Mixed Equipment for Mat

Hi, today I would like to teach you a delicious sequence of events doing some apparatus work first and then translating it to your mat work. Mat work can be extremely challenging if that's all that you have and you're not able to picture, or imagine, or connect with other exercises. And Joseph Pilates invented over 600 different exercises, and he really developed a lot of apparatuses to help you do better mat work. So I'm gonna give you a little taste of that, working with the Cadillac, working with the wunda chair, and working with the spine corrector. This is gonna be followed with an intermediate advanced mat.

It is for the well versed Pilates student. You want to make sure you're healthy and if anything disagrees with you to just leave it out until the next exercise. But certainly not a beginner series, I'm gonna be teaching it from an advanced queuing level. So I hope you enjoy it and I hope you do the whole series, with the Cadillac, the wunda chair, spine corrector, the flow into the mat class, at least once, and then after that you can just take it on its own, the mat class, and enjoy that portion as well. Alright, so we are gonna begin with the hundred, and I want to let you know about what springs that you're gonna want to set up your Cadillac with.

This is a Balanced Body Cadillac, but I really enjoy using Gratz springs, so I have put my Gratz springs on here. The bar is gonna be raised to about almost three feet, just a little shy of that, from the mat. And that makes an easy transition from our hundred to our leg spring series. So I have my leg spring series leg springs right here ready to go. We're also gonna be using the push through and the tower.

So I have my push through spring ready and in place. And then I also have my tower spring ready and in place, as well as my safety strap. I'm pretty sure that is all you will need to do the Cadillac segment, and then of course you're gonna want to, you can press pause and grab your wunda chair and your spine corrector for the next segment. So, we are gonna start with the hundred. Go ahead and lie down, Brianna, with your head here.

There are many different places you can do the hundred, but I'm gonna have her do it with the bar underneath her seat, to just really get almost the same feeling as a reformer when you're pulling it out. So go ahead and let's drop your tailbone a little bit, excellent, and put energy into the mat, and draw in your right knee, scoop it in, good, and let's bring in the left, alright, really using your powerhouse. And we're gonna grab this old bar, the roll down bar. It's gonna be shoulder width apart, and obviously this is gonna match your hundred on the mat. Alright, you're going to lift your head using your powerhouse and slip this bar right underneath your thighs.

There you go, how does it feel, does it feel too strong or does it feel about right? Feels good. Okay, good. And we're gonna straighten your arms, one thumb on the other side, and use that, straighten your arms, great. And then hold the legs kind of high, they're not gonna go too low.

Reach past your legs if you can, and let's start that hundred. Inhale, two, oh, hold the bar with your hands, there we go. Thumb on one side, perfect. In, two, three, four, five, and exhale, two, three, four, five. Less energy in those feet, more in the seat, beautiful.

And exhale, two, three, four, five. If you can reach even past your thighs and not even hear a rubbing on the thighs, even better, because then you're really lengthening out, connecting to that deep powerhouse, that's at least 50, maybe 60. And exhale, draw, you want the navel to really be pulling in, I love focusing on stretching that hip flexor, give me one more count. In, two, three, four, five, and exhale, two, three, four, put the bar underneath your knees and stretch it into you, great. So this order is not gonna be the same order as the mat, I'm gonna be making it really a delicious sequence to make your body feel good and warmed up and prepped for your mat work.

So the next exercise, we're gonna switch to the leg springs. So I'm gonna put down my roll down bar and I'm gonna add my leg springs. And we're gonna start with the leg circles. We're gonna do a lot of leg springs right now. Alright, so Brianna, I want you to put your hands about five or six inches above the mat and then slide out to straight arms because you can.

She is an advanced level, so I do like her to have straight arms. If she was a little more intermediate then we would have her arms bent. Would you bend your arms and go back a little bit? A little more so that the top of the head is close to the top of the mat, and then the elbows are bent at an angle. So find your comfort level for your springs.

Go ahead and stretch out, good. Alright, so try to put both springs on at the same time. So bring both knees into your chest, alright. And we're going to slip your feet into the straps. And we're gonna bring down that tailbone, good, and bring it down, now, Gratz springs are very strong, separate your knees a little bit more, good, and have a Pilates stance, great.

Alright, so push your hands into those poles so you can feel yourself anchor the back of the ribs, and with the tailbone down let's go ahead and reach forward those legs, yes. And we're gonna, even more, leave the legs where they are and see if you can tilt your pelvis away from me for me. Tilt it away, dropping your tailbone a little more, that's it, excellent. It's very easy for your pelvis to rock up and we want to make sure that we don't do it with a tilted pelvis. Let's start our leg circles, open the legs, and with the back of the thighs sweep down, squeeze those inner thighs together, and come up, good.

And open, and reach out, good. So you would be thinking about this exercise for your single leg circles on the mat. When you are going down with the legs sometimes we lose a little bit of energy, one more. And we're gonna reverse, you really want to feel the back of the leg and the seat, and open, good, and have the hip flexor stretching, that's how you keep your box square, three more, while you're on the mat. You have to pull in and up, and one more time, and down, around, up, beautiful.

And bend the knees in, rest your arms down, you always want to take a little break in between, just a little one. Hands back, want to fix that one, okay. And we're gonna do, tailbone down, we're gonna do walking. Walking is gonna translate into our single straight leg and double straight leg. Alright, so we're gonna go out, beautiful pelvis, love it.

And we're gonna walk, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and up, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And one, so you really feel the back of the thigh and seat is what's pushing your foot into that strap, instead of the knee, instead of the foot, it's coming right from here, really shaping the back of the thigh and the seat. Two more sets, keeping that tailbone down as you come up is really hard. And up, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and down, last set, reach out to the whole other side of the studio, and up, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and bend the knees in, and rest your arms, good. So now I'm gonna show you how that is similar to single straight leg and double straight legs.

Push your hands against the poles, good. And we're gonna get back into that walking position, pressing the back of the ribs down and extending forward to a 45, good. And drop the tailbone just a little more, excellent. Instead of walking one leg, just take one leg as low as you can down the middle of the body, and then switch. So this looks like your single straight leg that you do as part of the series of five, excellent.

So she's allowed to push here so she can really anchor here as the amazing feeling of length, I hope you're feeling that at home and feeling great. Now hold both legs up. Now try it with both legs. Rapid move down, and coming up. So this is your double straight leg.

Brianna doesn't know I'm about to make it really hard. And down. Good, she's doing that so easily. But now I want you to put one hand over the other behind your head, no pulls now. So you have to lift up your head from your powerhouse and really ground yourself in.

And try to use this to push your head into your hands because you always want equal and opposite reaction, but use that bottom and go down as low as you can, and pull it up, uh-huh. Come up a little higher so there's more weight on the back of the ribs, give me one more, yes. And scoop it in and feel that, and in, and you really start to understand the double straight leg. How does that feel? Yeah. Yeah.

Lie down your head, bend your knees in for a second, good. So we take a little break, and we're gonna do the four count frog next. Drop down your tailbone a little bit, great job, okay. And put your arms back, alright. And we're gonna start in a 45 degree angle.

So, going out. Good. Down with the tailbone a little bit more. Reach your pelvis away from you, yes, alright. Open about the width of the mat.

Circle down together and squeeze, draw the knees back in, and reach out to that 45, hold. Open the width of the mat, circle down, squeeze in your thighs, draw the legs in from that level, and go back out to a 45, hold. Last one, and it starts, one, squeeze down, two, draw it in for three, back out for four, and hold. Let's try the reverse. Pull it in for one, go down long and low and lean, circle and pause with the legs here, and then squeeze the legs together, and then you bend in.

Go down low, good. Stretch out, one. And we're gonna circle up and pause, squeeze the legs together. One more, bend the knees in, reach out low from the back of the thigh and seat, yes. Circle up and pause, and squeeze your inner thighs together, and then draw them in, perfect, rest your arms by your side.

So the idea of the legs going out and pulling in from your powerhouse is what I'm trying to help you understand for double leg stretch. How did that feel? Good. Good. Alright, and we're gonna go on to bicycle now.

So you're gonna put your hands behind, good, alright. So, I want this nice and square body, and I want you to reach the right leg out down the middle of your body, good, and then slide that foot back into you, ooh, I love it. Start the left one going. What I really loved is how much she's stretching her hip flexor as she goes down and pulls in. You can see the big scoop and reaching.

One more on the right and one more on the left. Working the back of the thigh and seat, and then the left. And I really think of this one with the single leg stretch. So I'm gonna be talking to you, okay, now we're gonna reverse it, bend this one and go out. So back of the thigh, good, and bend this one in.

And I will teach it on the mat as if you're doing bicycle when we do it. And bending that one in, good. And give me one more with the left, beautiful, bend that knee in, and one more with the right, bending this one in, and I want you to hold it right here. Lower the right leg a little more, good. Drawing this knee in a little bit more, good.

So this is that single leg stretch position that I'm talking about. Alright, bend this knee in, good. Rest your arms down by your side. Great, nice job. Now we are going to do airplane, which gets into this unbelievable round ball feeling that's just like you're rolling like a ball.

So I'm gonna want you to use that imagery when we do the mat. So you're gonna put your hands, and this is also why I have Brianna doing it with really long arms, because it's pretty much impossible to do airplane unless you do it with long arms. Can't really do it if you're at the intermediate level. So, we are going to use our powerhouse to curl our tailbone towards you off the mat, and you're gonna have the knees right on the mat by your ears, yes. And then, staying on this side of the bar, squeeze your legs up to the ceiling, and then use this part of your legs to reach out in a straight line, you're gonna push with those arms, reach, keeping the bottom up, almost til you're down, keep squeezing, lengthening out, and then rolling down your upper back, middle, good, legs go all the way down, the knees separate, and you draw the feet into a gorgeous scoop, keep drawing them in, you naturally curl into a ball, and then you extend up, lengthening from the hips, reaching out to a straight line, pushing with those arms, good, really reaching, stretching, and you just deliciously roll down your upper back, middle, keep going down with the legs, and the feet go down, draw the feet on the mat, scoop it in.

One more in this direction and we're gonna reverse. Good, that was even quieter than the last time. Reach out, lifting the hips to the ceiling, reaching out, pushing here, reaching on this one, keep going, going, going, roll down just a little bit the upper back, and guess what, you're gonna fly up at the seat, right on up, all the way over with the legs, draw the knees into your ears, here's that rolling like a ball position, and I'll stretch you on the way down, push with those arms, lengthen out, connect the back of the ribs to the mat, get your feet on the mat as close to your seat as you can, and slide them out straight, as soon as they're straight you lift up like an airplane, bend the knees down, good, and then press with those arms, and reaching, only rolling down one bone at a time, one more in this direction. Getting the feet close to your seat, let's see how quiet you can be this time, oh yeah. We're gonna lift with those hips, and we're gonna lift up over, ooh yeah, keep lifting those hips, and bend the knees down, good for you, much quieter, too.

