Lengthening Reformer

Hi, I'm Shelly Power from Polestar Pilates. Really excited to be back at Pilates Anytime with Juliana and Erin. And we're gonna do a fun reformer class. Let's get started. So go ahead and lie down.

We're using three red springs to get going and always, in the very beginning of class, if you want to have your headrest up, and it's a little more comfortable for you that's great. Wait, though, until we get done with bridging and then for foot work you can put it up. So feet wide apart. And we're gonna go onto the heels. Allow the knees to open up just a little bit.

So that we're in a little bit of rotation. So go even wider, if you can. Yeah. Great. So let's start with a bridge. Starting to tilt the pelvis and peel the body up.

And think of this as warming up the body. And then make your way back down. Very soft breathing as you're rolling up and rolling down. Good. If this bothers your hamstrings, if they feel a little crampy, just don't feel like you have to keep the carriage all the way at the bottom.

You can let it move a little bit. And keep reaching away. So one of the things I like to experiment with in bridging is getting the pelvis closer to the foot bar or the heels or the back of the leg so you really feel like your pelvis is reaching away from your body. Now stay up there and let's do some leg presses here. So press back and forth.

Starting to lengthen the legs. Just keep it in a place that feels comfortable so it doesn't feel good to straighten your legs all the way yet, you don't need to. Let's do two more. Starting to warm up the leg muscles, warm up the buttocks. Good.

And when you've finished your last one, come in and pause and roll yourself back down. Keep feeling your pelvis moving away from you. Great. Bring your legs together. Let's be in a little more closed position.

If you can get your feet and knees all the way together, that would be great. If that's not comfortable, a little space is okay. Roll back up. And now pause there, and let's take a look at the body position. So it's really common for the body to go into an arch in bridging.

So, yeah, exactly. So let the ribs come down a little bit and feel the pelvis go up a little bit. And you might not even go anywhere, but you'll definitely feel a change and you'll be in a long diagonal. Hold that position. And if it feels okay, extend one leg up to the ceiling.

Yeah. And place it back down. Your other option would be just to bring your leg to tabletop, and that would be okay, too. Stretch the other leg up. Pause there.

And place it back down. Let's keep both feet on the bar, and let's do four more leg presses, stretching long and coming in. Great. And again, if it doesn't feel good to go all the way, just go whatever feels comfortable. Beautiful. One more time.

And then pause and roll down. Keep moving the pelvis lengthening, lengthening, lengthening, lengthening, lengthening, lengthening, and rest there. Good. All right. So let's go through a little bit of foot work now. Normally we do foot work first, but today we're doing bridging first.

So come down onto the balls of the feet in your Pilates first V. Good. And begin to press back and forth. And a lot of different ways we can hold the feet. I like where the heels kind of stay in place.

And it feels like your body's moving away and then toward your feet. Yeah, that's it. Good. So leave the feet there and bend toward it. Beautiful. All the while you're being mindful of your body position, feeling the head, the rib cage, the pelvis.

Those three points are making the most contact. Good. And on the next one hold the legs straight, pause there. Turn your legs to parallel and stretch your heels down underneath the bar and rise back up. And we'll repeat that a few times, lowering and lifting.

That's it. And you can even try to feel when you stretch your heels down, obviously you feel the stretch in your calves, but can you also feel, ah, the stretch in your whole body? Let's do two more. Beautiful. Great alignment. Good. Last one.

Feel that sense of lengthening as you let your heels go down and come on down. Good. Bend your knees. And we'll do some circles now with the legs. Come a little bit wider back onto your heels. All right.

Turn out and push back and then just pause there for a moment. So when we go into leg circles, what I often see is stop, turn, bend, and it's very choppy. Doesn't really feel like a circle. So when you get to here, keep pushing as you spiral your legs inward. Yeah, keep your knees straight.

So just do the inward spiral. All the way. More, more, more, more, more. Good. Then bend your knees. If they touch, that's fine.

If they don't touch, that's also fine. Don't force that. And then open out. So go out. Keep lengthening as you turn.

Yes. Beautiful. And then bend. Sometimes we're in such a hurry to get to the next part that we don't stay in that turning part. Yeah. Do one more. Pressing back.

Keep the legs straight. Even when you turn in, keep them straight, and then bend and then reverse. So knees together and press back. Hold here and keep lengthening as you spiral. Beautiful. That looks great.

