in the opposite direction as your spine and go slow. It's worth it.

Yeah. As you place your son, who's yawning? I'm sorry. That's okay. Am I boring? You know I just said this teasing anyway. All right, bring your knees into your chest, please. Board. Let's wake her up a little. I said your board. Let's make you up a little.

Alright. Put your hands on your knees. Your knees are pulled to your chest. Push your knees away from you. Curl up off your shoulders. [inaudible] yeah, we're working out. So, alright. Squeeze your knees together whole bat. Let go. Stretch your legs out and look at your belly. Don't let it pooch up. Okay. That's the first step. Pull it back in.

If you can achieve that without letting your belly poots, then you raise your arms up to, if not, you just go. So you just let go and you take your legs out straight. What's important is that the back is flat and that the arms are long. Let's add the circle. Inhale at straight up and around in heel. Straight up. Keep your chest pressing forward and up. Exhale, circle around and again, reach two ball five more fast, precise, clean, strong.

Last one, hold it. Take your left leg, hold your shin or your calf, stretch it up. Press the right leg to the ground. You get to use your arms, but you have to use your abs. Pull twice, let go. Bring up the bottom leg. Lower the top leg. Yes, pull twice and change as your legs change. Shoe space, your stay stable as can be and change polling bullets and change and change and a couple of one guiding the leg out of the hands with the abdominals. But also guiding the chest towards the thigh. This is our last one. Bring the bottom leg to meet the top leg. Hold there. Bend both knees.

Great for the backs of your legs. Press your chest a little forward. Hands behind your head. Come towards me. Straighten the leg away from me and criss-cross. And we change and up and across. So it's like the one where we held on. If you want to go back to that, feel free to, but do we want to try to look for the same feeling quicker, precise, clean, strong.

Don't forget to breathe. Last two and two. One more. And one more. Bend both knees. Reach for your knees, hug them to your chest. Ah, let's turn and face me all the way up please. I like to do the side, Ben today. Um, if it's hard for you to be on your arm or you feel unstable, you can do exactly the same movement on your forearm. And it's a bit, I dunno, it's still hard. It's just easier to balance. I think the hand is for kind of on the diagonal away from you. Okay. You pull away from your arm with your ribs, your abdominals are in legs, will help you. But your who got to lift from your waist. Here it is.

Find a straight line. The arm raises up. Yup. So go to your forum and it works. Lifter with the waist. Reach the top arm overhead. Bring the body back to a straight line. Bend your knees, lower yourself away from your arm. Not Bad. Lift up again. There's our inhale. Squeeze down into your shoulder and lift from your waist. Good. Bring your arm over your head. Come back and come down.

One more time please. Lifting up. Good. Good, good, good. Lift up. Make a rainbow with your waist. Head back towards straight and lower yourself down. Good work. Um, just get your feet a little closer to you. Lift your arm up on the arm that you are arresting on. Okay, so also I'd like to do the twist. I'm going to modify it though.

We're going to go this way. Oh No, no, no, no, no, no. Not with your legs. Just with this arm. So you're going to go to this. Yeah. Um, okay. So we all know the twist. I want you to do it with me diff slightly differently. You guys know it, right? It's up and under. You and I are going to do it on our knees, so we're going to take one.

We'll be like this. So they're gonna cross their legs. We're just going to straighten her leg out like this. Take the top leg straight, bring the bottom like so. It's about parallel to the mat. Here we go. So the same thing with the arm. Inhale, lift your on your knee. Perfect. Xcel, go underneath, reach underneath your body. Inhale, head back and we just sit back down. The arm comes down.

Perfect. Yup. Lovely. Keep focusing on shoulder stability. It's about the waste of focus there as well. Reach under, lift back and come down. One more time. Lift. If you're doing the twist, you're reaching up for a straight back or you're reaching down with a straight back. However you see that. Come back and lower yourself down. Okay, good. Yeah, you did well there. Let's go to the elbow. The elbow for the sidekick. If you want to challenge it, go to the points of your elbows. But I'm saying on my forum today, here we are stretched to Liga. Flex the foot, pull it away from you. So if you want, you don't want a great deal of weight into that hand. Anyway, the hand behind the head, lift your leg on, flex it and bring it forward.

There's two kicks and one reach and two kicks. And wonder me. Keep working strongly. So you want to try to eliminate backward and forward motion with your body. It will move slightly, but we're trying to take it away. Last four. All Right, nice. It's getting better. Last two, please squeeze the back of your leg and pressure hip forward. You might get a hip flexor stretch one way.

Hold the leg back there. Press the pelvis forward. Make sure you're not arching your ribs, bend your knee. Just push it back like you're pushing against a wall. So you want to feel the backside of the leg working the glute. Last three, four, three, two, one. Let's bend the knee in onto your hips. Just like that.