And, so here's that rolling like a ball position, and push with those arms, rolling down those ribs, and stretch, kind of a little bit like short spine massage two on the reformer, great. So now we are gonna do our side leg series which is gonna translate to your side kick series when you're on the mat. So I'm gonna take both straps off her feet, good. And I want you to lie your right side completely on this side of the mat. And we're gonna start with your elbow here.

Good. Perfect on your head, nice, good. If you have a strap on your Cadillac, it's nice to tuck your bottom ankle underneath it so that you don't fall off, but you don't need to have it. You can either rest this hand here or you can reach it all the way here, as long as you're trying to not let go of that alignment of your shoulders, so trying to keep your shoulders ideally. This is what I really want to look at, is the alignment of your hips.

Is your top hip coming up higher towards your shoulder or are you able to reach it out? And that is because we're gonna be working with our spring. So, bend this knee, the top leg, and we're gonna put your foot in the spring. Great, now starting right now, from that hip, we're gonna reach it out and make your heels touch. And you're gonna pretend that you can even make the top leg longer than the bottom one, that would be fantastic.

So, the first exercise we're gonna do is just front and back, we're gonna lift it up a little bit, but this gives you a really amazing feeling of what is it with a spring load instead of just in midair. So we're gonna use our powerhouse and kick it forward, yes, and then take it back, and when you take it back I want you to hold it right there, perfect. So right now you're in this great straight line from head to toe, so with your pelvis right here, I want you to use the back of the thigh and seat to take that leg back, and you really shape the back of the thigh and seat. Don't lift it up as you go back, just straight back, there you go, do you feel that work, excellent. And taking it forward, we're just gonna do five, so four more.

Forward, good, and taking it back. Good, yes, and three more. It's okay to bring the leg up higher and lose tension on the spring, that is fine, but for right now I'm just having her taking it forward, good, yes, feeling the control, and back the thigh and seat as it goes behind you, and one more. Scooping it in, pulling it up with your belly, and back with the thigh and seat, and I love how she keeps her leg a little turned out. And now, heels together, or even a little longer.

Now here you are gonna lose tension as we go up and down. So you can take it up as high as you want to your ear and you don't need to keep the tension, okay? And we're gonna use the outer thigh to push up, good. And now inner thigh, reach that spring long, good. And up.

Good, and squeeze. And up, that's it. And squeeze, longer, longer, longer. And two. And long, and one more.

Reach, good, and squeeze, now hold. Here's a part that gets really lost in the mat. We have our whole leg toned, working, scooping, and when we do our little circles we kind of lose that, so let's stay nice and working, and five little circles. One, two, three, four, five. Reverse it, one, two, control that spring, heels almost touch, two, one more, alright, and legs together, good.

Alright, now we're going to do hot potato. Have you ever done hot potato, Brianna? Okay. (laughs) So we are going to tap your heel five times, one, two, three, four, five, and then it's gonna fly quickly into the air, and then it's gonna tap five times back here really close to your other leg, there you go, and then it's gonna fly, and then you're gonna translate to four, okay, and we just keep breaking it down, and the last set is one up, one up, and you do it, actually, twice, you're gonna repeat it. So it goes, five, four, three, two, and then repeat one. Alright, so let's have some fun.

You're gonna use a lot of outer thigh, a lot of powerhouse, there's gonna be a lot of noise, it's okay, alright. But try to, you're gonna be really free even though you're working with control. Here we go, we're gonna tap five times, one, two, three, four, five, up, and one, two, three, four, five, up, tap your heel, really close to your leg, three, four, up, and one, two, three, four, up, and one, two, three, up, one, two, three, up, one, two, up, there you go, one, two, up, now one up, one up, another set, one up, on up, and another one, one up, there you go, legs together, good. Oh, no. On the other side, you will.

Now, I'm gonna challenge you with grand rond de jambe. So we're gonna do it just like kicking front and back. So you're gonna start off, your leg is a little turned out, I can see your inner thigh, and you're gonna be doing this on the mat. You're gonna take that leg forward, as forward as you can, you're gonna lose tension, keep taking it forward with your powerhouse, then come up to your ear, towards me, towards me, here we go, yes. Now rotate in that hip as you go behind you, scooping in, keep this hip in here, and rotate, yes, and legs together, good.

Use your belly, take it forward to your nose, take it towards your ear, and now you rotate in that hip as you take it behind you, reach with this part of your hip, reach out, stretch that spring, there you go, legs together, one more time. Scoop it in, good, up to your nose, up to your, that's it, turn in that hip as you reach behind you, stretch this hip out, right there, and legs together. Reversing it for three. And back, good, rotate in that hip as you go up to your ear, now use your powerhouse to pull it all the way up to your nose, and then leg squeezes together, two more. Back behind you, rotate in that hip as it goes up to your ear, into your nose, and one more, I believe.

And take it back, and up to your ear, use your powerhouse as it goes to your nose, and legs together with control, good job, alright. So that was the end of that leg, we're gonna go to the other leg four so that we're nice and even. So I'm gonna take this one off. You can, let's roll onto your belly. Ahh, give your back a little break, and then roll to your other side.

I'm gonna come around here, and you're gonna be able to see her alignment, you're gonna have to be really good now, Brianna, because we have to see the alignment from behind and whether your back is correct, or your hips. We're gonna bend this knee, and grab on, good, alright, and legs together. So we can see right now that her hip is up, and she'll show you how she works hard to even out that line. Fantastic, so we're gonna keep the hip right here and we're gonna use your belly to go forward, doing five of these. And take it back, beautiful, yes.

And forward. And taking it back, scoop it in, nice. And forward. Wonderful, back of the thigh and seat, yes, and she really scoops in. And back.

And last time. And taking it back, beautiful, and legs together. Now we're gonna do up and down. So we're going to keep our hips stacked, and it's okay if you lose tension, you're gonna go up, that's it, and now lengthen as you squeeze the inner thighs there, good. Up, and lengthen as you squeeze.

And three, and lengthen as you squeeze. And two, and I want you to really feel that deep scoop. And one more, lengthen, you can't get any taller or more toned, every part of you is toned from head to your toe to start your five little circles. Start forward this time, one, two, three, four, five, reverse, one, two, three, four, five, great job, legs there, excellent, alright. We're gonna do a little hot potato, yeah, okay.

So, we are gonna start with five just in front. And one, two, three, four, five, up, and one, two, three, four, five, up, and one, two, three, four, up, and one, two, three, four, up, and one, two, three, up, and one, two, three, up, let's do two, one, two, up, one, two, up, and now two sets of one, and one, and one, and one, hah. She's nailed it that time, huh? Okay, good work. How did that feel?

Okay. Good. Alright, so some good hip work. But again, we're gonna be doing that on the mat. Let's do our grand rond de jambe.

So first I want you to squeeze your inner thighs together, and I want you to make the top heel think that it can go into the arch of the bottom leg, and with your powerhouse bring that leg forward, as high as you can, take it to your ear, and then rotate in that hip but keep them aligned as you go behind you, so you're gonna keep that hip right there, yes, and squeeze your legs together. Two more. Forward, take it to your ear, rotate in the hip joint as you take the leg behind you, reaching long and together, one more. Forward, rotate, take it way behind you, and together. Great, reversing it, back the thigh and seat, rotate now as you pull it up to your ear, and to your nose, and scoop it in and reach long, two more.

Reaching back, up to rotate as you go to your ear, scoop it in, your hip should be feeling really good now, one more time like you're getting a really good workout. Up to your ear, rotating, yes, to your nose, and back. Great job, bend that knee in. Alright, everyone, we are done with our leg springs. Go ahead and lie on your back.

Let your back kind of take a little break, and relax, nice. And we are going to set up for the shari. I am gonna talk a lot about the transition from the shari to the push through because it's the roll up, it's the neck pull, it's a lot of things in the mat, and then for a lot of people we have a hard time getting up, and the feeling of what our legs should be doing to stabilize for our upper body to come up is huge with the shari, so I really want you to be able to feel that. So take a moment to set up your apparatus for the push through series. So I'm gonna unhook this, I'm gonna swing it through.

However your Cadillac, or half Cadillac, or wall unit is, set it up accordingly. Okay, so, that actually looks pretty good. There's a couple of ways to set yourself for alignment. I'm gonna have you straighten your legs, yee, I had a feeling. Slide (laughs) a little bit this way.

I want the bar to hide in between the poles, yet your feet to be hip width apart on there. So lift up your feet and then hold that bar right there, good, soften your knees a little bit, and maybe slide back just half an inch. Thank you, perfect, okay. And now, so the shari is really, or it's also has other names, but since Shari is my aunt I like to keep it as the exercise that he designed for my aunt, because she's able to, she had a really bad neck and she was able to do exercises that completely lifted all your body weight onto your neck. And Brianna actually has a sensitive neck, too, so I bet you can appreciate that on this one.

So we are going to do, this one is actually very similar to the leg pull up on the mat. So, look, think, try to put this away in your tool belt here. Alright, nice and long, you're gonna bend the knees in. To start, we're gonna start, our legs are at a 45 degree angle, so straighten your legs, keeping your tailbone down, great. And we're gonna lower down, so just below the ball of the foot, there you go, alright.

This exercise is a mean one. If you try to use your quads and push your knees down you're gonna get a really bad calf cramp, dead giveaway. Or if you try to control it with your feet too much, those cramp up. So, it definitely doesn't let you cheat on it. So, we're gonna use instead, we're gonna shape up our hamstring and glute, and we're gonna squeeze those, and we're gonna curl up our tailbone and lift one bone at a time until we're a beautiful straight line from foot to your shoulder, excellent.

Keep an eye on these hips, don't let them seesaw back and forth, and take your right leg and give a little double pulse towards that bar, one, two, and put it down softly, and left, two, and let's repeat that, and right, two, and put it down, and left, two, and put it down, and now enjoy rolling down, scoop it in one bone at a time, lengthening your hips away from you, draw the knees towards you to pull that bar in, and with your tailbone down lengthen out as if you're sliding your feet. And this is similar to the footwork on the reformer. And draw the knees towards you, pulling it back in, we're gonna do it a few more times. Keep your bottom down as the legs straighten, and now squeeze the bottom and curl it up, using the back of the thighs and seat, this time we're gonna start with your left. Keep the hips even, left, one, two, and put it down, and right, two, and put it down, and left, two, and put it down, and right, two, and hold, and enjoy, pretend like you're pulling that spring into each bone, each vertebra, so we've gone through the middle back, through the waistband, all the way through as if you could bend each bone in your sacrum until the tailbone is down, one more set.

