Creative Mat Variations

Hi, I'm Anula. And, I'm here teaching at Pilates Anytime for the first time. I'm very happy to be here with my friends James and Leslie and Dani, and the way we're gonna start class today is we're gonna stand up please. And, what I'd like you guys to do, you can stand on your mat or you can stand on the wood floor and look down at your feet, bring them to parallel, and reach your arms up towards the ceiling, take a deep breath. On your exhale, let's just do a couple of roll downs to warm up, so inhale, exhale, roll down.

Do any kind of breathing pattern that makes sense to you. Inhale here and exhale slowly roll back up wherever you are, whatever roll down means to you. Inhale. Exhale, roll all the way down just warming up. Get into your feet, get into your arms, get into your spine, and slowly come back up.

And, you can lower your arms down by your sides once you're standing and come down to sit on your mat however you like. Nice, guys. And, then grab on to your blue ball, and then what I'd like you to do is take your weights with you, put them to the sides of your body where you are right now, one on each side, and then take the ball and bring it behind your upper back. So, right where you would imagine the bottom of you shoulder blades to be. Yes, take your hands behind your head, bend your knees, and drop back in over the ball.

Great. Yeah. And, this is a part of class where I like to just bring it down a couple of notches, so let your nervous system chill out, take a few deep breaths, imagine that there's a space in the back of your body where you can breathe potentially into the ball, so big inhale in through your nose, big exhale out through your mouth, whatever makes sense. Think of where your feet are in space, think about where your shoulders are, think about what parts of your spine are currently touching, the ball, what parts aren't, is your jaw clenching, can you unclench your jaw? Do all of those nice things for yourself.

Make sure your fingers are interlaced with one another. Great. And, then what I'd like you to start doing is bringing your elbows up towards your peripheral vision. On your exhale, I'd like you to nod your chin towards your chest and slowly come up into an abdominal curl. Right.

And, what we're trying to do is curl up and into the ball. So, we're not trying to lift off the ball. We're just trying to lean into the ball a little bit. And, then gently drop back in over the ball. Good.

We're gonna do this about eight more times, so on your exhale gently nod your chin to your chest, curl up. Good, elbows can come in a little bit. Don't worry about it, nod your chin. There you go, and then gently drop back. Inhaling at the bottom, exhaling coming up.

Yep. And, you can feel that you're on an unstable surface, you're trying to stabilize best you can, and drop back. And James, you can lower the ball slightly down your back if you feel like you want more of a challenge. So, the idea is that the lower the ball is down your back maybe the more challenging of an abdominal situation you'll get. The higher the ball is on your back maybe the less challenging.

You can experiment with what works for you. You can also just do this without a ball, that's fine. Two more. Just warming up. Again Leslie, try and press into the ball as you roll up, so smush it with your back.

There, and then come back down. Good. There's gonna be a lot of ball smushing going on, yeah. (Anula laughs) It's the truth. And, slowly come down.

And, on the next one I'd like you to come up and hold. Mm-hmm, good. Now feel like your gaze is towards your mid-thigh, yeah. And, then I'd like you reach your arms forward in line with your shoulders, palms facing down, that's right. And, then we're gonna do a little pretend hundred situation, so on our inhale we'll pick our arms up.

Up is relative, so maybe they go up by your ears almost. You can try and go there, and on the exhale we'll lower our arms down back in line with the shoulders. Inhale the arms up, exhale lower them down, and what you're trying to do is lift your arms up, but not lose the curl you found into the ball, so you can only lift your arms up as high as you can maintain your shape. Good, three more. Inhale and exhale.

Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Now find your weights, take your hands behind your head, and drop back in over the ball. Try not to slam your head into the weights. They're just there.

Good, so we've just added four pounds to each of you, so they're two pound weights. Inhale here. On your exhale nod and curl, and you've just added a little bit of weight to the back of your head, so you might feel different about this exercise, and drop back and over the ball. Inhale and exhale. Coming up.

Good. Inhale and exhale. Good. Three. And, we're pretending we're doing about six to eight of these.

If we did four, if we did seven, that's okay. Good, let's do two more. Exhale. Good. And, one more and I'd like you to stay up there.

