Day 1: Feet

Welcome to [inaudible] play day one. While we're going to address the entire body today we have a special focus on the feet. I'm going to ask you to use the feet in different ways and just kind of see and feel how it affects different exercises. Yeah, let's get started. So I've got my reformer set here for my foot work. Three reds in a blue is like is what I like to work on, but we're going to start by addressing our feet a little bit, cross one leg over the other and just sit up straight and let this be your moment to focus and settle in and be aware of kind of where you are.

You're going to take your two fingers and find the space between your first and second metatarsal and see if you can fish around for a little tenderness. That's one way to put it. For some people it'll feel like pain. This is a really nice release point for Bunyan's and opening up the feet a little bit. It also happens to be a detox point for the liver, which is kind of cool. I'm here. Just kind of massage that, play with it in joy and then maybe lean forward into your hip, stretch a little bit, layer head, relax perhaps and come back up. I am basically just distracting you by moving my body or hopefully you're distracting yourself from the discomfort you may be feeling from this pressure point. Yeah, and let's change sides. Okay, so again, you can take one or two fingers, Cross your other leg over.

I feel a significant difference already in my hips and find that spot between your two metatarsal tarsals and I'm sort of pulling up a little bit or pushing up. So I'm leaning in or I'm digging in or finding a spot that's on the big toe metatarsal or the first metatarsal rather than the one down below. But you can explore, you can move it around a little bit, your finger around a little bit. You can massage, you can push and then just kind of explore. I'm going to change hands here because this is probably a better choice for me. I'm gonna feel now the stretch in my hip here.

I'm just kind of sense what I'm feeling here in my feet. Doing this little release before I use my feet and footwork has really been useful in just making me feel my feet differently and I like that. Okay, so let that go here. We're going to lie down and prepare to warm up on your back. With your feet on the bar. I'd like you to begin with your feet in a position that just feels very restful and allow your feet to ground in to the foot bar. So for me, I'm kind of above the heel on the arch.

Inhaling and exhaling pelvic tilt. So engage your abs to flatten your back. Feel how your pelvis moves, and then put your pelvis back down. So we're using our abs here. We all know how to do this. Just breathe, feel your abs and try not to use your legs just yet. Feel your feet grounded, soft on the foot bar, full pelvic curl. Exhale, abs Max of the legs. Now find that place before you actually go to the top and scoop just a little more with your pelvis using abs and hamstrings. And then lower yourself down, articulating through your low back, upper back first low back second and pelvis. And let's go again, engaging the ABS. Feel the chest open and curl yourself up.

Feel the backs of the legs, the inner thighs. Feel the feet and lower down. So what I want to feel in my feet are what I'm striving to feel in my feet. Here is this grounded feeling that doesn't change. So as I try to hoist myself up a little more, many people will kind of roll out on the feet and change the relationship of the foot on the bar.

Notice where you may want to do that and perhaps pause and then try to pull from the correct place, the correct place, being something from the backs of your legs and your abdominals to help you lift higher. Okay. Wow. Keeping the feet the same. Just one more here and we lower all the way down. So I purposely didn't go to my highest point so I could feel my feet more.

Holding the pegs by your ears sway your legs to one side and then the other side, if you're comfortable in your shoulders, put your hands on the frame for a more serious or a stronger shoulder opener. Serious didn't seem like the right word with Peloton play. Come on last time here. And then we're going to get a little bit more vigorous than our movement. Come back through center. Engage your abdominals, lift one leg up and then the other.

Squeeze the legs together and flex the feet back. Spreading the toes in. Held, sits with, and exhale to pull back to center in how to twist and exhale back. So put the focus on keeping the legs together and the feet glued together and continue on. Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. Just one more time each side. Nice twist here.

And last one. Nice twist here. I lied. We have to do one more to be even. I lost track there for a moment. Here we go. Last one. No are lying. Keep the feet flex. Reach your hands to the ceiling. Inhale, exhale, lift the head and chest. Get a nice high curl.