So we're gonna draw the knees towards you, anchoring the back of the ribs so you really feel the back of the thigh and seat, and then the scoop, and then draw it back towards you. I just have my hand here on the bar for safety. That's how I was taught and that's how I'm gonna do it, but you don't need to have it if you're in full control curling up, all the way, excellent. Starting with the right again, right, two, and down, and left, two, and down, and right, two, and last one, long out of the hip and rolling down, really emphasizing the length, you get something to hold on to as you stretch and lengthen, good. Tailbone down, drawing the bar towards you, and with the back of the ribs anchored you slide those legs out, for the last time you're gonna draw them in towards you, good.

And extend the legs, and squeezing up your seat, and curling it up, excellent, good. Let's start with the left for the last one. Left, two, and right, two, and left, two, and one more, nice one Brianna, and down with that upper back. So here's that transition that I was talking about. So hold it here, we've got our tailbone down, and we're gonna finish up the exercise by drawing the knees the towards you, good.

And you get to really feel how the back of the ribs anchor and use the back of the thighs and seat to push the bar away, getting a deep powerhouse scoop, that allows for you to draw you head up with your powerhouse, and now you're gonna curl up one bone at a time until your hands are on the push through bar, good. Grab on to it, and then separate your feet so they're against the poles. So this is a, there's so many beautiful transitions in Pilates and Romana's Pilates work that we've preserved and there to give you that really deep connection, really deep in your work, and just feel all of that wonderful powerhouse. So, we're in the push through now. We're gonna tighten the back of the thighs and seat as if we can pull it towards us, use the belly, and we're gonna roll back, almost like we're rolling our waistband down to the mat, don't come up any higher with this, be really disciplined about that, and try to pull back, yes, more with the lower back, locking the arms straight, and then the arms are gonna come up, and we're gonna lift all the way from our belly to push that bar away from us, beautiful.

Draw your head to your chest, the upper abdominals pull in to make an upper C curve, the middle C curve, and lower, and you're gonna use your powerhouse to push down that bar, yes, and exhale, always breathing. So this is pretty easy to see that this is the spine stretch forward. Scoop it in, we're gonna roll back your lower back. Come on, less upper back movement, more lower back, let me see it, there you go. And then we're gonna lift all the way up.

If you don't move in that order you'll have a hard time pushing this bar around. And head to your chest, let's do one more. Scooping it in, and use that powerhouse to dive your head down, good, and stretch, beautiful. And we're gonna roll back, not this first, but this, right, let's see it, and using the back of the thighs and seat, you never thought you had to stabilize with that, but as you learned with the shari, it helps a ton to get more out of your upper body, good. Alright, I want you to pull back in the ribs just a little bit more like that, excellent, and now lift just a little more from here, thank you, very good.

How did that feel? Yeah, good, alright. So we're done with the push through bar. We're gonna bring our arms down. And the last thing we'll do here is the tower because it really mimics the jackknife.

So, a little bit more than the shari does. So I'm gonna unhook my push through spring and set up for the tower. Super important that you use a safety strap for the tower. So you're gonna hook that on. Each safety strap is a little different.

But as long as you don't feel like this bar is ever gonna fall onto your face for the tower. And now I have my tower spring. And, Brianna, you're gonna spin around. Good, and we're gonna start like this. I'm really big on starting from the roll back, and you hands are underneath your knees, good.

And head to your chest and round your back, good. And let's roll back your lower back, scoop it in, yeah. That's it, and your middle back, mm-hmm. And your shoulders, and look at that, she slipped right under the bar so nicely, as if I planned it, okay. And now we wanted to have our arms straight, whoo-hoo, that's awesome.

We want it just like the leg springs, because you want to anchor the back of the ribs. This is where all the magic starts to really get a good scoop and to really stretch out the hip flexor instead of overusing it, and using your quads, and I go over a lot of mat exercises or mat classes that talk about how to do that. So we are pushing with the heel of our hand into the poles so that we can anchor the back of our ribs when we're doing our tower. But for now, I'm gonna need your help and hers, put your hands on the bar, push it up so that your feet can go on the bar, hip width apart and parallel, so not Pilates stance. Joseph Pilates did a lot of parallel, are you good?

Did a lot of parallel work, surprisingly, because a lot of people think it's just Pilates stance all the time, and you're a little narrow, there we go, okay. Lower down your tailbone. Straighten your legs, and get your bottom all the way down, down, down, down. Okay, so I'm gonna start with a little warm up with the tower because I just love it so much. So you're gonna keep your sacrum all the way down, that triangle bone, all the way down to your tailbone, don't let it come up, and let's just work your ankles.

You're gonna point your toes, good. And flex your feet, good, and two more. When you're doing this notice that your pinky toe comes back further than the big toe, it should really be like a waiter, you know, holding a tray, it shouldn't be lopsided, alright. Now let's stay with a point. So lift that one a little more, I'm just looking at her arches, good.

Now you're gonna lock the ankle like this in a point if you can so we can strengthen your ankle. And we're gonna keep that tailbone as glued to the mat as we can, and how low can you get your knees onto your chest without lifting your tailbone? So you want a really good pelvic stretch here, and then straighten your legs. So this is delicious if you are disciplined and do it right. Back of the ribs are down, tailbone is down, bringing the knees in as deep as you can without lifting your bottom, and then straighten.

And one more and then we'll do the exercise, bending, good, and straighten, alright. So from now on nothing is gonna be in threes, it's all just doing a nice waltz. Okay, so we're gonna squeeze your seat, and I want you to use your powerhouse to lift your bottom right over your shoulders all the way up for one, bend the knees in for two, good, straighten the legs up to the ceiling, this is your jackknife right here, and you're gonna roll down, pushing that bar away, it's so hard to have the control in jackknife when you're doing this, lengthen, lengthen, lengthen, all the way down to your tailbone, bend the knees once, don't lift that bottom, there you go, straighten your legs, squeeze from your seat so you really feel those hips, draw the knees in, see if you can feel how the back of the thighs and seat push the bar up away from you, and then roll down, using those to push the bar away, but using your powerhouse to lengthen one bone at a time, and one more time. Keep the bottom down as you bend in, straighten the legs, keep those ribs in here, and squeeze up all the way, bend the knees in, straighten your legs up, and we're gonna roll down, upper back, really lengthen though, pretend like I'm pulling your pelvis away from your neck, just stretch you down long, great job, good. Bend the knees, carefully put your hands on the bar to take your feet off, you're gonna lower the bar down, it's not gonna hit you in the head because your safety strap is there, good.

Slide your legs straight from the back of the thighs. Beautiful, put your hands right here on the side of your legs, and I'm gonna unhook it just to give you extra precaution room. And try to roll up your head to your chest, and one bone at a time, reach for your ankles to finish your Cadillac work, and we are gonna be moving on to your wunda chair, alright, you ready? Okay, let's switch to wunda chair. Alright, so I promised you a really delicious intro to your mat, and so I'm gonna add a couple of exercises here that might not directly translate to your mat, but it'll make your wunda chair experience a lot better.

So we're gonna start off with the pull up, it is pretty much the all encompassing exercise of Pilates on the wunda chair, so come on this side. I chose one spring on the top, one spring on the bottom for Brianna, you can lighten your spring tension. As you bring the springs down it obviously becomes less tension, and then you can start with one on the top, dropping the spring, making it even lighter, and then working your way to the ultimate goal of either one spring on the bottom or no springs at all and you have a foot tucked under the board to bring it up. So, I love how you're starting. Let's do Pilates stance.

Good, and we're gonna, we're nice and tall, and I want you to reach your arms up to the ceiling. Yes, so you always want to bring your mind to your body, even as you get onto your wunda chair. So we're gonna roll off an imaginary wall, head, and then the next vertebra, and the next one, and your hands are gonna be on top of the chair, beautiful. And keeping your powerhouse in, let's put a foot up onto the pedal, great. And we're gonna bring it down, and the other foot on top, and, great, and you're gonna want the toes on there as well as the ball of the foot.

Okay, now we're gonna put your hands on this edge of the, yes, and your shoulders want to line up right over your wrists, great job. Try to pull in the ribs right up into here creating an upper C curve, see if you can get each of this, since we've warmed up so much on the Cadillac it's pretty nice to feel that form now, and we've got the lower C curve, great. Her tailbone is pointing down to the ground, absolutely important on this exercise. Can you do an example, Brianna, of the exact opposite, lifting your head and letting your belly hang and your back arch? So if you try to do the pull up with your body in this shape at all, it'll never come up, the pedal will never come up.

So you're gonna curl your ears between your arms, you're gonna pull your sternum or chest bone up into your upper back, your ribs, feeling the upper C curve in your middle belly, your lower belly, and the tailbone, going down, her heels are up squeezing the back of her inner thighs, and let's try to keep your shoulders forward a little bit more, and I want you to pull your powerhouse in to draw that pedal up to the ceiling, mm-hmm. Up, up, up, up, and we're gonna go down. That is really good because I know I can change this a lot. So she tried to go into that flat back and tried to muscle it up, but instead I want you to think about a diver, he's on the edge of his diving board and he's got to pull his legs up into a handstand so he can do some gorgeous flips, or as he's flipping through the air you're gonna do some pikes, so you have to draw that line from one hip to the other, scoop it in, and this is all you've got, you gotta come a little forward and then pull up for me, there you go, up, up, up, all the way up, use your powerhouse, good, and now come down, heels are together, squeeze, ooh, I like that, and come up again, scooping it in, good, now hold here, see if you can come back a little bit, now lower the feet just an inch, the pedal an inch, and pull up into here, yes, and down an inch, and pull up, yes, look at this shape now, isn't it better? One more, pull it up, and now with absolute control, hold it up, with control lower down your toes, soft as can be, yes, yes, yes, great job.

Let's take your right foot to the floor, uh-huh, and control it up with your left, have the left foot go down to the floor as well, and pretend you're against that wall again to round up one vertebra at a time. Good, and arms up to the ceiling, nice, there you go. And now push down the Earth as you come up, good, good, good, alright. So that is not an easy exercise, is it, no. And we're gonna move on to the twist, but that shape you're gonna see obviously in the push through or the spine stretch forward.

It's the exact same shape but just working you a little differently. So the twist is gonna be your one exercise that you can lean towards the saw or the crisscross at the end of the series of five, any twisting that you do on your mat work. So, let's come on this side, and I'm gonna lower the springs to one in the middle. When your hands are on the wunda chair, on the pedal, you want only one spring in the middle. Alright, so, I'm gonna put the pad right here.