Good. Now from here try and deepen your curl into the ball and reach your arms forward, palms face down, mid-thigh. Yeah, and we're going to inhale the arms up as high as feels like a good idea, exhale them down. Good, and you're the decider of what is a good idea for you. So, you inhale up, maybe you go up by your ears, maybe you go halfway.

Either way is fine, and these weights start to get heavy after a while, so you could always just put them down. Great. Twice more. Exhale down, pretending that we're warming up. Inhale and exhale.

Down, hands behind the head, drop yourself back and over the ball. Take a deep breath. Exhale, come right back up into your curl. Reach your arms forward, in line with your shoulders, palms facing down. Good.

Now from here, I'd like you to open both arms away from one another literally any amount, and bring them back towards one another. And, inhale to open. Exhale, bring them back towards one another. Inhale to open and close, and you can open up and you can see where the limit is. Maybe back there is too far.

Maybe you need to make your V a little narrower. Two more. I'm just saying stuff so you can be distracted by this. Good. One more.

Good and then hands behind the head and drop back and over the ball. Inhale there. On your exhale, reach both of your arms up towards the ceiling, stay over the ball, palms facing one another or palms facing forward, whatever you prefer. Lengthen your legs long onto the mat, good, and you can flex your feet. And, on your exhale I'd like you to roll up and over your legs like you're rolling up and over your legs.

Good. Just like that. Drop over your legs, drop your head, inhale there, and exhale, slowly come up into a seated position and let the weights come just to the side of your mat for a moment. Drop them for a second. Yep, now take your ball and then bring it right behind your low back, and I want you to try and smush it between the mat and the very low part of your tailbone, so Dani has it here.

She's gonna try and smush the ball between her and the mat. She's gonna grab her weights, everybody's gonna grab their weights. Yep, and you're gonna reach your arms forward and roll back into the ball maybe a few inches, so it's a little bit of a lounge chair type of movement. So, you want to feel that the ball is being supportive of your low back and not hindering the movement, so James if you find that you need to move forward a little bit, move forward a little bit. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Great. Arms are forward, let's have palms face down. Inhale here and then on our exhale, we're gonna try a very similar thing. We're gonna lift our arms as high as they can go, and high as they can do is really relative to you, and then lower them down.

Let's try five. Inhale up. Exhale down. Inhale up. Exhale down, try and deepen your connection into the ball behind you.

Inhale up. Exhale down. Inhale up. Exhale down. Let's say one more.

Inhale up. And, exhale down. The problem with this series is that there's no break. We inhale and open the arms out to the sides. Exhale, bring the arms in towards one another.

Dani's having her palms face one another. You can still have your palms face each other, face the floor, face the ceiling. You can try and kind of hand movement that feels most advantageous for your shoulder fatigue. Good. Three.

And, four. And, five. Hold your arms in front of you, look at your right hand. Now follow your right hand with your gaze as you turn to the right. And, bring yourself back through center.

And, then follow your left hand with your gaze as you turn to the left. And, it really has to do with how far you'd like to turn, right? And, then back. So, you can turn all the way back behind yourself or you can make it really small. I don't mind.

Good, do a couple more. Good. Good, and we're all gonna be turning to the left. Left hand is down, looking at your left hand. Now we're gonna reach the right arm up and overhead.

Good, as high up overhead as you've got. Good. Now from here I want you to look at your left palm and turn to face the ceiling with the palm. Yes! Now I'd like you to lift the arm up three inches, lower it down three inches. Up three inches, down three inches.

This is three, correct. And, this is four. Roll into the ball. This is five, pick your right arm up. This is six.

This is seven. And, this is eight. We find center, both arms forward, inhale, smush the ball, exhale, turn right. Good. Pick your left arm up towards the ceiling.

Good, right palm faces the ceiling, inhale. Exhale pick the arm up two inches, down two inches. Up, and down, smush the ball. Up, and down. Up, and down.

Four more. Up, and down, two inches. Up, and down. Up, and down, last one. Up, and down, forward fold over legs, drop your head.

Correct. Good. So, to the naked eye that probably looks like not that much us going on. A whole lot is going on. (all laugh) Good, so I'd like you to take your ball and your weights and come to lie down on the front of your body with your head towards where your feet are.