And we go into our single leg stretch and change and change. Really work the feet. Separate the toes. I'm going to give them a break in a moment. Flex the ankles, find your breath, feel the grounding through your low back. One more time. Both legs in stay. Soften the feet. Slip your hands behind your head, Chris. Cross.

Keep the legs long or the feet long rather. So try to curl the toes. Okay, one more time here and here. Both legs in. Hold the backs of your legs. Pull your knees and try to make a forehead.

Denise connection maybe and put your body down. Settle your heels now on the bar for your footwork, neutral spine, chest. Open all those pieces in order. And then out we go. Exhale and inhale. So finding the breath that suits you.

I oftentimes will cue breathing cause it's my habit used to queuing, breathing. But I'm expecting you guys to be used to breathing here hopefully and just make sure that you are in fact breathing. Play with your breath a little bit. So do just one more position here. One more repetition here and then we're going to change the position. Hold yourself at the stop or move your feet down a little bit.

So I'm now just above my heel. Continue moving. Let the bar into your feet. Try to feel that idea of the bar, like kind of penetrating the feet a little bit and making them softer. For me, when I work in this position with a soft foot, I just feel my hips differently and I love that. Okay, now change. We're going to move the feet down just a little more middle of the foot, kind of smack dab in the middle of the arch and press out.

So I'm not using my feet very much. In fact, kind of undoing my feet, which makes me feel my hips. Check in with the rest of your body. Pelvis is neutral, abdominals are engaged. Innercise working at the top to keep that idea of the leg bones gravitating toward one another. Heart is open and breath. And now one final new position here. If you will. New Exploration. Move the feet down a little more so that it's almost a prehensile position, but not really quite a prehensile position here because I really don't want you to spend, put too much energy on the toes.

I want you to feel how the foot bar is kind of on the ball of the foot, but the heels are still softening down, so are the toes, but not gripping. Yeah, try just a couple more like that. Equal weight on both feet. Again, letting the foot bar in your feet and then come all the way in with control. Now we'll shift to our more traditional toe position, so we're in a lifted heel. Press out maintaining that same lift as you come in. Exhale, feel the upper inner thighs working.

Feel yourself kind of pulling the kneecap kneecap up at the top, hopefully activating the VMO or the inner quadro set. Okay. Now one more change here. Suppressing out. We're going to let the heels lift into that forced arch as you come in and then keep them lifted. As you press out, just notice how your feet might be provoking a different feeling throughout your leg because of the change. Just think about it, feel it. Enjoy. Last one. Come all the way in. Slide your heels together. Drop the heels down here in our thighs. Out we go.

So a more traditional small V or Palladio's V position. Okay. Feel that lengthening through the crown of the head, the softness in your jaw, open heart. Now let's play here. As you come in, let the heels lift. Feel how that just feels different. I feel my glutes in a different way. And press let your heels lift as you control in press.

Squeeze those heels together and lift just one more time and come all the way in. So settle your heels wide on the bar for me, ankles are flexed. Traditional Open v position for Bassey. Exhale, we press out and inhale en. Try to feel that both legs are working equally. [inaudible] still embrace that idea of drawing the upper inner thighs toward one another. One more time like that. And then we make a shift.

Slide your feet down on the bar. Just a little bit and feel how the bar is kind of above your heel and a little bit to the outside of your foot and the foot is now soft and press out. So don't actively flex your ankles, keep your feet grounded and just see how it feels different. Perhaps just felt nice to have a moment of just breath there. Making sure you're keeping the rotation outward at the hip joint. One more time please.

We'll come all the way in and close this part up with the toes. So from the balls of the feet, spread the weight through the balls and press out. What do I mean by spreading the weight through the balls? I don't want you to try to really get as much weight across the whole ball of the foot as possible and see if you can feel the two feet working equally. The toes are involved but not, not so actively involved.

There shouldn't be a lot of gripping, but there is a bend at the metatarsal is there's an active foot position here. Just one more place and we come all the way in. Bring your feet all the way together just to feel centered and take a short moment of pause and then separate the feet for calves. We press out, lower the heels down and up a few times. Really working those feet and calves, feet and ankles are focused today. Pay Attention. See what it feels like today. A few prances here. Just find the breath that suits you. Don't forget to think about that.