When I teach the twist I really enjoy talking a little bit of lines and making it more mathematical. That might not be what works for you, but it really makes it simpler for me. So I draw my box here, and it's very important that you can see a diagonal from this corner to this corner, as well as a diagonal, if I change this pad, from this corner to this corner. So we're gonna line up here, we have our box, our Pilates frame or box, and I'm gonna line up the bottom line of my hips with one of these diagonals. So, I'm gonna have this pad hanging on this front corner edge, you wanna do the same, and come on over here, and we're going to sit down.

So we're gonna end up being on your right hip on this one for the twist. Come forward just a little bit, so you don't want your left hip super comfortable right now, and as you bring your knees into your chest you want to check that that line of the hips I was just talking about is in line with one of the diagonals. So, again, you're gonna sit closer to the back of the chair, not towards the front of the chair. You're gonna have about a good eight to 10 inches, you'll see on the other side, and we're going to extend the legs up into your teaser position, sorry, and then the leg closest to the chair is gonna cross that ankle, good. And now both arms extend as if you're doing a teaser, scoop it in, yeah.

And you're gonna bend the right arm, reach it behind you and find the back corner of the pedal. Great, this arm long up to the ceiling, try to keep the arm close to your ear, good. Now, we're gonna move our box together, we're gonna roll onto your right hip or that pad, keep moving the left hip so you keep your box together, keep moving that left hip, yes, as you push the pedal down, excellent. Now that, and bring this arm, reach it straight, good. So we have this nice long diagonal, and you're gonna keep your hips stacked as you complete the twist, rotating in the ribcage, really feeling that incredible abdominal work, and untwist, and the use your belly, draw it in, to control the speed of the pedal coming up, controlling it, scooping it in, sitting on, and we're gonna do it two more times as soon as your left hip comes down, we're gonna roll back onto your right one, taking that left hip over, using the back of the thigh and seat, left arm long by your head, reach long and lean, keep that arm close, now rotate in your ribs, scooping in and really feeling that deep twist work, and untwist, beautiful, and then draw the pedal up with your powerhouse, scooping it in, sitting on your left hip as those legs come up for the teaser, and one more.

Draw it in and move the box simultaneously, your Pilates box, that is, excellent job, Brianna, good. And holding the body long and lean, then rotate, good, I'm assisting keeping her hips stacked but she's really doing it all on her own here. And scoop it in, drawing up the pedal one last time as you come up, good, and now both arms reach for your toes, holding up in that teaser, and then the knees in, and other side. Whoo, got another side. So I'm gonna bring this pad and have it almost hanging off that other corner, so actually we're looking at this diagonal now to line up our line of our hips, alright.

Your right hip is almost hanging off, and it's very close to the back edge of the wunda chair, and when your knees are up that's when you line up your hips so let's go ahead and bring your knees up and see if your hips are nice in alignment, I think that's exactly what, that's perfect. The foot closest to the pedal, which is her left, is gonna cross over on top. So we're gonna cross that, now reach both arms up, yes. I will need your right hip to open up a little bit more, turning out your, nope, just rotating in your hips, yes. Because otherwise your quad was gonna hold you.

And we're gonna bend the left elbow, reach past you, find the back corner, right arm long to the ceiling, good, and now we're gonna move our box simultaneously, the right hip has to work as you reach those legs out, take that right hip over, pushing down at the same time, let's get that right hip to match, yes, good. Nice and long, keep your ankles crossed. Good, nice and long here, let's watch her rotate those ribs, too, keep that arm right by your ear, reaching out, yes, this is your saw and your twist, and coming back, and now we're gonna control and pull up the pedal as we sit back on, carefully, onto your left hip, right hip, and down again, scooping, and take that right hip over, yes, simultaneously, good, reaching out nice and long, get that beautiful long feeling, twist those ribs, yes, untwist, try to make sure that your left shoulder is still in joint, scoop it in as you come up, don't let it dislocate all the way up to your ear, that's better, one more. And pulling in, going long, love it, keep those ankles crossed, good, nice and long, rotate in your ribs, feel that deep twist work, like the crisscross, scooping in, good. And last time, controlling that pedal up, scooping it up, yes, and then bringing the other arm up, and reach for me up here, lift those legs.

Good, hug those knees in, nice. So far she likes me, but we're gonna do a few more exercises now. Swan is good, we're gonna do swan, and then table, and then we're gonna move on to your spine corrector. So, the swan, you want to lie down with your ribs off the front edge and you're gonna push the pedal completely down. Again, we're gonna be on one spring because our hands are on the pedal.

So go ahead and lie down, so you approach it from the back of the wunda chair like Brianna did, and we're gonna put your hands down, good, heel of the hand on the pedal, straight arms, good. So we want to line up the shoulder over the wrist, I like it, and so you want to comfortably have your ribs off the front edge, make sure the shoulders aren't in joint, good, make sure you can feel your pubic bone down on the mat. So whenever we're lying down on our stomach, super important that we don't hurt our lower back by crunching into it because we've lifted our pubic bone. Instead, we want to press it down and have almost a tunnel under our belly, but, alright. This is a very easy exercise, just throw it away if you don't do it correctly.

We're gonna try to find very deep and small little muscles, okay? So we're gonna keep the shoulders where they are. Think about the front of your shoulder, the clavicle or the chest bone right there, and I want you to also think about your triceps. And we're gonna not move those shoulders as we pull the elbows up to the ceiling, and pull your belly in as you straighten your arms, good. Two more, we're gonna pump it three times.

Bending, and straighten. We're gonna hold those right there, one more. Almost opening the chest more, yeah, and straightening, now hold the arms straight, scoop your belly in, and let's pull that pedal up into a backbend. Opening the collarbones more, come on, open them, open them, open them, there you go, and go down nice and long, stay down, we're gonna do three more. Pumping, and opening those collarbones, and straighten, good.

I love that your ribs aren't dislocating out of alignment here, hold those arms long, and we're gonna scoop your belly in and keep your pubic bone going down, and lifting, lifting, open those collarbones more, yes, and go down, and we're gonna do one more. So this is a really nice vision for your neck pull. Sorry, not neck pull, neck roll, as well as your swan. Hold here, keep this here, and scoop it in, this is how you should be coming up long, for both of them, and coming down, excellent, nice work. How did that feel?

Tough. Ooh. Don't get in her way. (laughs) Good. You're going to keep your arms on the pedal, slide your bottom back til your feet touch, good, now bend your arms and let the pedal up, then put your hands on top, but we're gonna scoop in your belly to lift with your powerhouse, and then roll always up against an imaginary wall, arms up to the ceiling, and pushing down as you lift even more in your powerhouse, great.

Now we're really gonna have fun with the table. I'm gonna put one spring in the middle and one spring on the bottom. Okay. I'm not sure that's she's gonna love me for this, but it's great work for the hamstring and glute, okay. So come on over here.

So we're gonna start off with the table and then we're gonna do the one legged table. This is the same as the double leg kick and the single leg kick that you do on your belly for mat work, and a lot of times we lift our pelvis off of the mat as we're doing single leg kick instead of keeping it down as you bring the foot to your bottom, and that is why we're gonna really learn about those muscles right now. So you're gonna turn around, sit on down, good, and then toes up onto the pedal. So there's two ways you can lift up your bottom. You can either push down on the pedal, and I'm gonna have you put your hands back here, good, and because it's a little bit more of a teaching class we're gonna push down on that pedal and demonstrate how you can use your legs to lift your bottom now.

Go ahead and lift up your bottom. Super easy, but not the right muscles, so we're gonna lift up the pedal and keep the pedal up, and, yup, get in the same position, so now we're gonna draw into that hamstrings and the glutes, and we're gonna lift ourselves all the way up until we're kind of, I want you to think a rainbow, I want you to think past the table, alright. So we're gonna curl up, and we're gonna keep lifting, lifting, lifting, and now head looks at your belly, perfect, lift up for my fingers, push the pedal down, then pull it up to your seat, up, and have some rhythm here, up, and up, lift for my fingers, and up, good, and now up, and let's do five more, and pull it up, find the hamstrings and glutes, don't drop your bottom, and three, and up, and one more, hold, and sit on down. Good, good job, how was that? No comment. No comment.

Did you, (laughs) did you feel your hamstrings and bottom? Oh, yes. Okay. So those are the muscles that should be holding your pelvis down on the mat when you're doing your double leg kicks since it's double leg. So now is where she's really gonna love me is the single leg, so we're gonna do it one leg, alright.

So we're gonna come up and we're gonna lift up our bottom, hold the right leg forward, and just push down with the left, pulling it up towards you five times, then you get to, I'll let you rest in between, and then lift up and do the left leg forward. So, here we go. Squeezing up, all the way, lift, lift, lift, holding the pedal up, extend the right leg forward, aligned with your body, and give me five. Up, and pull it up, and lift up, look at your hips and get them up, and three, pull it up, two more, you can do it, one more, and sit down while you put the other foot down. You thought there was no comment last time, right, yeah.

Okay. Yeah. (laughs) Last time, here we go. Squeeze it up, let's get that right hamstring and glute working, and left leg is long, out to the ocean, straight ahead, and pull it up, one, and pull it up, two, up, pull it up, three, two more, you got it, last one, yes, and sitting down, and it's on fire, isn't it? Yes, it is. Yes, alright.

Let's grab your spine corrector and finish this up, okay. Alright, so this is the last segment before we start our mat and get to infuse all of these apparatuses into our mat work. So we are gonna start with the roll back just to keep warming up your body. So, the spine corrector, this is a Gratz spine corrector, but yours is probably very similar to it if you don't have it. I want it a little bit in the middle of this mat.

You can use the yoga mat underneath, doesn't matter. You don't need any other props besides the spine corrector and a yoga mat, or this nice high mat that I have. Okay, so we're gonna start with sitting down facing the ocean, this way. Good. Alright, and I want you to, I love it, her knees are in alignment with her ankles, and I want you to put your hands underneath your knees, good.

So we're about to dive into the teaser series, so I'm trying to be a little nice and warm your guys's back up. And so you're gonna round your back, really round, excellent, good. And it's called a spine corrector because it really fixes your spine. So we're gonna work hard with our upper stomach to keep this upper C curve, to keep your upper body right here, as you draw, let's actually push your feet into the mat and use the back of the thighs to pretend like it can pull your feet towards your seat so you really engage those hamstrings and glutes that you just used, alright. And then squeeze your inner thighs, and then feel the connection of your pelvic floor and your lower belly pull into the spine corrector, into the barrel, and then keep rolling back bone by bone until your arms are straight, don't let your hands come away.