The leg that was on top, the one that was just kicking the wall, imaginary, cross it over your knee. So if that is enough of a stretch for you, fantastic. If you need a bigger stretch, scoot your feet closer. If you, uh, if you need a bigger stretch, flatten your back. If you need a bigger strips, then scoot the foot closer. You're just pressing your chest towards your legs. Breathing in, breathing out, looking for a flat back. Get a little arm work here while you're at it. Not Bad. Okay. And then let's turn to the opposite side for the side. Bend the twist, and then the sidekick in that order. Okay, so fingers facing away. Most important for shoulder stability is oblique work, don't. Yep. And then take your arm just a little bit towards windy. Here's the side bent.

Inhale to a side plank position for lift from the bottom waist. Take the top arm over your head. Reach back to a side plank shape. Bend your knees and go this way away from your arm. Keep pulling your shoulders down. That was good. Inhale up. Squeeze your legs together. You can squeeze your bum, you can squeeze your inner thighs, all help you. Inhale back and we go down.

Nice, lovely. One more reaching up in here. Pulling the shoulder away from the Erics. We stretch over in, you know, we come back and exhale we've been in. Once you get down, slide your feet just a bit closer to you or have a separate amount if that makes more sense to your body when you just lifting the hand that you were balancing on and we stretch to the opposite side. If you feel any pinching in the waist, you feel like you just get stuck. Go Up. In fact, it's worth it for all of us to go up for us and then over. Okay.

Alright. Gurley's uh, heading into the twist. So if you're going for it, you're going marina, you and I are going to do one leg straight, a one leg down. So just like that, the foot still kind of back here, left arm in children's. Just as important. Inhale, we exhale and reach under lifting the hips up, hiking up. Inhale to come back and just coming back down. Yeah. This is too easy for you. Is that what you said? Oh yeah.

Yeah. So think of it is not a leg challenge, but a shoulder stability challenge here so that it'll get easier and easier for you to balance on the one arm. Candace tried to turn in too late. Try to go up towards me with that top hip. I'm sorry. And down. Too late. What I was looking for, and I'll help too, is go good. Think about going back. Slippery. I'm sorry. Okay. Uh, where are we down on our elbows. That happens to me too. I'm sorry.

And then it doesn't help when people are pulling you around either. Here we go. We're here. Is the sidekick, the sidekick a bottom. He bent top like hand behind the head and it just goes forward. Stretches back. Now we're working really, really hard not to allow the body to move at all. That means the leg movements a little smaller. That's perfectly fine.

Okay. With our hand, we're not pushing the head forward at all. If anything, we're pressing the head into the hand to keep the neck long. I think there's four more. Let's go look quicker. I'm back and see. And to keep the reaching up from you. Yup. That's it. I'm back. Hold. They're bent.

So the knees behind the pelvis and we're just pushing back and still focusing. So he even here, we've got some pretty significant side work and last five, four, three, two, one sorts of leg out. Bend it in. Sit Up. I Dunno why I wanted to turn the other way. But anyway, the leg that was working comes onto the opposite knee. I guess the first thing to find would be a straight back. So before you scoot your feet a little closer to you, make sure that you can be straightened. It's okay to lean back a little.

And then if you need to a bigger strips and start to scooch that bottom foot towards you, just energetically guide the knee that's bent, the one that's close to your body away from you. This is my new favorite stretch, so you can expect to do it again someday. Okay. Unprocessed. Turn over onto your hands and knees. We're going to find a plank position. So you're going to slide your one leg back support from your waist before you even think about taking weight off your other leg and take that back as well.

Okay, so now we're long and we're strong. We're going to point the right foot with the right foot and reach it out. Good. End Down. Just as I'm sorry, straight up towards the ceiling and down. I'm gonna help you come down. Um, just, just little republics into my hands. Now think about using your stomach as much as I'm holding you up. That's it.

And I just pick up your head and you're there. Not so much. I, I just like, you're going to touch Wyndee's head with your head. That's it. That's enough. Bend your knees. Sit back on your feet. Good. Come back up. Back to plank position. So you want bad, goes this way. Good. And go for it. Yup. A little flatter here. Head up please. And then the left leg, it just reaches out. You guys, I have to admit I didn't count windy down a tiny bit with your hips.

Okay. That's 12, nine, last two. This is good. Bend your knees, sit back down into your feet. Okay, so one, two, I want to take us through the pilates push up, but I'd like for you to see a modification before, before you do that. Okay, so if you're going to go into the full push up, the elbows come into the waist, the shoulders may not elevate, so you've just bend as much as you can feel the shoulders go down. Okay. Then we lift the hip hips and walk the feet to the hands. If you're going to modify the pushup and you're on your knees, the pushup is exactly the same thing and then you press up and then you would tuck your toes under to come back with or the rest of us and walk back.

