Description
Find connections to your body and the equipment with this Reformer workout by Lesley Logan. She shares her personal practice, explaining what she is working on as well as her thought process when she goes through her routine. She also finds parallels between the movements so that you can find a way to turn your least favorite exercises into ones that will prepare you for the more advanced repertoire.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box, Pilates Pole
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Hi, I'm Leslie Logan and I'm so excited for you to join me in my reformer workout today. Um, I hope you like it and you know, do what you can join me for [inaudible]
And not that I want you to get nitpicky about your feet, but just, it really does change all the muscles you use in your legs when you put your actual whole foot on the foot bar. And so we'll do about three more here and just start to feel what you feel on your carriage. Cause we're still just warming up and then come all the way in and I challenged you is just to lift both feet up and land on your arches so that you don't take the time to come out of your center by doing one foot at a time. It's something that you're totally strong enough to do. And then again, I'm noticing kind of right now that my ribs want to pop up off the mat and then I'm also kind of not using my seat so that as I come all the way in and switch to my heels, I'm going to try to channel a little bit more seat action here so that I can be really ready for my 10 and stretch in my hundred. And I like to, you know, feel what, what I can touch on this carriage so that I can feel fully supported before I start getting into the good stuff. Okay. Come onto your tendon, stretch beyond those metal tarsals and then press all the way out.
Pilates Stance
And then as you lower your heels, join me in trying to like lift your waist and then as you lift your heels, let your seat help you do that. So instead of dropping down under the foot bar, how can you use the lower end lift just to find more connection from your thighs to your center and then come all the way in and try to take your foot bar down without getting up because just allows you to flow a little bit more. Grab your handles. And then here we go. We're in it, the a hundred
Arches
So how can I let them connect into my hands and into my back? And let's do more cycle of breathing
Heels
But lifting your hips up until you stretch your legs across the room. And again, it's a fast over up, which is something I'm working on. And then you get to take your time and enjoy lowering yourself down. One more time, reach over, stretch up, and then stretch your spine as long as you can. All the way to the foot bar and all the way down. Coordination, drag your knees in, pull your elbows in, lift your head and chest up. Press everything out and hold.
Tendon Stretch
So you try to press your upper arm bones down to the mat, open, close the legs and bend the knees in and then resist. Otherwise, we tend to forget that the arms are doing something, but the more you can kind of press them down into the mat, the less rowing is a shock when we get there. Right? Pull the knees in and bend the elbows. Resist the spring. One more time. Open, close. Press into those upper arm bones. Get them ready for your rowing. Pull the knees in. Bend the elbows. Whew. Okay. Sit Up. Spin around. We're going to row. So take a hold of your handles and then pull into your sternum.
Hundred
Try to keep that there as you round back and then find your legs pushing down into the carriage to help you stand on something without moving your body. Move your arms back and then reach your arms around. And I like to try to pull my arms towards each other from my upper back to get my hands together. And then I lift up, up, up, and circle around. So my goal, go ahead and set up round back is to not let the carriage move as I round forward and not let the carriage close as I tried to grab my hands so that I stay super connected to my straps and my back. Easier said than done. Here we go. Last time reach, pull your waist back, pull your ribs back, you as your whole upper back to bring your upper arm bones together. And then we lift and we lift and then circle.
Overhead
Okay, so the tall back, double-check. You're not doing a bicep curl. Set up really tall and then go ahead and let your legs push down so you can lean back and then lift up, reach, keep reaching, keep reaching, and then round for it. I'm terrible at that. So something my teacher always gets me with is that I stopped reaching. So we're going to try it together today and I, we're going lift up tall, we're going to lean back and we're not going to throw this away. We're going to keep reaching up and over, up and over, keep reaching until we close the springs in, in round forward upper arm bones, lift, lift, lift last time.
Coordination
So hopefully you're feeling your legs working. Cause I am. The more they squeezed together, the easier this whole exercises cause it's not an arm exercise. It's a body exercise. Okay. So something I've been doing in my own practice because I like to hyperextend my elbows who doesn't? So I put two springs on for this next series.