Forced arch foot. So the foot that the knee that is bent, that foot should be involved here. Just one more time. And then let's stay with a stretch. So I'm gonna move my left foot up a little bit so that I can really enjoy the stretch. For me, a good stretch position is a little bit, hi, I'm with my foot a little higher on space. So the bar is actually just underneath my arch that allows me to really drop my heel down and receive the stretch. And then I want you to entertain the idea of lifting your other foot up and and fine. I'm gonna actually wiggle my foot into a slightly better position.

It's a little bit more on my arch right now to you. Lift the other foot up and put the heel right in the ankle joint there and stop that tendon from kicking back at you and use the right foot to kind of reach that big toe over the bar so you have a really nice prehensile type foot. Now use that to travel in. So I'm using my right foot to keep my left foot still, but I'm pushing out in, in with my left leg here. Just a handful here. This just feels really nice on my feet.

It allows me to use different muscles and I can really feel what my tendon is doing on my ankle joint with my other foot. So just one more here. Keeping the legs straight. We'll change sides to sit with a stretch for a moment. Kinda got a little ahead of myself on the first side, but we'll recover this side. So first I've got this wonderful stretch, which feels nice. And then before I move into the single leg version, you should move your foot up just a little bit so you can be in a more kind of prehensile type position. So my heel is dropping down, but then I'm going to use my other foot heel on the ankle and then the foot over on top of the big toe. And boy, that just feels so nice. And then try to keep that arrangement as best as possible as you bend in.

And I can feel my, my ankle wanting to kind of tense up a little bit with my other heel and I'm using that just as a a feeler, if you will, to kind of make it feel differently or to make it to, to do something different. Maybe talking too much there. I'll just do one more. Occasionally that happens. We'll press out both feet her on the bar, bend your knees and bring yourself in. Gently roll yourself to the side and come on up to a sitting position. So we're now going to change our springs to a red and a blue, and some might be a little heavy for some of you for the abdominal work, but it's the right spring for the hip work. So I'd like to keep it that way.

If you need to change your spring and lighten it, that would be okay. Reach up and grab your straps for me. Scooch away from your shoulder rest so you'll be able to engage. Engage your abs, feel power in your arms and lift those legs up. Flex the feet, squeeze the knees together. Focus on that. You can even flat in your back a little if you want, use your abs to press down and lift up.

Now you cannot press your arms down with your abs. I just want that to be the focus here. That's all you using, the feeling of the abdominals to do the movement. Pay attention to your feet. Every time I forget, I have to remind bend your elbows here for triceps. A few of these again, yes, you're bending and straightening your elbows, but I want you to think about your abdominals. Don't even worry about your arms. They'll do their job. Focus on keeping your abs active. One more straight arms. Now stay up with the arms.

Get ready to lift. Exhale, I'm a little stuck, so we'll do one more. Sometimes that happens. I'm going to lift and just stay here for a moment. Grounding down through my low back. Stretch both legs up. Flex your ankles, lower, one foot down and feel it pushing into the bar and we change. Change, change. See if you can get your body to lift up a little higher. Feel the feet. Point the feet. Keep going Bri. Bri.

[inaudible] one more time. Both legs up. Bend your knees and we come in. Put the straps on the balls of your feet. Hip. Work a little bit different today. I really like this. So to facilitate flexing of the ankles, the balls of the feet is where the straps go. We bend the knees in for your frog and we reach back out.

You can see my legs quivering right from the get go. This makes me really tap into my glutes better. I hamstrings. It's really cool. So really think of reaching through your heels. Okay? As you slide those legs out in, you're letting the straps be pulled, letting your feet be pulled into flection from the straps Dorsi flection.