And come in. Keep going. It should be very smooth. The hip joint's round, the ball and socket, so ideally, it should be a round movement. That's it.

Let's make this next one our last one. Super. And bring your feet and legs together, getting ready for running in place. On the toes and press back. Start to alternate back and forth.

Good. Not too fast, just kinda keep it at a medium tempo. And what I'm interested in is that you have equal weight on both feet. It is so easy to put all your weight on the straight leg. So pause.

Just go to one side and pause. And feel like you could lift your straight leg off the bar. You don't actually have to do it, but that sensation is gonna give you more work into this leg and then go back to doing your running and see if you can keep that feeling. Yeah, that's it. Beautiful.

Just a couple more. Great. Finish up. Bend your knees. Come all the way down.

Good. Bring your legs over the bar and hold on, if you want, to the backs of your thighs. And roll yourself up to sitting. Good. Drop your springs down to one red and one yellow.

All right. So stay sitting close to the edge down by the bottom. And as much as you can, even this is tough to feel, I want your legs kind of relaxed. Yeah, they won't, but we want 'em to. Stretch your arms out in front of you and just start to roll back a little bit and then roll back up.

Good. So we could be having a conversation about running, about, you know, all the things that we're doing the whole time. Yeah, so feel like you got each segment. Yeah, and back up, good. One more.

And roll back. Good. Beautiful. Come back up and this time roll all the way down, just shimmy in front of the shoulder rest a little bit if you've rolled back too far. Great. All right. Feet onto the bar and we're gonna get read to do semi-circle.

I like semi-circle in the heel with the feet a little bit apart. So it's an easier way to get into it. Take your hand back to the shoulder rest and shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, all the way out to the end. So best tip on semi-circle is wear a shirt that has a covered back. If you have a nice little cutout, your skin gets stuck to it for sure.

All right. So this gonna have the same lengthening feeling that we did in the leg circles. So push back and extend your legs. Yeah, pelvis up. Good.

Now, before you start to sit down, you're gonna lengthen just a little bit and then put the pelvis down to the springs. Bend your knees. Come in as close as it feels comfortable and then roll up from the pelvis. Press back. Here's that same feeling of pelvis up, ribs kind of down just a little bit.

Lengthen and then put the tail down first and then come in. Let me help you get a little bit more space. (laughing) And push. Good, so lengthen and then the tailbone comes down. And back in. Last time.

Reach back. Lengthen just a little bit. It's like you create space in your body. Come down. Good. Now, stay down.

You can come all the way in, but stay down and let's reverse it. So push back. Your bottom is close to the springs. Stay there for a second. Push into the hands and feet to float up and then come in.

Notice a difference. Yeah. Yeah, if you tuck a lot, it's uncomfortable. So if you feel more like you're just gonna float, so you get there, you lengthen, and just magically. Yes. That's great.

I do this, and they rise. And down. Good. And we'll make this next one our last one. Coming down.

And back, press back. Lengthen first, float up. Come in, if it's comfortable to, grab the fronts of your ankles or grab the foot bar. Give yourself a little extra stretch. The sensation that the knees are going over.

The pelvis is kind of coming up, but at the same point, the ribs are trying to come down. So that's, again, you don't really go anywhere, but you can definitely feel the difference. And then shimmy yourself back. And your headrest is already up so Erin, put your headrest all the way up. And we're gonna go into chest lift and the only reason I put the headrest up is the arms, a lot of stuff is back there like the post and the shoulder rest.

So sometimes if you put the headrest all the way up, it's a little bit easier to get the hands behind the head. So all the way back behind and then just move around so you feel like you have enough space there. And bring your legs to tabletop. All right. So starting with an exhale, and it's nice to kinda play around with this.

Just first exhale without going anywhere. (exhaling) And notice how your ribs drop. We're gonna take advantage of that. So take a breath in that lengthens your spine. Exhale for a little bit (exhaling) and then toward the exhale, curl up.

Reach to your legs. Hold onto the back of your thighs. And curl yourself deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. Let go. Put your hands back up.

Gently press your head back and then roll down. Take a breath again. That gives you a little bit of length. Start to exhale. Roll through.

Reach to the legs. Now, instead of thinking up, think deeper. You're gonna curve more, curve more, curve more, stay there. Put the hands back behind the head. Hold there for just a second and curl down.