Round Back
Um, it's not easy so don't be surprised. Here we go with the reason I do this as now I actually have to use my center and my back together and then my arms don't get to lock out cause I, there's no way they could if I wanted to. And then we circle our arms around and this is where you really have to get tall against the spring because you have two springs and it's not easy. Let's reach and then lower the arm, get the arms from your center all the way up to get you taller and then you get tall. Do not let those springs close. You lift up against it and one more reach and the lower and lift.
Flat Back
And if you hate me right about now, that's okay. We have from the hips. So you'll hate me sooner if you don't already. He likes your feet. Actually this is my favorite round foyer with even with two springs because you can really feel your stomach and back work together on that one. So again, we reach forward all the way to the flip bar. Pull your stomach back, lift up tall, and then open open. And we have one more. Squeeze the legs together, pull the center back, let the weight of the springs help you get tall and then open. Okay, take that spring off. There's no way I could do shave and hug on two.
Front - One
I'm not even going to try. We, we know the answer to that. Here we go. I am trying not to sit up against your shoulder blocks unless you're new at this because you know you're ready. Okay. Shave up and down. And this is the hardest exercise for me because I notoriously don't lift my back up enough. And so I'm going to try, you're going to try, we're just going to try to get as tall as we can and we'll do one more. And then when you do your switch, think about opening your knees wide so you don't have to use your
Front - Two
Not Today. Lets work both closing this spring and then reaching forward to open the spring. One more time. Close the Spring and breast. Okay. Swan so you can swan on the mat, you can put on your Baler, you can swan with me on the long box. Two Springs, you may need a pad to do it on your box. Um, if your pants are slippery you should. And then stand on the frame.
Shaving
You know, get a good grip. I have to move the carriage a little bit and then I kind of just work my way on and I either have my knees inside or sometimes I have them outside of just depends on where my body is
Hug A Tree
Reach it out and then press into the legs to lengthen the stomach across the box all the way out and then come back in and pull it together in one more time. Lift, stand on your feet and then lower. Pull your center up off the box. Get as long as you can, not a big back bend. It's pretty long. Super woman style. And then pull your knees in towards your box.
Swan
Set back towards your heels. Shake it all out. Here we go.
That helps me get my lower belly off the box so that I don't shove my lower back into the box to pull my arms back and then get longer to reach and then stretch your arms all the way down. I like to put my thumbs into the leather too because it makes me feel like I'm standing on something and then it keeps me from using my triceps in my elbows too much. And then push the arms away. Let's just one more of this.
Pulling Straps
Lift your arms up for your table and then as your arms go back, I have to lift mine up so that I don't end up being higher than my arms. And they don't go very far in my brain. They should go to my hips, but I'm not there yet. So if you are good for you, reach, keep reaching into your straps, keep reaching, and then pull your stomach in and reach arms. Four. Let's do one more and again, reach the lower back, long pulling arms back and then lower. Oh, so sometimes it's a bummer when the arms don't go where I think they should go. But it's a practice. So you never know what's going to show up when you work out. Right?
T-Pull
So backstroke, add a second spring, then come all the way to the end of your box and like be on the edge, like walk on the wild side because it's just, you're going to find that it actually makes more sense because then you don't let your button drop down because you'll feel like you're gonna fall off. So find a tiny little ball, reach everything up, circle around and hold. So we don't take any breaks except for technically here, which is not a break. Obviously. Pull in and go right into the next one. Cause if we were swimming and we pulled into our ball and we rested, we would go under the water, right? So we're floating, floating, floating, pull in and reversed float. And then circle up. Make sure you close your spring.