That is, press the legs straight. Rotate to parallel. Bend your knees. So sit here for a moment and let the straps pull back on your feet. Specifically your pinky toe side. Keep the knees together in the feet together and press your legs towards straight. I do not care if you get to straight. I want you to think about keeping the legs together and avoid letting them turn in or turnout and see if you can feel your two legs working equally and put a little more focused on the pinky toe side of the foot being pulled back by the straps as you move.

And this really highlights for me my imbalances, which I'm a fan of. I like my imbalances being highlighted so I can learn to work through them. One more time. This time, press your legs to straight. Make those straps go to a more comfortable position for a pointed foot. Lift Up, find your pelvis and we circle down. So be aware of your feet, but try not to overuse them. Yeah, so don't point too hard here, but reach out, meaning lengthen through the whole leg. One more there. And let's reverse your circles. We open the legs, we come around that low position and up through center and Arou and up.

And just two more like that. Around and up. And one more time. Bend your knees. Prepare for your short spine. Press to straight point the toes. Fold at your hips, keeping the control. Be Aware of your feet. Roll up onto those shoulder blades. Nice and high. Bend the knees big here. Roll down through your back.

Really flex those toes back. Pull with the Pinky toe side of your foot, and then press back out pointing the toes. It's folded the hips. Feel that rotation. Feel those long legs. Roll that. Okay. Bend your knees. Okay, and roll down here.

Flex those feet rolling through the low back. Just one more here. Find the feet, fine. The flow. [inaudible] and we're rolling down where I want you to feel just a little bit. Yeah, more something is here. Pull those toes back. Press out, bend the knees and take the straps off of your feet. And let's roll to the side and come on up to a sitting position.

All right, so let's change our springs per our abstract. I'm going to go with a green spring. That's when my, I prefer. Um, but you certainly could work with a red if you'd like. So I have a green spring and I'm going to step up here. My heels lifted. I want you to focus, focus on your feet a little bit more so my heels are lifted as high as I can be. But spend a few moments bending your knees in order to get your feet to look the same. And for me, I actually have to move my left big toe out so it looks like my right big toe.

And then once you feel you've got that, lengthen your spine, stabilize, perhaps straighten your legs. And here we go. [inaudible] just really pay attention to what your feet are doing. Ground your feet, grow roots through your legs, into your feet. [inaudible] one more time. [inaudible] lower your feet flat and bend your knees a lot for me. When you bend your knees, soften your arches a little bit and see if you can again, make your feet look the same. Keep your arches softened and extend your upper back. So abs are still on, but upper back is extended a little bit and we are going to slide back in in.

Now, I don't want your leg shape to change, so see if you can keep your knees bent, moving your hip joints with a very bent knee and what may feel like a little bit of a collapsed arch. But just see if you feel your legs differently. Let your feet react to what your hips are doing. One more time like that. Straighten your legs round through your back. Notice your weight will roll out to the outside of your foot a little bit. Push down through your big toe, but let the outside of the foot be really weighted.

And now inhale out and exhale in. So shoulders away from ears, but rounded back. I didn't quite have myself organized there. Inhale back. Exhale using those abdominals, but just paying attention to what the feet are doing and see what you feel. Where do you forget? Think because you're thinking about your feet. That's interesting. And we'll gently rest that. So I'm going to shift my spring to a red spring for my next little piece here.

Whoops, did that a little backwards. Should have put the spring on before I took one off. Come to your knees, sitting on your feet. And here spend just a couple of moments here. I will spend a couple moments enjoying the view because it's gorgeous, but spend a couple moments sitting on your heels. Your heels are splayed and your big toes perhaps, or touching. Yeah, and just kind of feel what, what your feet feel like here. And Are you sitting more on one foot than the other?

Hold the ropes above the buckles. If this spring is too intense, feel free to adjust and hold the straps instead. And let's just work a little with chest expansion. So make sure as you do your chest expansion here, that you're keeping your abdominals active. I tend to go into my low back and if I really think about grounding down through my pelvis into my feet, I use my low back less. But really the, the focus begins at my feet here, which is a very interesting development and I really like it. Yeah, just one more there please. Yeah.