Beautiful. Last one. (inhaling) Breathing out. Reach for the legs. Use your arms to help you. Sometimes I feel like people don't use their arms enough.

Yeah. Reach your arms long, now stay there for a second. And the next time that you exhale, let your arms come up, (exhaling) and inhale and bring them forward. Exhale. So you're trying to maintain the body position.

So only move your arms as much as you can maintain the position and this next one will be our last one. Hands go behind the head. Roll yourself down. Good. Feet come onto the bar.

And let's take the straps, short straps, and go into a little bit of arm work. And you can put the headrest as you like it now. So if you want to put it down, you can. All right. Legs up to tabletop.

All right. And start just with a few arcs of the arms reaching down. And my preference is that you stop a little bit above the mat. So as you press, so press down and stay down there for a second, and go ahead and leave the arms. And just press a little bit into the strap without lowing your shoulder too much.

So just keep it there and reach the arms. Yeah. And then bring the arms back up. So that's the place we're gonna look for when we do our curl up. Yeah.

So now, pause. Go into the chest lift, pressing through the arms. And again, if you're unsure, or you just can't ever feel like this is really a helpful position, raise your arms a little bit, lower your arms and see where you can actually push into the straps. Yeah, that's it. And then roll down.

Good. One more time of those. Rolling. Good, and just for fun stay there. Stretch your right leg out over the bar.

Just test and see what that feels like. Change, do the left leg. Good. And then bend both legs. Roll yourself down.

Good. So in the essence of saving time, we're not gonna get the boxes, but we are gonna do backstroke 'cause I love backstroke. It's a great way to challenge yourself when we get into the hundreds position and then you have to hold and take a breath in. Like, who thought that up? (laughing) It's a lot of work to do. So we're gonna start with the arms bent and the body curled up a little bit.

And feel free, if you need to walk around, move your shoulders. Good. So the pattern is gonna be inhale, reach everything up to the ceiling. Exhale around, everything goes there. Now, you're gonna stay there and softly breathe in.

(inhaling) Exhale, fold in, and stay rolled up the best you can. Beautiful. Inhale to the ceiling. Exhale around. Stay there, good.

Take a breath in that doesn't disturb anything. Fold in, this is our last one. Reaching up, out and around. Hold there, stay. Turn your palms down right beside you.

Going right into a set of hundreds. Good. Inhaling for five of your pulses, exhaling for five of the pulses. Beautiful. That's it.

Good, so each time you exhale, that feeling from chest lift, see if you can curl just a little bit deeper when you exhale. Yeah, that's it. (inhaling) (exhaling) Good. We won't go quite to a hundred. Let's do two more sets. (exhaling) And last set.

And let it go, fold yourself in. Take a break. Set your straps down. You can pull your knees in. Give a little sway from side to side.

All right. Come on up. Roll to your sides. Come up. And we're gonna set the springs down to one blue, and we're gonna go into some kneeling arm work.

Going into rotation. Okay. So come up to high kneeling, facing the side, whichever side you wanna go to. Yeah, and always just be careful that, yeah, if you're moving on the surface, it'll move with you. So take the strap that's in front and hold it in your hand that's there.

And then bring the arms around and create a little circle. So you either interlace your hands or you can hold the back of the hand. Whatever feels nice. And then really feel like your whole body is balanced over your knees. So these ribs come down and back, I know.

I know. And it's right at that point where you feel like ? Waaa ? When it's hard to balance, that's the right place. You've got it. Stay there and now start to rotate towards your foot bar. And then rotate back around the other way to the pulleys.

Good, and if you don't feel like you have enough room, to do that, move toward the foot bar a little bit. So if you're rotating toward the pulleys and you feel like you don't have much space, you can move where you are on the carriage. And turn, and turn. Great. And let those ribs lower.

Good, just one more time facing this way. Good, and rotate into it. And out of it. Good. Set that strap down. Let's turn around, face the other direction.

And again, find that point where you feel like your pelvis is forward, but your ribs are back and that's the same thing that we just practiced in bridging, that same idea. So we're in line. And it's these ribs that need to come back, usually. Yeah, Uh huh. Beautiful. So start your rotation.

Great. And really feeling like the whole body is staying symmetrical. And we're just adding a rotation to it. Good. I like, both of you are doing a great job of keeping everything kind of on the horizon.