Backstroke
That's the hardest part cause it wants to pull our chest down. So we have to lift our chest up into the handles and again, reach and circle and up. Oh Lord. Okay. So take a spring off for your teaser. Okay, one spring, find your teaser. We're going to do all three arms up and down.Arm circles and leg circles floated up. Now get a little longer than you think as opposed to higher. And then as the arms go back, reach dams for to connect more to your center. And then arms reach from your back and then they push forward from your back to bend you up and over yourself a little more. [inaudible] one more time and reach hold. When we roll down, make your center do the work first and that way everything else can just follow.
Teaser 1
Take a breath in and then a breath out. And on the arm circles, if anyone's watching you, no one can see where it gets hard, right? So we don't want to see the carriage jerk. When you get spring tension, you want to just keep reaching into your handles the whole time, which seems like a Mil. Oh, you could see that was hard. Me million years.
Teaser 2
How is that sweaty for me? Okay. So I do do breaststroke without a spot and sometimes I'm lucky and I have a spot. If you don't, um, you know you can do swimming on your box while I do this. You can do so reverse swan in your box while I do this or you can just take a deep breath in some water. So we're on one spring, we reached forward and then you come on with your knees on your box, which is a little scary for me cause I'm just a long so you know, that makes you keep your center and that's for sure. Okay, here we go. We're going to kick our seat to kind of get our back body awake and then reach and then get longer. And then I think pulling straps to here and then again kicked three times and then reach and then t pool so that your heart goes forward and your arms stay connected the whole time. You don't want to just like ride the spring clothes, although if you're doing it, there's no way you could, you would probably fall.
Teaser 3
And then we're going to reverse reach your arms, find your superman and then pull down. The reverse is so hard without a spot. So if it felt hard for you, it was hard for me too. Let's kick a combo. We reached forward. Find the t pole. Do not let it go. Flip your palms. Reach the lower. Okay. Horseback. So somebody saw that I said I love horseback somewhere. Let me just say, I love being done with horseback. Um, horseback. Is this a check in for me?
Breaststroke
Like am I getting the flection I want out of my body? Am I connecting to my back the way I want to? Like am I working together? I don't actually knit. Pick it apart. It's just a check-in. So here we go. Reach and then try to find your round shape and try not to let the circles look too difficult. And then on the third circle, flex your feet and sit, take a deep breath in and then ask yourself what you want more of. I would like a little more round in my spinal, my reaching my like so three circles.
Horseback
And on this last I'm going to try not to cheat so much by turning my legs out. It's so funny what our body does on its own. Here we go.There was a time that I would go between one and two springs. So you know you can do that, right? It depends on what your body needs to connect to your equipment. So long stretch. I just take my feet a little bit above the crease, so for my long self to fit and then I'm going to press out and pull in and I try really hard. I'm not sure if I'm getting there today, but I try really hard not to do this with my shoulders and I try extremely hard to find a little more upper back extension cause I'm notorious for thinking I'm flat and I'm totally round. And then I'm going to come all the way in and let's lower our knees down, feed into your shoulder blocks, hips forward, and then take a moment to pull.
Long Stretch
I like to turn my upper arm bones out to connect to my back and then I press out with my legs and in with my leg. So I try really, really hard to not let my arms think that they dictate this exercise that it's really from the back of my legs.
Down Stretch
And then for me on the Combo, I go to one spring. So sometimes I can do two, but today we're just going to do one. So I pushed back and then I find my down stretch and I pull myself through and then we push ourselves back and then we got to find that up stretch. And now we're on one spring, so it's not nice. Then reach back and then fine. The downside to this is much easier on one spring, but this part sucks.
Up Stretch
So together we're gonna pull our stomachs up, tread around our spine, and
Up Stretch 2
Let's take one leg back, preparing for our tendon stretch. Lift your center up. Find this leg in a spot that actually find you in an elephant shape and then hold it there and do your single leg and then switch. So I have to take a little time to set myself up now. And you know, even then, I don't know if it's ideal, but it's feels better than it did yesterday and that's all we want. Right? And then after three on each leg,
Elephant
So this exercise used to be the death of me and nobody was watching. I would skip it, but you can tell if I skip it. So here we go. Try not to use your arms. So we lower down and then we use the seat in the stomach to push it out. Now when I lift up, think semi-circle, don't let the carriage move and then bring it in.