And we'll give this a gentle rest. Put the straps away. So come up onto your knees with your hands on the shoulder rest and I want you to Tuck your toes under. So we're going to stretch those feet just a bit more here. And for a lot of people, this is going to be pretty intense. So sit here for a moment.

Use Your hands on the shoulder rest and roll back into a squat position. Now if this deep squat position doesn't work for you or the foot stretch doesn't work, you can modify by standing on the floor and using the foot bar. Some other version of this, tying back to the knees, using the hands on the shoulder. Rest, push over. I get a wonderful stretch through my ankles, but I also get a really nice stretch through my back. When I do this, I'm going to come forward again using the hands as much as you need to and try to feel that you're bending over all five metatarsal or through all five toes. It's really the the ball of the foot, not the toes, but something to think about. Now the knees are down.

This is too much uncurl your feet. Otherwise we're going to sit in this position and challenge the stretch a little bit. Again, holding the ropes above the buckles ground down, and we're going to bend the elbows, opening the heart and back to straight. So feel that sitting on the feet, grounding the pelvis to the feet. We'll help you to use your abs a little more in perhaps your low back, a little less if you're one of those people that uses the low back too much. Now we're going to add a little thoracic extension. So pull back now, lift your heart, look up, back, forward and arms out.

So two more just like that and extend. You can kind of marry the two movements together. Elbows are low, heart is open. Exten adding rotation. If your feet are cooked and you need a break, untuck them. I'm purposefully staying here a little longer than my feet want to so that I can challenge the stretch here. Good. I'm going to do three on each side.

This is to feeling the rotation happening from your core and then the arm movement. Last one on your feet. Get a little break and exhale and we can rest that. So my feet are definitely speaking to me. So I'm going to ask you to Kinda just shake them out a little bit. Give a little blood flow that feels nice.

It is plotting place so we have to be goofy a little bit at times. Let this be fun. Shake them, shake them, shake them cause we're not done. Okay. Bring your knees all the way together. Your knees and feet together. You're going to push down through the tops of the feet. Use your arms to, you're all strong people, right? And see if you can find a stretch here. So this is number one. Option one. If you feel good with this, you can go up higher and push your weight into your feet. Big Old stretch.

That feels wonderful to me. If you want to make it even more intense, you keep your feet closer together. Trying to keep those feet touching me. Come down and we'll do just one more there. Big Stretch for the tops of the feet. Many of you will develop foot cramps doing that.

Put your head rest up for our next piece. So we're going to come to a standing position. Let some blood flow through your feet to your feet. Take your left foot forward on the head rest just a little bit, and then look for the foot bar back there and put your right foot on. Bend the front knee. Now feel how you are in a lunge position here.

Your hands are helping you, but I don't want your arms to be holding you out. This is a bit of a break for your arms. Yeah, we're going to hold this for a couple of breaths. Really reaching energy through the crown of the head, but feel this foot, this right foot back here, pushing energetically that way and this way. And now we're going to stir Rach the front leg towards straight here. Flat to out your back a little more. If you can opening your heart.

I can't quite straighten my left leg here, but that's okay. Breathing in and breathing out. Come back to a lunge position. Bare weight into your arms. Please use your core step back. So we're in our balanced control front.

Here we go a few times here. Forward and back with the arms. Really keep the power from your core, my friends. Hopefully your head is void of tension and up where it belongs. Pause, right foot forward. Feel the lunge on weight the hands a little bit, but keep them there.

Square your pelvis. Use your back foot energy through the crown of the head. That really begins at the foot. Breathing in and breathing out. Stretch your front leg to straight perhaps, or towards straight to that.

Nice stretch to that front hamstring. Open the heart, flatten out the back a little bit. Breathing in. Okay. And breathing out. Gently bend the knee. Here we go. Round two leg goes back, feet together if possible. Power through the legs and the body. Here we go. Five [inaudible].

Take one foot down, bring the carriage all the way into the stopper. Step down. So we'll finish up with our mermaid and my favorites. Slightly different. Feel here for the mermaid. You're going to take your back leg and really pull the foot underneath you a little bit.