Take a breath, exhale, pull into the barrel with your belly to come forward, great, until your shoulders are over your hips again. Take a breath, we'll do that one more time. Squeezing the inner thighs, drawing your pelvic floor to you, using the lower belly until your arms are long, take a breath, and exhale, pull into the barrel, always feel that pulling into the barrel. And we're gonna make it a little bigger now. We're gonna squeeze your inner thighs, pelvic floor, lower belly, so you start off with the lower vertebra, and let's roll down another bone, and another, until you get to the bottom of your shoulder blades or your bra strap.

When you get there take a breath, and exhale, pull into the barrel again to roll up, so it's like you're using your upper set of your six pack or your middle set, and you're lower, and then bringing your shoulders over, one more of those. Big breath, squeezing, and roll back to the bottom of your shoulder blades. Great job, take a breath, and exhale, scooping in, feel those inner thighs, feel the pelvic floor and lower belly, good, and even the back of the thighs there, good. Now you get to really have fun. We're gonna squeeze the back of the legs towards you, yes, and rolling back.

So those legs are really stabilizing as you roll your upper body. And go ahead and add another bone this time, and another one, and reach your arms up, and exhale as you stretch over that barrel, and in with the air, so you're gonna have your legs up, come up with the arms, you're in a moment for teaser, right? And you're gonna put your hands underneath your knees, pulling into the barrel always as you return home, let's do one more. And back of the thighs squeezing, inner thighs squeezing, really stabilizing with those hips reaching away, this way as she stretches. Inhale, bringing up your arms and head, exhale, pulling the upper belly into the barrel, the middle belly, the lower, excellent.

Now let's hold here, pull back a little bit with the upper body, excellent, and let's lift up your right leg. And let's reach it out at a 45 degree angle, mm-hmm. You can lift your head up and find, yes. Lower your right thigh a little, there. And I'm gonna let go and you're gonna get the left leg there.

Pull it into the barrel always, scoop it in, find your good spot. So teaser one, you have your legs at this angle, good, and you're gonna roll back, so squeeze those inner thighs, find the back of the thighs and bottom, excellent, and roll back your lower belly, middle, good. Reach your arms up to the ceiling and back, and then coming forward, arms pulling into the barrel, good. Come a little more forward, good, and two more. Rolling, each time you're gonna use me a little less, good.

And arms, head, pull into the barrel to soften your quads and stretch those hip flexors, and give me one more. Scoop it in, soften your knees, bend them even a little bit, yes, and roll it up, use your hips to reach away instead, good. Now hold your arms up a little bit, and let's lift the legs. Don't move the upper body, we're gonna lift them up for one, pulling into the barrel, lower them, pull into the barrel, then lift up, two, come forward a little more, yes, pull up for three, now let's reach everything out. Arms up, and roll everything out, and then arms and head, and scoop into the barrel to come up, everything comes up.

And, yup, I had a feeling, you can come up, up, up, and two more, pull that lower belly into, yes, and arms back, good, and arms and head, and coming forward, lengthening from the back of the thighs, keep scooping in to come up, yes, one more. Scoop, draw it in, yes. And coming forward, arms, head, and lift, lengthening, curl in, scoop, scoop, and hug those knees into your chest, great. And we're gonna move on. Stay like this, okay, don't move.

And we're gonna grab your handles, and I'm gonna spot her, which is fabulous, but imagine I'm spotting you, you get the same feeling. Keep your knees really pulled into your chest, hands on those handles, there you go. So you're always pulling into that spine corrector, and we're gonna extend the legs all the way up to the ceiling, ooh, good job. And then we're gonna circle them around like corkscrew. Hold for a second, draw your belly in, turn out those legs a little bit for me, alright, here we go.

Circle to the right, around, and you're gonna, uh-uh, pull them all the way up to me. And it's a fantastic stretch once I get you. Put your arms a little straighter, mm-hmm. Grow up a little taller out of your, yes, lower back, good. We're gonna go left, Brianna, okay?

Left, around, now pull them up to me, thank you. Whoo, right, around, pull them up to me, yes. And left, around, scoop it in, yup, didn't know you could do that, did you? And pull it in one more time, left, around, and good job. Go ahead and lengthen the legs down on the barrel, pull your waist back into the barrel, and stretch forward.

So you're just gonna do that, yes, nice, good, okay. So a few more exercises we're gonna do here are the grasshopper as well as swimming, okay. So we're gonna turn onto your tummy. Good, alright. Have you ever done a grasshopper, I don't think so.

Eh, a little more hamstring and glute work, you don't mind, do you? Yay, okay, so lie down on your chest, good, and I want your hands kind of like this, yup, good. Find the correct alignment for you, alright. Forehead on the, mm-hmm, maybe a little forward. There we go, alright, so we're thinking about here, lift those legs up already, good, the upper body doesn't tense, right, just this.

Scoop it in, and lift those legs all the way up, here we go, so do you think you need to come forward more? Yeah. Okay. Because you want that teeter totter feeling, right? Yeah, alright, and not taking it in that lower back.

Here we go, scoop it in, and lift those legs up, pull them into your seat, keeping those thighs high, extend, keeping those thighs up, and eight counts down, four, five, six, seven, nice long body, and here we go, upsy daisy, lift those legs, yes, that was better, keep your legs up, extend with them up, and eight counts. You're gonna do it one more time. Last time, here we go. And down, lift those legs up simultaneously, good, keep those thighs up, keep them up as you extend, and eight counts down. Whoo-hoo, good job.

Now, before you go into this we're gonna slide back a little bit to do swimming, and then I promise we'll have some nice time with our back in just a second. Okay, so swimming, you need to be able to balance with your arms and legs lifted off the mat, okay? So find, you have to play with it, find where is that. It's different for grasshopper, it's different for swimming, and it's different for rocking. Slide the arms long on the mat, and then scoop your belly in, and we're gonna lift your arms up, mm-hmm, and I want your head out of the water, uh-huh, and I want your right arm and left leg higher, there you go, head up out of the water, that's it, lift that leg up and let's swim, here we go, I'm gonna let go now, you come up to me, lift your arms up to me, lift, lift your legs, squeeze them a little narrower down the middle, yes, up, one more, inhale, two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five, and melt.

Whoo, that was excellent, Brianna. Go ahead and lower your knees down to the mat, round your body over that barrel. Good. And now we're gonna transition into working on our back. But you're gonna want to move your barrel a little bit, so go ahead and step off, and let's more our barrel so it's a little closer to this edge before we start.

So now I want you to sit right back down like you were. But now slide up so that you're up onto the barrel. Great, and put your right foot right on the front bump of the barrel, good. Grab onto your handles, yes, alright, and round your back. The left leg is gonna lengthen out of your hip, good, and it's just gonna fly up as you kind of push and stabilize with the right leg and scoop in, there you go, with your belly, scoop in, right leg, good, and your shoulder blades go down, good, and then bend both knees into your chest.

Excellent, alright, so what you want here are the shoulder blades on the barrel, so maybe slide back a little bit, just a tad. No, the other way. This way? Yeah, there you go, good. But you have to have your waistband there, good.

Sorry, Brianna, I just, the way, I want you to come forward a little, hug into it just a tad more, back, that's enough, great, okay. So I want her waistband nice and there, and the reason I had her move is I just am already envisioning what I want for scissors. So, on the mat for scissors you have your hands underneath your bottom, and your wrist start to feel like they're gonna break because you have all the weight of your bottom. Here we have the spine corrector supporting you, so you can find the muscles that are really supposed to work. So we're gonna scoop your belly, always into the barrel, but then try to touch the ceiling with your legs.

Really have energy reaching up, good. Keep your left leg where it is and make the right leg reach out of your hip and go down the very center line of your body, and then as that leg comes up let's switch, good. And this leg can come, I love what you did, can come as close to you as you can only if this leg goes down further, yes, and switch, good, pulling into the barrel, and you're using the back of the thigh and seat, and scoop it in, this leg likes to go a little wide, keep it down the middle, and switch, yes. So start picturing that you don't have the barrel under your bottom, can you almost hover your bottom over that barrel, ooh, that was a total switch in energy, love it. So you're lifting your bottom off of that barrel, one more with the left leg going down, and then both legs are up, and bend the knees in for a moment, good job.

We're gonna do bicycle now. Both legs lift up. Good, and we're gonna, let's bend the left knee into your chest, use your belly, and take the right leg, just like scissors, you're gonna reach it out down the middle of your body, and when you can't go any lower you're gonna bend that knee, reaching the toe down to the barrel, this leg goes up and reaches out, this is an incredible hip flexor stretches, this knee is pulled in with your powerhouse and this leg is reaching out down the middle of your body. Go ahead and use your hamstring to pull that toe to, ah-hah, and then this one I'll give you a stretch on this leg as we scoop in and we stretch, and then go ahead and use the hamstring, yes, and one more with the left, keep it going, beautiful, and now you're gonna reverse it. So let's slide that left foot down and out, and we need to reverse it, try to get your toe as close to your seat on the barrel as you slide out, reach that leg up, and scoop it into the barrel at all times, yes.

Now start picturing that you don't have the barrel underneath you, that you're hovering your bottom up over that barrel, give me one more left, and one more right, make sure you're touching that barrel as you slide out, lifting that seat up off the barrel, and hug both knees in, very nice, okay. Did you feel your hamstrings and glutes on that? Alright, good. So now we're gonna do shoulder bridge because that's another exercise you're gonna do on the mat. So I want you to put your feet on the front part of that hump, there you go, yes.

It is also similar to leg pull up, but it's more, obviously, shoulder bridge. Maybe come forward with your hips a little bit, good, okay. And think about the shari, also. We're gonna keep these hips even, we're gonna try not to depend too much on the barrel, but instead give yourself a little lift as if you're hovering over, I love it, now extend the right leg down, actually stretches low and straight as you can, and you're gonna point it up to the ceiling, but flex it down as you reach out to the ocean, and point, and flex as you lift that seat, one more, point, and flex and return it to the barrel. Left leg low and long, point up, flex as you reach it out, point up, pretend your bottom is not supported by the barrel, one more, flex it out and return it to the mat.

Nice job. Okay, slide out a little bit, and we're gonna be doing, oh, not that far, too much, good, and we're gonna do rolling in and out. So bring in your right knee to your chest, and then your left, yeah, hug in a little more so your waistband is really there, okay. So rolling in and out is corkscrew here, so we're gonna pretend we're squeezing our inner thighs together, don't let even, like if you had a pad between your inner thighs, your knees are squeezing together, and you're gonna try to hold a ball between your heels and your body, and you're not gonna let that ball go by letting your heels come away from your seat. Alright, we're gonna find some points here.