Single Leg Elephant
So we go down, curl the pelvis, standing your legs to lift your hips up, use your legs, and then pull the carriage home. And then again down. And I know if you're hyper, extend your elbow. So am I. Lift her hips up and then as you come in, watch your elbows and then we reverse it. Push with your legs in your center and then lower yourself down onto the carriage without resting. Pull it in. And then from your back lifted up, press and then stand in your legs. They're still working. And there was this in the spring, pull it in reach.
Long Back Stretch
And then all the way in, woo today that exercise never is. I don't know if it'll ever be my favorite. We'll see. So stomach massage. I actually decided to love because I needed help with my snake. You'll see that later. And so I was like, okay, if I can fall in love with stomach massage, my snake will get better. So maybe if there's an exercise out there that you don't like, you can find a reason to love it because it will help something else.So as we press into our feet and lower and lift, just think about how much you're learning about using the foot bar and the springs to connect to your center so that when you do something fantastically big and fabulous, you'll be like, thank God for stomach massage. Because if it wasn't for that, I couldn't do it right. So do two more. I'm just trying to find a little bit more lift and connection. Take the middle, spring off. And then I've been playing with my hands a little further down because I want to be here, but then my shoulders are forward and I need this to get stronger.
Round Back
We all saw my tee pole, so we agree. Okay, here we go. So now I can actually feel my arms and my back and I'm a little less likely to lean on my arms cause it's kind of impossible here. And that way I can really work on getting taller. So let's do two more of this and then reach through. Take the middle, spring off, finer reach up.
Flat Back
So I was working on my teacher j and he was like, can you pull the tips of your shoulder blades together here? So just try and then keep that as you come in because if it's not pushing your shoulder blades together at all, it's just the bottom tips reaching together and that Kinda helps you connect your arms onto your back. So when we twist, it's not an arm swinging around, it's muscles of our back pulling our arms around, around, around and you have to stay standing in your feet cause what do you think's going to happen when we do snake goddess man. And um, let's do one more. It'd be even,
Reach
So make it like a little swing and have a little fun with it. Right. And let your center control the up. And then we're going to hop the right leg out and then how to knit. And one of the things that I need to work on is keeping my hip over my ankle. So try and look at your hip into your ankle.
Twist and Reach
Is it on top of itself as we go to the back and then bring the leg around, maybe do another one with two legs and then hop and take the left leg out. Keep the right hip over the right foot, take the leg back, single leg Olyphant and we're going to control it. There we go.
Tendon Stretch
So sign your seat and reach your heels forward. And then let's do three round backs.
Single Leg Tendon Stretch
But I went there so I have to pull myself all the way up and over. Okay.
Tendon Stretch
Don't move your eyeballs, lean back and come up. And if you keep your eyes in one spot, then you actually can go further than you think. And then I just have to work on lifting in the center cause I cheat there. Funny, I cheat on the rowing and I cheat here. They're pretty similar. Woo. Okay. One side aside guys.
Single Leg Tendon Stretch
So just stand on your legs and lift up and over to one side and then up and over to the other side. Okay, so twists and reach. Here we go. Twist, get long on both sides and actually have a little bit of fun. All right. It doesn't have to be
Round Back
Flat Back
Seat's gotta be on some standing on this leg and I'm going to walk down and then to come up I have to use like I'm rolling up, I'm going to pull my center into my box, I'm going to stand on my left leg and then I'm climbing with my back to bring my head to my knee. I'm pulling my head to my knee. So it's easy to like think that your head's going to your ankle but you really want and it's still something I'm working on. So if you see that I'm not at practice, we're in process and then pull all the way. Okay, so single leg circles here, you can just go into the back bend or you can join me. So I use this as a way to really stand on my limbs and then check in with how free I can move this leg. Some days it's easier than others, but man, my left leg is working like overtime roll up and then you can grab your foot and then just double check.