Great, so what is going to happen here is a little trial and error with the ball. So, what you're going to do is put the ball somewhere advantageous for your chest area, and if you're a bosom-y person, you might find that the ball is very irritating and uncomfortable, and you'll just put the ball to the side. And, we're not all super bosom-y people here at this moment, so you're all good. Take one weight into each hand, good. And, what I'd like you to do is take your hands to what we think of as a goal post position or maybe cactus shape, and then Leslie you can let your hands come all the way down to the wood floor.

That's right. And, then drop your heads down to the mat. Good. And, then Dani's gonna make more of a goal post-y thing. Yes.

On your exhale, keep your arms down where they are and lift your chest up as if you're trying to push the ball forward, so your head, chest, neck come up. And, it's as if you're trying to push the ball forward on the mat. And, then drop your head chest down. Inhale. Exhale lift.

Good, imagine that your elbows can stay low to the ground, so you're trying to use your arms as little as possible, and down. Yes. And, Dani has it here. She's really not using her arms a whole lot. She's just really lifting her chest and pushing the ball forward.

And coming down let's just to one more, exhale. It's as if I'm trying to present the ball to someone in front of me, and I come back down. From here I'd like you to lift up halfway. Right, so you're not lifting up to your highest level, and then bring your head up in line with your spine. Exactly.

Now take your arms up into that cactus shape, so your elbows and forearms are parallel to the floor. Lower your arms down in that cactus shape. Exhale, lift your arms up in the cactus shape. Exactly. We lower.

Exhale, lift. So, elbows are in line with your shoulders. You've got a 90 degree angle at your elbow. Exhale, lift. Exhale, lift.

Good. Exhale, lift. And, three more. Yep. Good.

Two. Any amount of lifting. And, three. Hold your arms up. On your next exhale, extend your arms forward.

And, bend your elbows. Literally any amount, right? So, I say extend your arms forward. If you extend it two inches that's fine. Yep, and bend.

And, extend. And, bend. And, extend. And, bend. Three more, just extending.

And, bend. One more, extend. And, bend. Hold your bend. Reach your arms all the way back by your hips, lift your chest up a little bit higher.

Let's have the palms face your thighs if possible. Good, and we're going to reach the arms back forward to our super-person position. And, exhale, pull back like a pulling straps type of situation. Inhale forward, and exhale. She's going to try and touch her hips, everybody.

Inhale forward, exhale back, inhale forward, very nice, exhale back. And, then Leslie's doing this really nice thing, keep going, where you're dropping your chest a little bit and then lifting your chest a little bit. You can add that if you like and then this is the last one, I promise. Inhale. And exhale back.

Put the weights down onto the floor by your mat. Good. Take your hands underneath your shoulders, elbows facing up, and then on your exhale I want you to lift up into your mat-style, swan type situation. Uh-huh and then lower yourself back down. So, if you can lift up into a place where you straighten your elbows maybe that's a good place.

If that's not available, don't hurt yourself. And, down. Good. And, then one more time. Exhale we lift up, and down.

Good, put the ball to the side for a moment, and then on your exhale I'd like you to slowly lift up into straight arms. So, lift yourself up. If you can straighten your elbows, put your hands wherever that is that you can straighten your elbows. Good. Now, we're gonna do a little catch and release, so I want you to release your arms abruptly forward in space, kick your legs up toward the ceiling, and catch.

In we go for two. Exhale three. Exhale four. And, exhale five. And, press back into a child's pose.

Inhale here. And, exhale out. One more time, inhale here. And, exhale out. Great, swing your legs around.

Lie down now with your head towards your strap. Good. Now take the strap and put it into your hands, the strap that's right behind your mat, good. Our elbows are going to be pointing up towards the ceiling, 90 degree angle-ish with the elbows. Right, and I want you to try and keep the strap taut.

Yes, so you have a little leverage. Exactly. Now from here I'd like you to pull one knee up and then the other knee up. Then from here straighten your legs up towards the ceiling. Good, lower the legs down for a little bit of momentum, and on your exhale come up into your roll over.

Good. No extra flourishes, just gently roll down. Great. Let's do that two more times. Inhale.

Exhale coming up, and slowly rolling down. Good. And, one more time. Exhale come up. Good and slowly roll down.