Let's use our belly to pull into the barrel, and bring our knees to our right ear, bring both knees over, uh-huh, and then bring both knees over to your left ear, good, so we're finding all our waist muscles, and now we're gonna go to our right shoulder, scooping in our powerhouse, go to the right shoulder, try not to move your head, go over to the left shoulder, good, and now keeping your heels close to your bottom we're gonna let your thighs fall away from you and let the knees, knees stay together, fall away from your chest but go over to your right hip, okay, as far as you can without falling over, and then pull into the barrel to go over to your left hip, knees are stacked, there you go, and go as far as you can. Good, do all those points make sense? Alright, draw it back to center to your nose. Now instead of going side to side we're gonna go in one direction like corkscrew. So we're gonna keep squeezing our knees together, and our inner thighs and heels are holding a little ball between our bottom and our heels, and we're gonna go to our right ear, and then our right shoulder, and then we're gonna let our knees fall away as we go to the right hip, squeeze those knees together though, uh-huh, and they go all the way down, toes try to touch the barrel as we go over to the left hip, left shoulder, left ear, stop at your nose, go the other way.

Keep your heels as close to your seat as you can as you go over to your hip, over to your right hip, keep your heels towards your seat, yeah, and then, see you gotta really use that bottom, mm-hmm, over to your right hip, right shoulder, right ear, nose, let's do two more sets, here we go. Circle around, reaching it, scooping into the barrel, really feel those waist muscles, and center in, the other way, ear, shoulder, knee, good, and stretching around, pulling it, one more set. And ear, shoulder, good, knee, and, keep your heels close to your seat, scooping in all the way, nice, and last one. So you really feel how you stay centered and grounded with your powerhouse while your legs are challenging your range of motion, excellent job. Put your hands right on the front part of the barrel.

Use your powerhouse to curl your bottom towards you, lifting it off the barrel, push the barrel easily away from you, slide it, keep going, yep, you got it, and then let your legs hang over the barrel, super important to do the rest position and then to enjoy that, great. And after you rest just for a moment it's time to do our mat work. It's gonna be quick, it's gonna be fast moving, and I'm gonna keep trying to send all these images your way, and you're gonna remember all these exercises that you've done, alright, let's get to it. Alright, so now we are ready for our mat, and we're gonna take all those exercises that we just did on the Cadillac, on the wunda chair, and on the spine corrector, and we're gonna feel them on the mat. Now, if you do it one time only all the way through, that's fantastic, if you want to keep doing it a few more times, even better, but don't forget that this is gonna be offered as a standalone mat class, and so that you can just jump right to this without fast forwarding anything and just keep envisioning all those exercises in a nice, quick, compact intermediate advanced mat.

Alright, so let's get to it. So I want you to stand in Pilates stance, having your weight on the ball of your foot, and we're gonna have one arm over the other, good, and one foot in front of the other, and using your powerhouse lower yourself down to the mat. We're gonna redo the hundred even though you've already done the hundred, good. And go ahead and stretch yourself out completely. Reach your arms overhead, great.

I want you to go ahead and bend your knees and put your feet flat on the mat, mm-hmm, good, and now reach your arms up and press your arms down onto the mat, good, now use your triceps to push down into the mat, imagine you have the roll down bar underneath your bottom and reach it past your bottom. You're trying to not hear a little sliding motion as you pump right, good. Draw your belly into the mat and just lift your head up and look at your powerhouse, great. Keeping your tailbone down, I want you to take just your right leg and slide it long on the mat as if you're pushing away that push through bar and lift it up to a 45 degree, good. And now let's do the same thing with the left.

Slide your left away, bring it on up, and let's start your hundred. Inhale, two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five, good. So you're imagining your feet are on that push through bar so you can really engage the back of the thighs and the seat, that's 20, inhale, two, three, four, five, and exhale, scoop it in, really stretching that hip flexor, in, two, three, four, five, exhaling, good, you're pushing that bar, the roll down bar, away from your thighs, beautiful. Great job, try to anchor the bottom of the shoulder blades just a little, yeah, just a little bit, yes, and, that's 70, inhale, two, three, four, five, and exhaling, two, three, four, five, in with the air, and exhaling, that's 90, just give me one more, think about stretching that hip flexor, and then lower the legs down all the way, arms up, and arms back. So we're thinking of the transition of the shari to the push through, arms up, the legs are pushing away that bar, head comes through, and I need you to roll up and put your hands on the push through bar, right?

Beautiful job, and roll on back, lower back, keep pushing that imaginary shari push through bar, very good, and reaching back, arms, head, and scoop it in with control, beautiful, and rolling back, you're lengthening and stabilizing with the lower body, and reaching back, four more. Arms, head, scoop it in, yes, as if you have the push through bar in your hands, and rolling back, remember how you pulled it back in the push through, great job, and really make them feel good at using the visuals, yes, scooping it in, and rolling back, always the lower back first, just like I made her do on the push through, and let's do it one last time. Arms, push with the powerhouse, good, scooping in, reaching, imagine you're pushing that bar away with your feet, and we're gonna think about the roll over, that's next. And it is similar to the tower, but not quite. So arms press down by your side, and you're gonna lift your legs up to a 90 degree angle, and we're gonna imagine we're lifting over to me, touch the floor with your feet, open the legs, about shoulder width, and roll down, this is rolling down, reaching your hips, now keep your waist down, sweep your legs together, and over, a little more pep there, open, we're gonna roll down with control but then sweep them together, and over, yes, that was your last one in that direction, we're gonna click the heels together but then open and over, yes, squeeze those inner thighs and use your belly to pull those thighs to your chest as you reach out, and down and over, good job.

Squeeze your inner thighs, resisting the tower bar here, that's what you're imagining, one more, down, open, over, yes. Squeeze your inner thighs together, and last time, imagine I am that tower bar and you're resisting me, and we're transitioning to single leg circles, lower the left leg, right leg stays up, the arms are pressing down into the mat, and we're gonna imagine our leg spring series. Press the back of the ribs down into the mat, fantastic. And we're gonna, I want just one time, lower the leg down the middle of your body so that you feel the back of the thigh and seat and this deep scoop, and then pull it up from here, beautiful, up to your nose, and now cross, around, and up, cross, around, get that scoop, cross, around, and up, two, around, and lift, last one, good, reverse, use your left leg a little more, press it into the mat to help stabilize your left, yes, and to get that scoop, a little more, yes, and even reach out to that other way, yes, one more, and hold, switch, that's it, stretch it to you, mm-hmm, yes, press your arms down, anchoring just like you did, yes, and here, and we're gonna go down one time, reaching it down so you get the back of the thigh and seat, and stretching that hip flexor, and let it fly up from here to your nose, cross, around, and up, good, cross, around, good, pretend like you're stretching my spring, my leg spring, all the way down to the other ankle, one more please, and now reverse, scoop it in, stretch that spring, pull it with the back of the thigh and seat, reach it out, two more, stretch it around, last time, and hug in that knee, good. Put the foot down and really connect with the back of your thighs and seat as you squeeze the legs straight.

Lift your head up, again, the transition from the shari to the push through, pretend your feet are pushing the bar away and you have to roll up and put your hands on it, good, and now put your hands by your hips, and we're gonna do rolling like a ball. Lift your bottom forward, and get your hands on your ankles, and we're gonna pause with your hips over your shoulders so that we feel that airplane curled up rolling like a ball feeling. Fingers point towards each other, yay, and we're gonna pull your in to your lower back, and roll that back, and pause, and feel this lovely stretch, and exhale, roll up, beautiful, Brianna. And now, fluidly, in with the air, and exhale, good. Roll right into that airplane, and exhale, good.

And three, and exhale, nice job. Two more. Get your knees to touch all the way down to the mat, pretend you can, yes, and exhale, hold, rest your feet down. Really great job. Put your hands behind you, lift your bottom back, and we're ready for the series of five.

The single leg stretch, I said, was just like the bicycle, so we're gonna do it together, okay? So what I want you to roll back to your bottom of your shoulder blades or your bra strap, so you're gonna use the back, the feet, to pull the mat towards you, the back of the thighs engage, inner thighs squeeze, and you're gonna roll back the lower back, the middle, beautiful, stop when you hit your bra strap or bottom of the shoulder blades, hug the right knee in, right hand on ankle, left hand on knee, all this is easy, slide the left on the mat until it's straight and you're squeezing with the hamstring and glute, let it float up, and now you're gonna do bicycle while you do this exercise. So the right foot is gonna go down, down, slide up, pulls up to a 45, and get that deep scoop, and now the left foot goes down and out, lifts, right, left, right, there you go, left, and you're stretching that hip flexor, yeah? Good job, Brianna. Yes.

One more. And hug both knees in, good. Double leg stretch, in with the air, exhale, good. Stretch those leg springs, exhale. In with the air, exhale.

Three more, in with the air, exhale, good. This was our four count frog. One more. Whew, single straight leg, right leg up, imagine the leg springs, I want you to pull that leg spring down, yes, curl up a little more please, yes, and switch. Pull that right spring, left spring, right, left, yes, switch, good, reach, yes, one more set, actually two more, and then we're gonna go double straight leg.

And both legs up. Here's where I made you put your hands behind your head and you reached both legs, and scoop it up, and reach both, and scoop it up, good, and long with the hips, and scoop it up, two more, in with the air, exhale, last one, and here's our twist, but it's a crisscross, bend the right knee, and you're twisting those ribs, and switch, beautiful, pulling in and twist, and switch, alright, love it, and a left, and hug both knees into your chest. Whoo, great job. I want you to put your feet right on the mat and use the back of your thighs to slide them straight and push that bar away like you did on the shari, here we go, slide them straight, draw your head up using your powerhouse, keep that great hip flexor stretch as you try to put your hands on that imaginary push through bar, then separate your heels onto the boxes, right in the middle, good. Sit up tall, feet flexed, maybe slide back so that your heels are right in the middle of those boxes, excellent.

Arms are up at shoulder height, big inhale, forward with those arms, and exhale, head down, and go forward, exhale down, two, three, and let's inhale up, two, three, and exhale down, let's do five counts down, three, four, five, and exhale up, three, four, five, and inhale down, it's like you're pushing that push through bar, and it's also like you're doing the pull up on the wunda chair. Two more, down, I like how your head went down first, so let's make sure it comes up last, lower, middle, this more, yes, one more. It's a little similar to, she's doing great shoulder work like she did with the swan on the wunda chair. Opening the collarbones, thank you. It's time for open leg rocker, so squeeze your legs together, good, and roll back your waistband.