Side to Side
Did you flatten out or can you pull your waist back and bend your spine a little bit more? Okay, we have another side how lucky for us. So lengthen the leg out, find that tallness in your back flex and point, and then take what you learned on the first side and bring it to this side, which you know, who knows, maybe our second side is a completely different side. Mine is climb up from your back. Try not to bring your leg forward, but instead bring yourself to your leg and then go back again. And you can take the stretch if you did so on the other side.
Twist and Reach
And then pull the stomach into the box, right so that you're going up and over your stomach. That's the hard part. A lot of us have tighter, lower backs and so we cheat that spot and this is a really good time to find the reach down through the legs and up over the head. Here we go. Get into your backbend and find your circles. And the more I can on my hands and like evenly the freer this leg is. And I always can tell when I'm doing connected cause my hip either pops or it doesn't pop right. It's kind of one of those things.
Around the World
The hips pop when we're totally just kind of going through choreography rather than working in our muscles.
Tree
I mean they're hard but they're not as hard as they look. So come in. All right, here we go. Press out. And then if your carriage is moving, your body is moving. So watch that.
Single Leg Circles
When I pull my knees in, I'm like, oh thank God it's over. But you know, if we can kind of feel like we're lifting our hips up to pull our knees in, you might get a d
Tree
Um, just feels really good. You can do with the bar down our bar up. So
Single Leg Circles
Allow your hips to reach to your springs if not through your springs, press yourself out and then roll up. Now something I cheat on is that I dropped my heels all the time on this. I'm going to keep my heels up on the spinal line. I'm going to try, I'm going to roll my hips down and keep my heels up. Oh God. And then we're going to go out and I'm going to roll up and then I'm going to keep lifting my heels to come all the way in, in, in, in reverse and rolled down. And if your seats cramping. So with mine and then all the way through and then pull your hips through, lift the heels up. I'm telling myself that, but you too. And then roll down, let the spine wrap around.
Short Spine
Let your arms reach into the shoulder blocks or not challenging. The shoulder blocks are just reaching. It's like a dance partner. Last one.
High Frog
Semi Circle
Chest Expansion
The springs are just there, so try not to pull on straps too much
Thigh Stretch
So, um, snake in Peloton. I think it's important to know that sometimes exercises look amazing to you and then someone fixes it and then it looks really ugly. It goes to like an ugly stage and then it looks amazing again to you and then it gets fixed. And so my snake is in this corrective, ugly stage. Um, sometimes it's beautiful and sometimes it's like better luck next time. So wherever your snake is, we're just going to do it together.
Arm Circles
I'm on one spring, I don't know what the foot bar up anymore. I kind of need to get back, self back up there. So foot bar down. I do do it with a turned out foot so I can really reach into my seat and square my hips. Take your hand pat. And then I am trying to actually keep the spring closed. Hopefully you already have learned how to do that.So we're gonna lift our centers up and then just go through an up stretch all the way out, stand on your outside foot, lift your heart and then lift your outside hip and lift your center like you're doing your up stretch. And then again, reach out, standing on your outer foot, lengthen your heart forward and then lift your heart up and come all the way. And let's do a twist. We're going to push out, keep your hips as high up as you can. Let's not let the hips just drop down and then lift your hips and then pull it in. Let's do one more reach out. Again, it's not about the hips going into the carriage. We're trying to keep them up and twist them and then lift come all the way up. This is the hard part. Keep the carriage closed as you stepped down.
Snake
I've been practicing. So here we go. Outside foot, hand, hand and up. Okay, send her off and stand in your outside leg. Lengthen your chest through your arms and then pull it all the way up. And then every site is different. So just notice what you rushed through on your second side that you didn't, maybe on your first side. And then let's go into our twist.
Twist
Pull your shoulders on your back so you can pull your chest through, look over your shoulder,
Snake
Twist
So let's go roll up and then as you roll down, find that opposition. So your legs just roll through and up to the other side, you know, like it's no big deal. And then go, ah, [inaudible].