Now from here I'm gonna use James as an example. He's going to come up, but he's going to try and lift himself up to the left side of his mat, and roll himself down. And, we're gonna do that five times to the left. Exhale, a corkscrew-ish type of maneuver, and down. And, they're using their arms a lot here, so they're trying to pull up into the strap and down, exactly.

And, exhale. Good. You guys let me know when you've done five. I don't know. Good.

Inhale here, and on your exhale let's go to the right. Up, slight angle towards the right corner of your mat, and down. That looks hard. Exhale going up. (Anula laughs) And down.

Good, try and use your arms as much as you can. Exhale. Is that a good cue? Use your arms as much as you can? (Anula laughs) And, let's say this is five.

Great. And, come down. That's fine. Good, release your arms please. Hug your knees to your chest for a second.

Let your grip strength chill out. Lower your feet down to the mat, arms down by your sides, and then grab your ball. I'm gonna grab it for you, it's fine. Yep, put it between your knees. Inner thigh, knee situation.

Arms down by your sides, on your exhale lift yourself up into a bridge. And, lower back down from your bridge. Try and use your feet. Exhale, lift up, press down, and come back. And, you can do an articulated bridge.

You can do a levering bridge. I don't really have a preference. And down, one more time. Exhale, lift up. Good, and down.

On your next exhale, you're going to lift up into your bridge and pause in your bridge. Take your hands to the bony hip points in front of your body, and I want you to try and keep your pelvis as still as possible, just here. There you go. And, then I'd like you to try and lengthen your right leg forward without changing anything in your bony hip point configuration. And, lower your right foot down.

Left leg forward. Good, hold. Lower it down, right leg forward. Hold. Good, now try and lengthen your left leg forward.

Pause that. Good, stay where you are, and lengthen your right leg forward. Just kidding! (all laugh) Lower your foot down and then lower your hips all the way down. Good. Now from here, pick your hips up.

Take the ball from between your inner thighs, just like that, beautiful transition. Good, put it directly underneath your tailbone. Great. Arms down by your sides, pick one knee up. And, then pick the other knee up.

Good, and I'm gonna have James demonstrate this with the weights and I would say that the rest of y'all can not do this with the weights. Good, so those are the two options. You can do this with or without the weights. Arms are up towards the ceiling, palms facing in on one another. Great.

Now from here I'd like you to extend your right arm overhead and your left leg forward in space. Uh-huh, and then bring it back in. And, opposite sides. (Anula laughs) Good, that looks great. No, it doesn't.

It does not, good. Inhale, exhale. Good, so it's almost mostly about the side that isn't moving than the side that is moving. Right, and then try and press into me. That's right.

And, back. Let's just do one more good luck. Good. And, back. Now both legs, both arms reach away from one another, like double leg stretch type of situation.

And, then bring it back in. Right and reach. And, bring it back in. So the worst thing that can happen is that you fall off, and you're not very far away from the floor. Inhale.

And, exhale. And, two more. And, exhale. And, last one. And, exhale.

Bend your knees. James, put your weights down. Pick your hips up, everybody. Lower your feet down. Take the ball, put it to the side, good.

Grab on to the backs of your thighs. Roll yourself up into a seated position. Good, and I want you to come up into a standing kneeling position. You can look back at Dani, and she's gonna have her back to the strap. And, she's going to tuck her calves underneath the strap.

Yep, so smush yourself all the way up in there. Great, good. And, I would recommend that you guys walk forward in space. I would say that that would be the most advantageous, but this is gonna be a little trial and error. So, reach your arms down by your sides and feel like you're one long line from the crown of your head down towards your knees, and this is a little bit of what I like to call opposite thigh stretch, so on your exhale I want you to hinge forward in space until your calves catch the strap and you can't go further anymore, and then you come back in space.

Right. And, then you hinge forward in space. The back of your leg is catching up into the strap. And, forward. And, if you get a really horrible cramp don't tell me about it.

And, hinge forward. And, back. Good, one more time. Just think you're just one long line, and you're doing the opposite of thigh stretch. And, forward.

Now Dani's gonna demonstrate. You guys just look behind you. Inhale, here she's going to hinge forward in space as far as she possibly can, and at some point she's going to fall onto her hands and push herself back up, so here we go. Inhale. Try not to fall on your hands so hard that you break your wrists, okay?