This one doesn't really have any exercise that we did. Draw your knees up to the ceiling, and then knees open, and hands on top of the ankles. Balance with the feet up, good. And let's just hold your position, and we're gonna extend the right leg, so we're gonna actually rest your ball of your feet both down, and let's change your vision, your sight, to be more up straight ahead, and use your belly to scoop in and up your chest bone, extend just the right leg, and down, finding your balance, and the left, and down, and now we're gonna do both, and down, and now we're gonna do both and hold them up, and now use your belly to really feel like you're almost on your sit bones, keep focusing on something dead ahead, and let's roll our lower back first, like we're rolling into that spine corrector, rolling back, and right on up, up, up, up, and five more, here we go, roll it on up to a sit, yes, lower back first, and scoop it on up, yes, and scoop that lower belly, yes, pull it right back up, love it, two more, good work, upper stomach, yes, bring your head forward on this last one, come look at me, thank you, squeeze your legs together and think of the spine corrector and rolling in and out, we're gonna roll down your lower back, middle back, upper, good, and legs are straight up to the ceiling. So you're gonna pull your belly into the imaginary rail and we're gonna press your arms down, and let's go to the right.

It's also like hip circles, around and center, and to the left, and scoop it, and remember how you pulled center, and to the right, around and center, but really go for it, how far can you go, yeah? And around left, and really reach, pull away from me, yes, and center, and left, around, scoop it in, and, good. Now I want you to think of tower and I want you to squeeze your hips and roll up so that your hips are over your shoulders, here we go, think of tower, up we go. Up to the ceiling with those hips, and we're gonna come down one bone at a time, and we're gonna do two sets like this, right, around, left, center, and up for tower, yes, and down the middle, resisting that bar, go left, around, right, and lift for tower, yes, and down the middle, beautiful, right, around, and feel the energy how your lifted that bar for tower, come down the middle one last time, and we're gonna go left, around, and feel how you lifted with the hips to lift that, good, and down, resisting that tower, coming down over your legs, just like jackknife. We're gonna sit right on up.

See this shape, I want you to keep it and just sit up. Great job, open the feet so that they're on the boxes, good, and we're gonna bring your arms out the side, good, and we're gonna lift up tall, twist to the right, good, face your pinky toe, or your baby toe, inhaling up, twist, reach your right pinky, or your baby toe. That's it, good. You do a great job here keeping your hips down, on this side let's make sure you don't lift your left hip as you reach so that you really get, yes, and up, and twist to your left. So this one was similar to your twist on the wunda chair, just to get that feeling of holding your lower body stable is not easy on the saw.

Lift up so those hips don't move, and it's your ribcage that's twisting, and exhale, lower, lower, and lifting up, good. Squeeze your legs together and turn onto your belly for neck roll and then swan. So your hands are gonna be right underneath your shoulders. Good, and maybe a little bit forward and a little out, good. And we're gonna press your pubic bone down, remember how we did it on the wunda chair, and we're gonna protect our lower back with our belly, lengthen out the crown of your head, get these hard working shoulders to stay away from your ears, remember how much you controlled your shoulder bones and the collarbones?

We're gonna do that again, we're gonna pull in, lift up your head a little, start lifting up your sternum, push into the mat if you need to, come up as high as you can without taking it into your lower back, and then look over your right shoulder, circle the chin to your chest, to the left, and then forward, reverse, beautiful. Really stable shoulders, and look forward, and come down, lengthening out the crown of your head, not your forehead, not your chin, but the, lengthen that, uh-huh, one more. Squeeze the legs together if you can, how this is pressing into the mat, lift your belly, and come up. Shoulder bones away from the ears, we reverse it, so we look left first, circle the head down, around to your right, look forward, look right, circle around left, look forward, and come down, good. Have you ever done swan before?

Ring a bell? A little bit. Okay, so we're gonna start, just like neck roll we're gonna press the pelvis down, lift your belly in, and come up with your head, good, right back up, just like you did, watch those shoulders, good, and now think about grasshopper when you did that too, how you lifted your legs up to the ceiling. On the count of three, shoot your arms forward like you have a basketball in your hand. Ready, one, two, three, shoot your arms forward, put the ball in the basket, yes, legs, arms, legs, arms, come on, put the baskets up at the ceiling, one more, I love it, good job, melt into the mat.

Round your back and sit on your heels, just like you did when you finished doing your swimming and all that business on the spine corrector. We are now gonna go back onto your belly and do single leg kick and double leg kick, so onto your belly, and then lift your, put your elbows right under your shoulders, forward, and lift up your chest, getting your elbows right under, yes, good. I like this position where you press your forearms into the mat and you're almost like pulling the mat towards you as you lift up your sternum, you can also push your knuckles together, but we're gonna do it like this today. Scoop it in, remember the table? And you remember how we did one legged?

This is it, so we're gonna lift both legs up just to reengage those muscles, support that lower back, and now you're gonna do the right heel, one, two, and left, two, let them pass, right, two, and left, two, get those knees up off the mat, really use the hamstring and glute to pull that, but only a seat, pull it to your seat, pull it to your seat, right, and left, and that's enough. Right cheek on the mat, hands behind your head, and bring them up as high as you can, let's do the double leg kick. So we're gonna press the pelvis down, lift both legs up, and now this is like the regular table. We're gonna pull the heels in three times, one, two, three, press those down and lift your chest up, switch sides. And press, two, three, and lift, good, make sure you're pressing your pelvis down into the mat, yes, and lift, and one more time, try to get light underneath your knees, yes, and lift, and rest, good job, Brianna.

Round your back and sit one more time onto your heels, scoop it in, tailbone, good, and we're ready for our neck pull. So you're gonna flip around, lie onto your, let's actually start sitting up, I like that better, and you're gonna have your hands behind your head, legs are straight, good, and hip width apart, flex those toes back, good. Sit up nice and tall, this is another one that we didn't really have an exercise that I'm showing you, but do imagine that you're pushing the bar away, the push through bar away, like you did with the shari, so that there's energy going that way, alright. We're gonna lift off your seat and we're gonna lead with a tall back, but you gotta pull your lower belly here. So the neck pull is all about pushing your head into your neck, rolling down, that's it, and rolling up.

In with the air, push that imaginary bar away, as you exhale kiss your knees, and then round up, sitting up tall. And then lift off your seat and roll back, actually stay tall, that's it, that's it, now curl down, sorry, good, good, good, good. And now push that shari bar away as you curl up and kiss your knees. Inhale, sit up tall, love it. And going back, lift off the bottom, pressing away, scooping in, mm-hmm, and three more.

In with the air, and exhale. I want to see you stretch your hip flexor muscles more. So you're gonna pull into here to stretch, that's it, two more. In with the air, and exhale, scoop it all forward, beautiful job, rolling up, and lift off your seat, and push that bar away, and roll down, scoop, draw it in, draw it in, one more time. Push that bar away as you curl up to put your hands on it, and rolling up, so that transition is used a lot, and we're gonna roll back, or stay tall and go back like you did do the first time, and pushing that bar away, scoop, let's get that scoop, come on, come on, yeah, there you go, good job.

Rest your arms down by your side, good. Bend your knees into your chest, and we're gonna go into jackknife. Okay, you get to push me around for once. Yes, so you're gonna put, lengthen your legs, flex your feet, and you're gonna put them under my arms. Okay, now I'm your tower, so you get to squeeze your bottom, scoop your belly in, and you're gonna, exactly, push me up as your hips lift up, all the way over, and now this is the best part, I get to lean into you and stretch you, so you're come down with the bra strap, and I'm just gonna lean onto you, nice stretch in each vertebra, right?

Lengthening, and push me up. Scoop, very good, and roll it down, lengthening, look how you can keep your feet right over your eyes so easily when you have a closed chain, and one more, squeezing up, beautiful, and you can lift your hips up so easily, and rolling, so this is a perfect example of how when you can use something else it becomes easier. So I want you to do just two without me now. Here we go, we're gonna lift your hips over and up, and then control it down as if I'm leaning into you, and you're controlling it, and we're gonna do one more. We're gonna lift up, and we're gonna control it down, excellent job, alright.

Okay, now bend your knees and place your feet flat on the mat, and we're gonna do, open your feet a little wider, and we're gonna do our scissors, bicycle, and shoulder bridge, great, that looks pretty good. You want to press your feet into the mat and use the hamstrings and glutes to pull your feet towards you, imagine you were doing that, and you're gonna roll up your bottom until your bottom is a straight line, shoulders, yes, put your hands underneath your hips, good. A more advanced transition, which is crazy hard, if you have a good flexible back, is going from jackknife right into keeping your bottom up and your feet go down. But we're gonna bring your right knee in to your chest. Good, and now you might need to adjust, and you do whatever you need, but you're gonna bring the left knee in, as well, here we go, good job, alright.

Now extend the legs up to the ceiling, and you're gonna try to keep this left leg here as you reach the right leg as long and low as you can, come on, go down to the mat, down, down, down, and bring it up, and we're gonna, just straight, we're gonna keep it straight, and lift, and switch, left. Yes, taking it from here, reach, and switch. Yes, I'm gonna let go for the last set here, okay? So I'm gonna let go, find your balance, and reach it up, down, lower, lower, yes, and one more, whoo, yeah, good job, really lifting your bottom up, ooh, nice, bend the knees, and shake out your hands as you roll down your body. You can also transition by just lifting your bottom right over your shoulders, so go ahead and let's try that one.

And then get your hands in place, hands are right here, and bring your feet back over, good. Now we're also ready for bicycle now. So we're gonna keep the left knee bent, extend the right leg up to the ceiling, and reach it down the middle, and reach as low as you can, then it bends and we switch, so you're really trying to touch this toe down to the mat, sliding it towards you, lifting your bottom from your hands like it's not depending on that spine corrector, going down, keep it moving, one more, right, ooh, that one almost got it, and one more, left, and then you have to reverse it for three, so go down, yes, and left, reaching out, use that seat, and right, that's two for the right, and one more set, try to get that toe down as low as you can, and the left as low as you can, and then bend the knees into your chest, good. And we're gonna take your hands away and shake them out and roll down your upper back, good. Rest your feet down on the mat, and we'll do the same transition we did earlier for your shoulder bridge.

So you're gonna squeeze your bottom up, feet are a little bit apart, thank you, using the hamstring and bottom, and curling up, hands go underneath and you're pretending you don't need them, and you're gonna keep your right foot on the mat as you slide it down the middle of your body, and then lift it up to the ceiling, and flex it down as you reach out to the ocean, good. And up, and flex down, give me one more. And kick it up, and flex it down, and return it to the mat. Good job keeping your hips even. Left leg long on the mat, kick it up, and flex it down, really work those hips, lengthen out, kick it up, and flex down as you use the hamstring and glute, and one more, and flex down, return, and take your hands away and shake them out, and roll down your upper back and middle.

Okay, squeeze your knees together, we're gonna do spine twist, I want you to slide your legs long on the mat as if you're pushing away that shari, lift your head, and keep rolling up using your powerhouse, good, flex the feet, sit up tall, and this time reach your arms out like, keep your feet together, good, you're gonna reach your arms out like you're doing a saw, and we're gonna be always pushing away that bar as we twist just our ribcage, exhale, twist as much as you can, and come center. And exhale, twist, don't let those feet twist, and center. Push both heels away, toes pulling back, and center. Big breath, exhale, stay tall, lifting your sternum, work that waist, and center, one more set. Reach those arms, twist the ribs, and exhale, one more.