Good, two more times. It's amazing how small and simple this movement is and how it's really effective (laughing) and getting us a little bit more mobility, a little bit more strength. All right. Finish up. Let the carriage come all the way home. Good, and you can set that down.

So turn toward the foot bar now and we'll change the springs up to one red. And we're gonna go into down stretch. And down stretch for me, a lot of times we start with the feet way back and all of that, but I really like to have the knees forward and then the heels of the hands on the bar. Yeah. From there, it's your body is being supported more by your arms.

So you can bring the pelvis a little bit forward and then feel the arch in the upper back. So that's an important place to feel it. But, it's not too hard to hold 'cause your weight's over your hands. So now, press with the arms and keep this shape, and then it feels almost like you're gonna pull yourself forward. Beautiful.

Pressing out. As if there was a kind of a mean teacher who held the carriage back. That would be horrible, that they'd have to pull in. (laughing) Yeah, and it's not much. It's just a little bit and feel like you could hover. When you come up, can you levitate?

Can you get taller and taller and taller? Yes, one more time. This gonna come back in a little bit. We're gonna practice this in a little different way. Good, and let that go.

So now, just for fun, scoot your knees farther back and just do one or two and feel the difference. Already from the beginning, you're having to do a little bit more work. All right, to hold your, exactly, to hold yourself there. Good. All right. And take a rest.

So come in and stand up for elephant. Now, typically we do elephant on a much heavier spring setting. We're gonna do it on the light setting today. And I want you to find the position by shifting most of your weight onto your heels. Shift most of your weight onto your hands.

So even go farther, more forward, yeah. And then find that place in the middle where it feels like it's equal. Hands and feet. Round the spine. And then maintain that and just send the carriage back a couple of inches with your feet.

Hold there. Round your body more to pull the carriage in. So you could do it just from your legs pulling in, but instead round more and almost delay the carriage coming in. Let your weight shift a little more forward onto your hands even. Yeah, that's nice.

Good. So it's like a ratchet, a ratchet tool where one part of it has ease and one part of it has a little resistance. That's great. You can lift your toes if you want, but it really starts to feel different if you delay the legs and round the body first. Yes. Yeah, you feel it? (laughing) One more time.

Press back, hold back there for a moment and then round the body. Almost see if you can do it without moving the carriage. Yes, and take a break. All right. Good. There. You can step down.

All right, come on down. So let's put the foot bar down out of the way a little bit. It doesn't have to go all the way to the bottom, but let's go, yeah, that's fine. Either way. Just so we're not gonna bump your head on it.

So let's go up to a red and yellow. And we'll do a little bit of seated roll downs. So sitting on the carriage facing the straps. And always good to remember to leave yourself a little bit of space so that when you roll back, the back of your pelvis stays on the mat and you don't roll down into the springs. So arms out in front of you, sitting tall.

And then begin to roll back. So very similar to what we did in the beginning of the class. Rolling back and rolling up. Good. A couple things I want you to remember, one is your hands were behind your head when you were doing the chest lift, that feeling of pressing back.

See if you can remember that feeling. So that the head stays back a little bit. Yeah, beautiful. And then back up. Mhmm.

The other thing I want you to think of, it's kind of funny. Your sacrum, that triangular bone at the base of your pelvis had segments before it got fused together, so what if it had segments now? Can you roll through each segment of, yeah, that's it. Good. On the next one, so stay there. Come up just about halfway and let's go into some bicep curls.

Rounding. That's great. Good. And really feel yourself sitting on the mat. So sometimes we're not aware of the mat or we just think it's there for whatever purpose just to sit on, but if you think about it supporting you, sometimes it'll change the feeling.

This is our last one. Leave the arms out in front. Roll your body up to sitting tall. Good. Now, I'll adjust your springs. We're gonna go down to a red.

And we're gonna work on our balance, getting ready for things like Teaser. Yay. (laughing) Everybody loves Teaser. So you're gonna start to roll back. Remember, it's lighter. And just go to a point where you feel like you can hold.

And then bring one leg to tabletop. And then slowly put it back down. And bring the other leg to tabletop. And slowly bring it down. Now, bring the first leg up again.

Hold there. Again, sit on the mat. Really feel the mat supporting you. And bring the other leg up. Yes, beautiful.

Hold there for just a moment. It's gonna feel like forever. Put one foot down. Put the other foot down. And roll up to sit tall.