On your exhale, hinge forward in space, good. And, then from here fall forward into your hands and click back up, good. Inhale. Exhale, two. Inhale.

Exhale, three, beautiful. Inhale. Exhale, catch, and pop up. Good, and keep going. No, you can't adjust.

(Anula laughs) You have to keep going! Good. And, two more. Try and fall without making any sound. And, last one. Good job.

Sit back onto your heels, take a second. Okay, from here you're going to come to sit in what I like to call a mermaid position which isn't exactly a mermaid position. It's more of a Z sit position, so Dani's got it. You guys can face one another. It's nice 'cause it's nice to look at your partner.

Yeah, good. So what I want you to do is James you're going- You're actually going both the same direction, so you'll turn your body to your right and then to your left, and take your hands down onto the mat. Fingers facing forward. Good, now bend your elbows wide to the sides and drop your chest over your thigh all the way down. Good, on your exhale, lift your chest up into extension.

Straighten your elbows. And, bend your elbows, drop your chest down. Exhale, push your chest up, extend your spine. Let's just do two more on this side. Drop down.

Exhale, lift, heart up, and inhale, down, exhale, lift, heart up. So, we're gonna add a move. Drop down just like we did a moment ago. Pick your left leg up, James your right leg. Good, bend the knee.

Good. And, then lower the knee down, pick your chest up. And again, elbows bend, leg comes up with a bent knee, and we extend up. Inhale to come down. Exhale up, one more time.

Inhale to come down. And, exhale up. We add a move. Inhale to come down, lift the leg up, straighten the leg. Bend the knee, come back up, and again.

Down, straighten the leg, bend the knee, and come back down. Inhale. Exhale, straighten the leg, bend the knee, come back down. And, one more time, inhale. Straighten the leg and pause.

Good, I'm gonna grab onto your feet and on your exhale you're going to push yourself up and then slowly reach your arms forward and send your feet towards one another. Inhale, exhale, come back down. Good and again. Round, reach forward, Martha Graham moment, and we go down, inhale. Exhale up and down.

And, twice more. Exhale up and down. And, exhale up, pause, hold, look into each other's eyes. And, down. From here come into twist one or whatever you call it.

Dani, can you show? So, you're here, hands, elbows wide. Good. And then Dani, can you show us coming into twist one? Great, and we come down.

So, here's what we're doing. Let's go into it. Ankle to knee. Mm-hmm, hand down. Extend your opposite arm out, up against your knee, inhale here, exhale thread the needle.

Good, keep threading behind you for as long as possible as you roll down, so you keep threading behind you as you come down slowly. Good. And, exhale, thread. Keep pretending that you're reaching behind you as you come down. Right, and one more time.

Thread. And, keep pretending you're reaching behind you as you come down. Good, come into your side bend position, so you'll lengthen your legs out slightly, and I have a preference for this situation here, so one foot in front of the other, and on your exhale I want you to lift yourself up into your side bend, right, and come down. Three times and lift. And down.

And one more time, lift. And come down, swing your legs around to the other side, still facing one another, Z shape. Good. Bring your hands down to the mat, face your thigh, and then on your exhale, drop down, bend your elbows, lift your chest up for three. Inhale down.

Exhale lift up. Two. Inhale down. Exhale lift up, three, we add a leg, we go down. We lift the leg, lower the leg, lift the chest, so it's a little seesaw type of thing.

Bend and lift. And, bend. And, lift. We add a leg extension. Bend, lengthen the leg.

Bend the knee, come back up. Bend, lengthen the leg. Bend the knee, come back up. Bend, lengthen the leg, bend the knee, come back up. Last time.

We drop down, lengthen the leg, Martha Graham style, we swoop the leg around, we make eye contact, I love you, and come back down. Bend the knee, inhale. Exhale, up and over. And, back. And, three.

And, back. Let's do one more for good luck. Four, reach. And, back. Very nice.

Come into your twist. I call it twist one, everybody calls it something else, and then on your exhale, you'll come up and thread the needle again, three times. So, go up for one, and come back down, trying to keep your reach continuous and come up, and try not to abort mission so early, right? You try and keep reaching behind you as you come down. Right.