It's totally up to you. What you want to do. I just want you to have choices. Taking hands underneath the shoulders. Actually, I like the bent knee pushup. I'll kind of a lot, so make sure your hands are directly underneath you. Slide one foot back, followed by the other. Good. From there, we're going elbows into the waist. Lift up from your waist one. Then lift up to bend, lift up through your good, lift the hips up some renewal. Have to Tuck your toes and find plank, and then lift up. Walk without wiggling your pelvis from side to side. Your hands to your feet.

You got to lift up from your abs to make that smooth and then roll up. Just like what we started with exhaling, bringing yourself all the way up towards standing and in here. Exhale, folding yourself down. Shoulders heavy, Candace, you keep you on him and have to keep challenging you. Walk forward. That is late. Okay, here we go again. Three, you can drop to your knees if you want. Bend, stretch.

Then stretch one more. If you're on your knees, come back to your toes. Then lift your hips. Then walk your feet here. Sorry. Those are your hands. Walk your hands to your feet. Sometimes I get my appendage. Did Jews can't even say it. Confused. Roll Up. Shoulders down.

Look forward. How about one more time without coming up. So we'll do our three pushups. And then if you can lower yourself all the way to the ground, you will. And if you can't, you'll come to your knees and get down there that way. So rolling down, down, down, down, lifting up through the ABS, shoulders heavy, all the rules walking forward.

Try to make it in three walks. And then whatever you want to do with your legs is fine. Three, two, good. You're good. One more. What's up? And then just carefully lower your body to the ground and slide your arms out in front of you. Make sure you have enough room for your own hands and then you're going to God. Okay, so think about this. First. Pull your shoulder blades.

It's like you have little back pockets for your shoulder blades and you're trying to put your shoulder blades into the pockets. Then pull up from your abs. And then continuing to pull the shoulder blades deeper into set. Imaginary pockets. Slide your arms towards you a little bit. Slide your shoulder blades back and lift your chest a little bit. Got It. Okay, so we're all there. We're hub. Hold the up. ABS in. Lift the right leg, the left arm. Lift the right arm in the left leg and put the other ones down and continue to change. What you're looking for here is stability through the trunk, a sense of the arms and legs reaching away.

You have the option to lift everything up and keep going. I myself enjoy the prep cause I like to use the hand that's on the ground to pull my shoulder down in. Challenge that feeling good and change and change and change in. How about last time and lower everything to the ground. Okay, let's do the AA kick. So turn your face towards me. Interlock your hands, slide your hands as far as you can up towards your bra line.

Then gently pull your shoulders down. Then gently drop your elbows down, then pull your abs in. Then hover the legs a little, then bend the knees. Okay, now with all of those things happening, kick in three times. One to try and keep the body as still as possible and then stretch the arms out, linkedin out through the top of the head. Reach out and then turn your head the opposite way as you bring your hands to the sitting position. High up the back with the elbows dropped down. Kicking one, two, three anti inhale, look down marina and change. Make one east. The more you can turn that kicking movement into a hamstring contraction, the more stable your spine will be and the better it will be.

Full Stop. Just continue to alternate. I'll catch up with you. Um, Elvis down. Yeah. Did you get a cramp? Okay. Just eyes on the ground. Last one less to one kicked, tick and stretch and kick, kick, kick and stretch. Put the legs on the ground. Raise your, bring your arms to a tee shirt or a low v shape will work just as well. If you don't have enough space, then just reach back with your arms like you're flying and back and back. Just keep your eyes down on the ground unless three and two animal and then lower your body all the way down. Oh, bless her moment.

Bring your hands underneath your shoulders. Come up onto your knees, round your entire spine, pressing into the back muscles. With the stomach muscles and then sit back on your feet again. Just letting them back. Stretch for a minute. Okay. And then we're going to come back onto our hands and knees just like so for the cat stretch. So, uh, feet should be parallel to the knees, knees just under the hips. Here we go. Shoulders down. As you exhale, separating the lower spine from the upper spine, press the pelvis towards the chest. Your head will be your head and upper back will be slightly affected, meaning you're not rounding as much as you can, but they will round in the head, will drop slightly and heal neutral spine. As you exhale, feel the shoulder blades reached down.

Keep the pelvis still so you're not arching your low back. You're arching your upper back only in Hilton. Head back towards neutral. Let's do it again. Xcel pelvis presses forward, maximizing the curvature and the lumbar spine to get the best stretch there in healing. Coming back towards neutral and exhale. Extend through your spine. Just the upper spine. Feel the shoulders dropped down the chest, like yon through the arms.