Good. Now, we're gonna do that same thing and add a little bit of arm movement. You can do a curl, that's kind of challenging. If you feel like you start to move your arms and it's just too much, you can do a little bit of a row, but just bending the elbows. So find your balance.

Come up. So just bend your elbows however it happens. Don't worry about doing a particular pattern. That's it. Just feel how you can balance there.

Yes, beautiful. Just three more times. A little tiny bend, even just holding is fine. Good, and this is the last one. That's it. Beautiful.

And put the feet down and roll yourself up. Ah. Great. Hook the straps and let's grab the boxes and start using the boxes. So we're gonna put the box on long to start with. Lengthwise, we're gonna leave the spring at one red and we're gonna lie down on the box facing the straps to begin with for pulling straps.

So hold on wherever it feels comfortable. Scoot yourself, scoot over to the left just a smidge. That's great, that's enough. All right. And we're gonna do first just the arms and then we'll add in everything else.

So feel the length from the top of the head out through your legs all the way long and then just pull the arms a few times. So you feel like they're pulling up to be in line with your body. Pulling through. And keep having that feeling of length through the top of the head, especially as your arms reach back. Good, one more of these.

Pulling back. Good. Now let's add a little bit of what I call chest lift. Now this is prone chest lift, but the prone press-up feeling, and go into a little bit of the swan. So go into an arch and then melt out of it.

And what's really important is that you maintain the front lower ribs on the box. Right. That's great. Two more times. Pressing and reaching.

Hold there, just for a second and return. Last one. And reach. Hold there. Now, if it feels okay, keep your body in this position and just barely lift the leg.

If your legs are up, you can bring 'em down just a little bit. Just one at a time. So one comes up and back down. The other comes up and back down. Last time.

Really feel like your thigh is lifting higher than your heel. Yeah, great. Let all of that go and return yourself home. Hang your straps up and you can sit back in child's pose for just a moment, kind of just a transition moment. Give yourself a little break there.

Great place to practice breathing. So breathing into the back of the ribcage. All right, break's over. Let's turn around. Now, it's kind of like, I just thought of this right now.

This is gonna be like moving down stretch. So we did down stretch in the arched position, so now we're gonna flip over and go facedown. Hands on the platform and we're gonna go into a different version of the swan. Or I think now I'm gonna start calling it moving down stretch. So the trick on this is to get your hipbones, they're up on top of the box, because when you rock forward, they're gonna help to hold you there.

Okay, so just give it a test before we start the movement. Just push back a little bit and feel like you can lengthen and lift the legs and you just start to tip a little bit forward. Right, that's it. Yeah, and then back up. Good, so the most important thing, again, is getting mobility and an arch through your upper back.

That's it. Good. Keep looking a little forward. So maybe you're looking out maybe toward the spring attachment and then back up. Beautiful. Let's do two more.

Keep the arch. So you're in that rocking chair position. Last one. Some of you may have seen this and know this as the beginning of grasshopper, which could do that here, too. And take a break.

And come in. Good, again, sit back in child's pose just for a second. How'd that feel for you? It was good. It was okay?

It's kinda neat feeling. It looks like it's gonna feel like, oh, it's gonna be a lot of compression, but when you press your hands into the frame, it actually, it doesn't have that. It just has a nice rocking feeling. Good. Let's turn the boxes.

So we're gonna go into a little bit of short box work. And depending on the reformer that you have, depending on your height and a lot of different things, you can actually have the box back over the shoulder rest. And the whole point of that is to get you away from the strap. If the strap is long or if it is too close, or if the carriage is in or the box is forward, you're not gonna be able to get the tension on the strap that you need. You probably felt it where it's like it's there, but it's not really helping you.

So that's one way to do it. So just put the box back behind the shoulder rest. All right. And then let's put on a little bit of extra spring tension. So you can put all springs on so the carriage doesn't move around.

And then we're gonna do the side version of this and it's kind of challenging if it's not set up right. If it's set up right, it's easy. If it's not set up right, (laughing) it doesn't feel good. It's not even challenging, it's just not even fun. So go ahead and loop your foot.

All right. And so what's important, go ahead and scoot away just a tiny bit. Good, so what's important, what I look for as a teacher is that the foot is flexed, but relatively the leg is down. So lift your legs up into the strap. And all you really feel is a bunch of compression in your hip and it feels yucky.