And, last one. Yup. And, coming back down. Very nice. Now from here let's go into side bend.

I have a foot preference, and you can tell me that this is wrong, but that's fine. On your exhale we come up into our side bend, yup, and down, and try and make a rainbow shape with your body, exhale. Good that's something I actually say to people and down, and one more time, exhale coming up. So nice. And, down.

Very nice. Come up onto your knees. You can face the same direction you're facing currently. Reach your arms out to the sides, take a deep breath, and this is just a side leg series prep, and we're actually only going to do the prep, so don't worry about doing too much else after this. So, reach your arms out to the side, and then for a moment, I want you to try and side bend to your right.

And, then you're going to try and balance on your right knee for a few moments, and then land onto your hand and extend your left leg out. Good, and then just try it on the other side. So, come up, try and balance for a moment, and then side bend to the other side. You have split second where you're trying to balance onto your knee and then land your hand down and extend your leg and back up. Let's just do one more to each side.

This is just a more for your own sense of self practice kind of thing for what's gonna happen next. And, down. Good. And, then one more time. Good.

Think of using your glute or whatever and then come back. (Anula laughs) Okay, so since we just did that, can we move all of your props away from you, floor folks, so you don't kick anything by accident? Great, just put it away. And from here, we're just gonna try and do it. So, you'll lie down on the right side of your body with your feet towards that direction and your head that direction and come to the far forward end of your mat and come down to your forearm.

Lengthen your left arm any way you'd like, let's say up, and then we're going to try and do some fan kicks here, and Dani has the really hard job of doing it on a high platform. So, we're gonna kick the left leg forward, back, forward, and circle fan kick around to lying on our second side. And, we go one, two, three, and circle around. And, we go one, two, three, circle around. Good, now think about this before we go.

We're going to go one, two, three, left leg goes back, listen to my words. Uh-huh, your right leg goes back. Your right legs goes back, sorry. Her left leg goes back. Sorry about that.

And, then you're going to imagine your foot in your mind's eye. Pick it up as high as it goes, good. Stay on your hip. Now this is the learning moment here. We think about this foot being as high as it can be, and you imagine and you see it in your mind.

From here, James is going to come up into a teaser, taking his left foot over his right foot. Good. Inhale, exhale come back down. Good, let's just try that again. Inhale, exhale coming up, good.

This just sucks, and then come back down. Good, one more time. Exhale coming up, and come back down. I'm just breaking his foot. Good, and we fan kick.

One, two, three, and go around. One, two, three, we go around. One, two, three, we go around, we pause. We take our left leg, these guys, Dani's gonna take her other leg back, good. Now, Leslie's going to pick her up as high as it goes, and I'm going to hold her foot here.

She's gonna come up to me. Right! And down. And exhale, she's coming up to me. What? And down.

And one more time, she's coming up to me. Up, up, up, and down. Thank you. (Anula laughs) Good, now from here what I'd like you to do is roll onto your back, feet away from your strap. Yep, good.

And, then start reaching your arms forward. Yes. You see where everyone is? Thank you. Inhale, on your exhale start rolling back until you can catch your feet into your hands on an open leg rocker.

Good, hello everyone. Inhale. You don't have any space. Yep. Inhale, exhale roll back, open leg rocker style, and come back up.

Balance. And roll back. And come back up, two, and roll back. Come back up, three. On four we come up to standing.

Roll back. Come up to standing. Thank you. Heels together, toes apart, hands behind the head, elbows wide. James, heels together, toes apart.

Right, inhale. Exhale grand plie down, heels come up. And, we go up. And down. And up.

And down. And up. And down. For three. And four.

And five. And you lower your arms down by your sides. Thank you, James, for ruining that take. Inhale and exhale, roll all the way down through your spine, just like we did in the beginning of class, and what I'd like you to do is take a little bit of stock on how you feel. Maybe you feel a little different than you did when we started.

Let the back of your neck go. Catch your breath. Shift the weight in towards your toes. Shift the weight in towards your heels. Shift the weight towards your toes.

Shift towards your heels. Find what feels like in between those two extremes and slowly roll up to standing. Let your arms rest. And, that was our class. Yeah?