Exhale here, pull back these toes, thank you, and center, and relax. We're ready for our sidekick series. So, lie on your right side, face forward, thank you, your whole body on this back edge, and we're gonna bring your legs a little forward, but not so forward as the box. Okay, so we have the same alignment, left hand in front this time of your belly. Feet forward just a little bit, thank you.

Alright, keep those hips square, not using the hip flexors, and we're gonna lift up the left leg just a little, turn it out a little bit. Remember when you had that spring? Okay, we're gonna kick it forward, and take it back, and forward. Now when you went back, I'm gonna have you hold here, right now you're rocking forward, and you didn't do that with the leg spring series, so hold it here and work from the back of the thigh and seat to go back, ooh, that's so good, and forward, and take it back, and forward, and taking it back, and five more, no rocking and rolling, and forward, and really scoop and use that, yes, really imagine that you have your springs on you, three, and back, and let's add some energy, and back, and one more, and back, and legs together, we're gonna do the up and down. We're gonna kick it up to your ear, and then squeeze those inner thighs, and up, and imagine you're pulling down a heavy spring, and it's up for three, and squeeze, good, and up, and reaching out, one more, squeeze all the way, hold your whole body's tone from head to toe, five little circles, one, two, three, four, five, reverse, one, two, three, four, five, nice job.

You ready for your hot potato? Okay, we're gonna touch that heel five times, here we go, one, two, three, four, five, up, one, two, three, four, five, up, one, two, three, four, up, one, two, three, four, up, one, two, three, up, one, two, all the way to your ear, two of the one, two, up, one, two, up, and one up, one up, again, one up, one up, good job, legs together. Grand rond de jambe. We're gonna bring that, turn it out just a little, beautiful, kick it forward to your nose, all the way to your ear, all the way, all the way, rotate in that hip and take it behind you as you scoop in and use that hamstring, legs together, two more. Do you remember how this felt on the Cadillac?

Really try to stretch that spring behind you, and together, one more. Less rocking and rolling with the shoulders, so you gotta hold yourself with the ribs, right? Yeah, and together, reverse it. Take the back of the thigh, yes, and up, rotate in your ear, to your nose, and together. Reach out of your hip, here you rotate in that hip as you go to your ear, nose, and one more.

Really reaching long, the more you lie on your chest the less you'll get in your hips on that exercise, alright. We're done with that side, I want you to lie down on your belly, make a small pillow for your forehead, for the transition you're gonna press your pubic bone down, lift your belly a little bit, and lift those thighs up like you did for grasshopper, lift those legs, good, just like that, and give me 20 beats of the heels, one, two, lifting them up as high as you can, not taking it in your lower back but imagining that you can get your legs perpendicular to the mat, and roll to your other side. Excellent. Bringing those feet forward, okay. Lift your right leg a little bit, turn it out, and here we go, we're gonna kick it forward, and take it back, so I want you to really work on how much do you roll your chest forward as your leg goes back, because the more it rolls forward the less you're gonna get definition in the hamstring and glute, and we all like a little bottom lift.

So you're gonna take that leg, it feels really good, and forward, and back, give me four more. And squeezing, and drawing in your belly, and you're imagining that you have that spring, right, two more, so you're really reaching that spring, and one more, stretching it out of your hip, and then legs together, and kick it up, and squeeze down, and up, and draw your belly in, and up, you got that really long, lean feeling, two more, when you worked with the springs, so get that out the crown of the head, one more, and whole body is toned from head to toe, and it's one, two, three, four, five, reverse it, one, two, three, four, five, and you're ready for hot potato, here we go. We're gonna tap, one, two, three, four, five, up, there you go, one, two, three, four, five, up, and one, two, three, four, up, there you go, one, two, three, four, up, and three, one, two, three, up, one, two, three, up, two, one, two, up, one, two, up, and four, one, one, one, and last one, good job. Grand rond de jambe, here we go. We're gonna lift the leg, but don't just lift it, I want you to reach it out like you're stretching my spring, take it forward to your nose, up to your ear, rotate your hip as you stretch my spring behind you, and forward, nice job.

Oh, little rolling forward on that chest, I didn't see that, really. Ah, so don't do that, keep it, ah-hah, and good. One more in this direction, I believe. Rotate in the hip here and really work the hip, and legs together, reverse for three. Back, and up, rotating, take it to your nose, take it back, nice, and back.

Rotate in the hip as you go to your ear, nose, one more time, back of the thigh, rotate in that hip, get up to your ear, use your belly to get to your nose, legs long, good job. Ready for teasers, lie on your back. Go ahead and bend your knees into your chest, and you get to throw a little tantrum that you have to do the teasers, so you have to shake out our thighs, you want to like shake your quads from your bones, from the femur, alright, good. Now I want you to go ahead and put your feet down on the mat, good, because we did the roll back first when we did our teaser, we did it on the spine corrector, I let you stretch out, so I want you to draw up your tailbone and anchor the back of your ribs, scoop it in, go ahead and extend your right leg down the middle of your body, yes, and hold it as if you're pushing away that bar, do the left, draw your head up, and let's see if you can lift your legs up from there into the teaser position. Okay, very good.

And now leave the legs there and go down, arms back, and come up, I just wanted your legs up but you did very nice, you brought everything up, and rolling back, and imagine your legs using the back of the thighs, now stay there and press the shari bar down one, the legs go down one, pull them up, only the legs, yes, only the legs, reach forward for that imaginary push, yes, now arms up, and roll everything down. And everything comes up, you got it, don't stop, and arms up, and everything goes down, and one more, pushing away that shari bar, come on, up, that's it, nice job, and roll everything down. I told you you had it, you did very nice. And we're gonna go into hip circles, so you gotta come right back up into your teaser, but I'm gonna help you this time, I promise. And scoop it in, and roll right up, bringing those legs up, good, keep your legs up and bend your elbows behind you, put your hands on the mat, point them away from you, and go behind you quite a bit, and bring me your legs, come on, just like you did on spine corrector, fantastic.

Arms back a little more, ooh, remember this? I'm gonna hold your shoulders and you're gonna give me all you can with your powerhouse, and to the right, scoop around, whoo, and let that leg fly, reach with those hips, there you go, and to the right, scoop it in. Okay, so you want your hands behind you reaching long, uh-huh, you got it. You can bend the elbows and sink into it when you need to, yes, and left, whoo, good job. One more set, right, there you go, and left, because when you were on the barrel you had to do that, as well, good job, I'm gonna give you an extra big stretch, and then legs down, and stretch forward, and now you are ready for swimming.

So you're gonna flip over onto your belly, arms and legs long, good, pressing your pelvis down, scoop it in, and I want your arms and legs rising up off the mat, pretend you're on that barrel, balancing, right arm and left leg higher, higher and longer, here we go. Inhale, two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five, lift your head a little bit, arms longer, remember how you reached up to me, touched my hands, one more time, in, two, three, four, five, looking good, two, three, four, melt into the mat. Round your back, sit onto your heels, and we're gonna do our leg pull down and leg pull up, finally getting to the exercise that really is the shari, you're gonna press your hands into the mat, like suction cups they're there, and you're gonna lift up your body into a plank position, bringing your shoulders over for leg pull down. So squeeze here, scoop it in, head up a little bit, mm-hmm, and we're gonna use the hamstring and glute to lift the right leg up to the ceiling, and rock back a little bit, do you have enough space, and draw your body forward, there we go, put the foot down. And left, keep your hips even, rock back, come forward, there you go.

Now, right, rock back, forward, good. Really keep the hips square so you get good, oh, that was awesome, good bottom one, one more set, keeping that, yeah, and one more time with the left, and we're gonna transition here. You're gonna put your right hand next to your left and you're gonna turn as you cross the ankles, reach your left arm up to the ceiling, keep turning, uh-huh, and put your left hand down, good, and bring your feet a little more center, that's right hands, good, and you're gonna kick up the right, up to the ceiling, flex it down, switch, left, and lift those hips, you got it, right, and flex it down, and left, and down, one more time, remember how your hips were lifted, one more time, you've got it, and sit on down, and reach for your feet, and I've got good news, we just have the seal and the push ups, good. So you're gonna lift your bottom forward, and neither of these are they translating from anything but just to massage your back, so you're gonna dive your hands between your knees and slip your hands on your ankles, and you're gonna balance with your feet up, beautiful. Draw your lower belly in as if you are drawing into that spine corrector well, and roll back your lower back, reaching your feet back, clap, two, three, in with the air, two, three, inhale, I switched that breathing, it's really exhale to come forward so don't pay attention to me, inhale back, good, and exhale, I'd like you to be a little more free, let the feet almost go to the mat, yes, and exhale, not the weight onto your neck, but the legs extending, two more, yes, and forward, on this last one we're gonna cross our legs and stand up so you're gonna let go of your feet, cross your legs, and roll all the way up, very nice, yay.

You're gonna turn around, and we're gonna finish with our push ups. And we're gonna keep our feet in our Pilates stance. And draw your belly in and up and reach up to the ceiling. Good, I want you to try to keep your weight on the ball of your foot, okay? And we're gonna roll off an imaginary wall one bone at a time, good.

And put your hands down, if you need to bend your knees, you can, walk your hands out without swaying your hips too much, try to stay nice and controlled, good, assume a plank push up position, squeezing the back of the thighs and seat, don't round it all, lengthen, open those collarbones, and we're gonna go down solid peaks for five, and pull up, that's it, and four, yes, and three, good, and scoop it in, nice, opening those collarbones, good, keep your sternum though, two more, and last one, and pull up in your waist and walk back to your feet. You got one more set of five and you're all done. Keep your weight forward, though, on the ball of your feet as you round up. Really important so that you finish the rest of your day, arms lifted, nice and forward with your weight, not back, and one more set. Scoop it in, beautiful roll down, love that, keep pushing your hips forward onto your ball of your foot, walking your hands out, we're gonna finish with some really strong arm work here, triceps will be talking to you tomorrow, here we go, one more set of five.

Yes, trying to get your elbows to scrape your ribs as you go down, take your bottom down with you, just two more, here we go. If your wrists hurt you can always make a fist, last one, and pull up in the waist, beautiful job, Brianna, and you're going to keep your weight forward on the ball of your foot, and roll up, one bone, soften the knees, arms lift to the ceiling, take a big breath and exhale, pulling in your belly and turning out your palms, now inhale as you lift in your belly, and exhale, and you're all done, great job. Thank you so much, good work.