Yeah, so you want to lean away and a great way to practice that is to put your hand on the headrest just for a second, so your body is supported. Right, and then you could stretch your arm overhead or you could put your hand behind your head. Whatever you like. And then go over. Some people, yeah! Can actually get their hand to the floor.

Well done, you guys. Very nice. And if you have a box or a cushion or something, you could put that there, too. All right. So you felt the potential. Come on up.

And you felt the diagonal line, that's what happened when you put your hand on the headrest. So now we're gonna do that, but of course no hands. (laughing) So you can either cross your hands on your chest or behind your head, whatever you like. Lean out and pause in that diagonal for just a second and then bend over and come back up. Try to keep the same tension on the strap the whole time.

That's it. Beautiful. And Erin's a great model of this. I always tell people, pretend and feel like your hair can touch the floor. And she can. (laughing) Good, we're gonna do two more.

Bending over. Coming back up. Last one. Bending, really open the top ribs. Now, open your bottom ribs.

Bottom ribs, bottom ribs, bottom ribs, yeah! Great. And take a break and let's change sides. Ah. So loop the foot. Scoot away, kind of almost tuck the skin of that side that you're sitting on.

Kinda get it under. Put your hand on the headrest. Go into your long diagonal. So before you go over, even, just go to the diagonal. So you know what that feels like.

That sense. And then you can go over farther. And a lot of times why we can't do this and why it doesn't feel good is the muscles up on top are trying to keep you up. They don't want you to fall over and they have to lengthen to be able to get into this stretch. All right, come on up.

Place your hands wherever you would like. Go out into your diagonal so you know that point and then go over, open up the top ribs. And open up the bottom ribs. That's it. Good, so hopefully if you're holding the strap with your foot, you're not gonna feel any compression in your hip or that cramping feeling.

Two more. Bring your elbows just a little forward so you can see your elbows in your peripheral vision. Next one is the last one. And take a break. Good. Very nice.

Excellent. Enough boxes. You can put your boxes away. All right. Now we're gonna get into some standing work to finish up.

So we're gonna go down to a red and a yellow spring and we're gonna start with the standing hip stretch. So the foot bar can come back up. Red and yellow. Good. Foot bars are up.

All right. And we're gonna make sure that you keep pressing into the hands on this one. Scooters, sometimes we take the hands off, but this one we'll go hands on. So I like to align the foot right about at the front of the carriage. Yeah, and, you can bring your toes back a little bit.

Where, almost where they were. Yeah, that looks good. And then just feel what that's like to press back and straighten the leg. Hold there for a moment. Now, this is always a work to try to find better alignment, but it's just better. It doesn't have to be a hundred percent perfect.

Keep both legs long and start to lean back a little bit. All right. Now, that sense of the carriage going long is gonna keep happening. So keep pushing the carriage back even when you bend your front knee. And the feeling is like you lift your hip up.

So lift up off of my hand more, more, more, yes. And then glide yourself in. So right away in the beginning everybody wants to go into the arch. So we're trying to preserve that moment toward the end. So press back.

Now, when you start to bend your standing leg, keep sending the carriage back. Push it, instead of going down, push the carriage farther back. More, more, more, yes, and lift up here. Yes, great. And then come in.

So if you're a teacher watching this and your clients are going down right away, or you're doing it and feeling like, huh, it just feels like I'm flopping down, you probably are. (laughing) So keep feeling like the back thigh lifts up. Now, just softly bend your elbows a little bit and bring your upper body down. Like you're almost gonna lie on your thigh, but bring this up. So don't rest on me, push into the ground. Yeah, that's it and lengthen long.

Come on in. Good. Now, finally, we're gonna add the arch to it. So push back, do all of that same bend. So you're going long, you can bend the elbows a little bit.

Keep sending the carriage back. Nice, that's great. Now go into your arch, which we've practiced a bunch of times. So press into the bar and keep pushing the carriage farther back. Yeah.

And then let your body face the floor. And again, press into the bar. Go into your arch. Keep pressing the carriage back. So lift up a little more here.

That's great. And take the body forward and glide yourself in and let's change sides. (sighing) Yeah? What did you know? What was different about it? A more of a stretch on the front of the-- Perfect. Yeah, you'll feel a little bit more stretch there.