Inhale back to center. That was for you Xcel curve. Debra, your knees aren't quite underneath you and it's fine. Probably in less if you're doing it for a reason. But just so you know. And then, yeah, Dylan, let this move. So just arch here, but hold this still and then come back to center and then hold this still, but just move this not so much here. Yeah. So in that way, and then change, oh, let's do one more time. So we're separating the lower spine and the upper spine for a couple of reasons because we're working to strengthen the abdominals stretch.

So low back working to strengthen the upper back and stretch the chest. And that's how to do it. Are we ready to sit down on our feet again? Okay. Go. So go. So do it. I don't know, sometimes the weirdest things come out of my mouth. I just don't even expect them. What should we grand finale with? I'll give you some choices. The teasers, the teeth or what? Um, um, crab.

Crab. Okay. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do the crab and I'm, we're going to modify it for us. And then if you're into doing the whole thing, we'll do the whole thing. Okay? So the crab goes like this and just know that your evidentially, you're going to end up on the top of your head. So shall I show it to you? Okay? So anyway, holding on. Cross one of your legs over the other.

Now here's another thing about the crab. You need to be in the middle of your mat. If you're too far back, you won't reach you at you because you're going to be rolling forward. And because you're going to be rolling all the way back, you want him to have enough mat space in both directions, okay? If you've not done it before, watch one holding onto the feet. We're modifying for us. So here we go. You Roll yourself back, stretch your legs towards straight. Hold on with your abs. UNCROSS re, cross your feet full the knees back in. Reach for your feet.

You stay lifted there. Then what we'll do first is roll all the way up over the shins and press into the hips to lift the arms. Then we'll fold back forward, refine the feet. Roll over the shins and not real comfy. And then we roll back again. We uncross and recross the full exercise would go up and onto the head and then up into a back. Stretch the crab. Okay, so here's how, if you're already got, let's all, let's all start together again and we'll do two pressing up into the hips. And then if you want to go onto your head, you will hold onto the outside of your foot and then the outside of your foot to Oh, don't cross your arms. Just crush your ankles. So like this, take this Allah. Okay, hold your right left foot with your right hand.

Okay. No, I think for that. [inaudible] AH, okay. So now touch your feet. Sorry I couldn't, I couldn't help you marina. Next time we'll back. Straighten your legs. Uncrossing [inaudible] cross your legs holding onto the opposite feed that you were before. Re Bend your knees, stay lifted. Roll up, cross the shins. Let go of the seat. Raise the arms up.

I like this one better because it's a nice stretch. Fold yourself back down. You've got gotta. Use your abs to stay lifted. Find the fee roll over your shins. Roll back, stretch the way. UNCROSS recross fold the Mackin roll. Lyft, not real comfy on the shins. I know it's part of the part of the, I'm suffering for our art roll back stretch.

Here's where he, if you want to, you can go over your, over onto your head. So you roll up, you roll over top of the head touches. Be careful there because you know, yeah, so just go. Just do what we were doing before. Do this. So it's just, it's perfect there. And then back. Last one. You guys roll yourself back. Same thing again.

Fine. Straight legs re then the knees. Stay strong. Strong, strong, strong, strong through the hands and then up and over. If you're going over, if not just raise up, raise up onto the knees, raise up onto your knees and then bring yourself down. And once you, when she get down to the crab, I haven't done that in forever. It's fun. Just sit comfortably. Maybe face in, maybe face me out. It doesn't really matter. Ah Yeah. Let's face me, everyone comfortable position with the legs, if that makes manger happy. I like this or like this or whatever. I'm just going to do a stretch. So, um, arms down to uh, a low V or an m. If your body is included, that's not a name is it? Take your head over to one side. I'll stop talking.

Nonsense. Just inch the fingers that are away from you. Away from you. Yeah. Okay. And then just gently let the stretch go. Meaning stop. Let the hands slide back a little. Let the arm relax. Pick up the head.

Take the opposite ear towards the opposite shoulder. And then just the hand that you've turned your head away from those fingers. Just gently. No, no big shoving or anything like that. We just inch the fingers away. Taking a couple of breaths.

And before you lift your neck, let the arms relax. We'll take the stretch away, picking up the head, take your arms forward, raise them up, lifting the chest up as you reach the arms down. Let the heaviness of the arms would make your spine more buoyant. And again, one more time reaching up and down. I lied one more time. This time. Bend forward over your body, gathering up energy. Lengthen up, and as you open your arms, let them go slightly behind you as you arise through your chest and we are done. Good job. Thank you.

Comments

Good instruction and flow.
CJ
good morning girls, meri, I just did your class. I am so happy with this programe. never a dull moment. everyday different instructors. how lucky could I get. thank you kindly. blanche.
Great class. I especially liked the crab at the end. Thanks!!
Thanks ladies. Keep up the good work!
1 person likes this.
another fabulous class! Thank you!!! 
Malgosia M thank you for visiting the older classes!

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