So I almost have my big toe underneath my pelvis and you'll see better when I faced the other direction. My front leg, I'm looking for this, um, this idea of really grounding down through my Shin and then also through my whole sigh here. So I'm going to sit with this for a moment and enjoy that stretch. Yeah. And then when I sit up, right, I want you to feel like you can do you. I want you to do your best to keep that leg grounded. So really work with that. So the other hand is now going to be out just out from the shoulder, not behind the shoulder. Please.

Maybe a little bit in friend and just push out and stay. So many of you, um, you know, might be at the stopper or further away from the stopper. Um, I'm a little off the stopper. So what I'm going to do is like let the spring pushed me over to feel this wonderful little stretch through my neck and just kind of explore and see what that feels like. That should feel nice. And then from here I'm gonna push back, so I'm upright into the mermaid. We inhale to reach away. Think about what your foot is doing. My right foot is really grounded. My pinky toe. Exhale to rotate around, grounding down through the foot, Shin, oh, opening out to the side, feel yourself balanced or aligned. And then here we're going to come all the way into the stop or without bending the elbows to feel that stretch through the neck and the shoulder.

Perhaps write in how to reach away. Exhale around. And we're going to make a change here. So Square your arms with your shoulders. So my hands are just in front of my shoulders. Ground Down through your feet. So specifically the leg that's out in front of you, push through that pinky toe and now bend your elbows and straighten ground down through the leg as we lift. So the spring sort of pushes me to extension.

[inaudible] feel so good, haven't reached out. Then the elbows. Think about your left hand and your right leg bear more weight through your left hand and your right leg on this side. If you happen to be doing the same side as me, one more time, bend and straighten. So the leg that's out in front and the opposite arm more stretched that way. Wonderful. And then bring your right hand in a little bit on, come all the way in and just rotate around holding onto your two shoulder rest and feel a little stretch here.

So I'm holding onto the shoulder rest and like sort of pushing and pulling to create a little flection and a feeling of stretch here. And let's change sites so we can just swivel to the other side and you'll get a slightly different view. Now of my back leg, my back leg. I'd like this idea of pulling it in a little bit. So I'm stretching the foot in a different way here and it feels nice to me and the other leg you want to try to wait down through the hole outside of the foot, the leg, and just sit here for a moment and enjoy this position. Make adjustments as needed because you need to feel comfortable and then press your arm to straight and just sort of enjoy this idea of coming into the stop or being pushed over a little bit by the spring and notice what you feel in your neck. I just realized I needed to adjust a little bit, my back position, and then we'll do the mermaid here. So we inhale to reach away.

Exhale, reach around, ground down through your left leg here, your left foot. Inhale toward the open up, I should say. And exhale. We come in and we go over just a bit more. And again, inhale to reach. Exhale, reach around. Yeah, and open and adding the extensions in the elbow bends. Here we go in hair.

Yeah. Exhale, square your arms, bend your elbows, straighten, and then let the spring bring you to extension. You're pushing down through your front left leg, pushing into your right hand opposition there. Then press push down through your leg. Feel the stretch.

Some getting a stretch in my waist as well as in my hip personally. Yeah. One more time breathing. Just find the breath that suits you. And this is a really nice, the rassic are back extension in rotation, which is quite nice. And then we're gonna bring the hand in, unwind, come all the way in. Okay. Almost forgot that part.

Put both hands on the shoulder rest and just kind of pull back, creating a little bit of flection and just enjoy that stretch. It's okay sometimes to let your shoulders float up by your ears or just to create stretch. We, I think we've gotten in the habit of trying to pull them down too much. And in closing, we find a squat position. Toes facing forward, wide. Lift up, take your arms down, allow your hands to kind of reach over. Hen Relax into a forward fold. Perhaps check out that spot between your first and second toe and then roll yourself up. Toes turn out, stretch forward, round, back, toes in and reach.

Oh, okay. Relax your head. Relax your body and roll up toes. Turned out I to take my legs a little wider here. Feel Nice. Stretch in my inner thighs, straighten out my spine. Thanks for playing.