I'll show real quick my least favorite version of this. Press back, drop, right? Just doesn't, yeah. It's not aesthetically pleasing, it doesn't feel good. (laughing) So, all right, here we go. Press back.

So get both legs straight. Lean back farther into the stretch. Keep pushing the carriage back as you bend your front knee. That's it. Even stay up higher. So practice almost like you're not gonna get closer.

And then come in. And again, let's do it again with that same feeling. Pushing back. Good, and reach. Keep the hip lifted.

Let your upper body come more forward. That's it. Yeah. And come in. And push back. So your knee is pretty much aligned over your ankle when you start to bend.

Yeah, great. Good. Now hold there, stay there for a moment. Keep pushing the carriage back and go into the arch in your upper back. Keep pushing into your arms as well. And now, go back over to face the floor.

So this might even feel like it lifts a little bit. Yeah. And then arch a little bit. Keep pushing the carriage farther back, farther back, farther back, beautiful, great correction. And face the floor, we'll do it one more time.

And press. Good. Face the floor and glide yourself all the way in and pause and just let that sink in for a moment. Last exercise. Let's go into some standing work.

So let's take the yellow spring off so we're left with one red. Foot bar is down. And if you have a reformer that has a platform that you like to put in, feel free to put the standing platform in. That's good. But otherwise, we'll step up onto the platform.

Yup, either way. And just hold there for a moment. All right. So align the feet, remember you're on a one moving surface and one stable surface, but as you move, keep feeling like you're on two moving surfaces. So let's just test it.

See how it feels to press out and come back in. I like the red, because it's not very heavy and it's not very light. So it's a nice medium setting. Now, remember back to when we did the kneeling work with the rotation? And there was that moment, yeah, so keep the legs really long, but the pelvis felt like it was coming forward, the ribs were coming back.

You can also feel like your thighs are pressing back a little bit. Again, they're not gonna go anywhere, but it's gonna help make you get everything closer to center. All right. So pause the next time you come in. You're gonna just clasp your hands in front of you.

You can have palm to palm if that feels good. All right, so as you push out, you're gonna start to rotate your body toward the foot bar. Yeah. And then toward the pulleys. And rotate toward the foot bar.

Good, and as a teacher, I'm always asked, does my pelvis get to move, does it not get to move? Either is fine. So if you really wanna work on mobility and rotation, don't move the pelvis so much. If you wanna make it functional, for things like walking and throwing and all of that, allow the pelvis to move. Good.

So come in. You're rotated toward the pulleys. Extend your arms out towards the pulleys and as you start to come out, you're gonna push the carriage away, reach your arms up to the ceiling. Yeah, and you can keep your hands clasped together if that's comfortable. Yeah?

As you come back in, rotate toward the foot bar and bring your arms down to the side and down to the floor. Press out and up. Turn and come down. Beautiful. Now, if that doesn't feel good in your shoulders, if it feels like it's too compressive, you can just keep the arms out, you could hold a ball, you could hold a ring.

There are lots of variations there. Press out, go up, reach longer, and through. Make this next one your last one. Reach out, up, around, and pause. Good, let's change sides.

So you can step down and we'll do the other way. Coming up, leave the arms down to start. But again, have that feeling of thighs back, ribs back, and pelvis forward and then, like before, if you could levitate here, great. Can you levitate up off of your feet? Mhmm, bring the ribs back just a smidge, I know.

Such a funny position. All right. So just press out and in a couple of times. Feel it, test it. It's always a good idea to test every time you get up, because what if something happened, right?

What if a mean teacher came back and changed the springs on you or something. (laughing) Good, last one playing. Good, levitating a little bit more when you come in. Good, clasp the hands. Good, and start to press out and you're gonna rotate toward your foot bar.

And as you come in, you're gonna rotate away and toward the pulleys. And rotate. A good thing to remember, a good thing to just pay attention to is keeping the hands in line with the breastbone more or less. Right, so you don't end up with the arms moving a lot and the body not moving. Now, press out and hold when you're at the foot bar.

Stretch the arms long and as you come back in go up and around all the way. Pressing up. Up, and through. Great. Very nice. So I give this to a lot of my golfers, a lot of my tennis players, 'cause there's all these rotational arm movements that have to happen.

Super. Let's do one more to finish up. And rest, great. All right. And you can step down. Good, so thank you for joining us for another class. I hope it was fun.

I hope you feel energized and have a great day.