Corkscrew
So I'm really practicing. You can join me on this too. Look, as long as I'm reaching my legs.
Tick Tock
Balance Control Prep
And then I look at my back leg the whole time and I keep looking and I'm not gonna fall on my carriage. Just so you know, that was the first time I didn't drop so you can applaud. So now we're in a prep again. Left leg goes to the frame and then lifted up. And so I cheated a little bit. I moved my top leg forward. My top leg has to reach up as my other leg reaches down.
Balance Control
So your leg right now, my right leg is reaching for the ceiling as my left leg reaches for the floor. And that way I can just roll right off. And the trick really is watching that back leg. The more I watch it, the more I can lift my stomach, the more I watch it, the more I can come on.
Balance Control Prep
So like horseback. Don't make it a really big deal. Just press out, lift up, find the top, stand in your straps and then reach and then get taller and reach. And I'm thinking that my thigh bones are pushing into my feet. So I'm just going to push my thigh bones into my straps and lower myself with control and then lift back up. And again, I don't use my knees. Your knees will want to cheat for you. Use your stomach and your long, lower back and reach and then come all the way up. Last one in this direction.
Balance Control
Reach and reach and reach all the way and then reverse it. And this is the easier one. Come up and out. You have your inner thighs to really help you and reach and then up standing your straps. I know we're getting tired. Me Too all the way up. And then final one out and out and out and in and bend your knees in. Alright frogs, press your legs out, lift your head, rest up and just keep moving.
Long Spine
So this is where I just really kind of check in and see what I'm feeling in my legs. I used to think frogs were like, you know, no big deal. But if I really worked my seat and connected my legs for going into circles five in each direction, I can feel that even with this like easy frog and circle situation. And then also I just let it tell me what I need a little bit more of. You know, sometimes it tells me something you have to listen, but frogs and circles will give you a lot of information. Okay? Take your straps off. Homestretch.
Frog
Speaking of stretch knee stretches, so if you hate them, um, me too. They used to have, I wanted to cry when I was first becoming applies instructor because I couldn't not fill my quads. Have you ever like, oh my God, these suck. I just sent my quads and then I don't know how many years it took, but we have a better relationship now. So it's all about reaching through your feet guys. We gotta turn this on so your stomach will close the spring, your fear, your hamstrings and butter are going to push it out. So if you can find a spot we can is hold yourself up, keep this and then just move your legs, right?
Circles
Don't make it this thing that it has to be huge. You're not a track runner. Jumping out of the box, you're just doing [inaudible] and pressing your carriage out and in just like you did for footwork and stomach massage. And then reverse the curve and same thing. Try to make the extension in your upper back and not a booty bounce, right? So that your low belly can close the carriage all the way, which I need to do. There we go. Oh, we can't all be perfect, right? Okay. Now knees off. We are all gonna. Close the carriage six times. Ready?
Round Back
Lift your knees and then push out and pull the carriage close. I hope one of you was counting. Here we go. Okay, whoo. Running pelvic lift. Never have I ever love saying those words before in my life. So put your springs on like you had for foot work. Press yourself out. And then if you took notice about how your body felt, you know when we were doing our footwork on the carriage, you should be able to really feel something new and different here.
Flat Back
Right? Let's start a pelvic lift. Lift the hips, press. Well you guys, we did it. That was kind of amazing. You kept me honest. I hope I kept you honest and then roll all the way down and set up with me. So if I had more equipment in the room with me, I would probably go over to the one to chair cause I need to on my tendon stretch, I would want to do some of my pull up side with a leg out to work on my snake and my strength and my outer hips.
Knees Off
And then I'd probably do some more table cause clearly I like to cheat on that one. Um, maybe I go to the wall though. And work my tall back because that is a really difficult position for my spine to be in. So you might feel something different. Check in with your body if you have other equipment at home and see what else your body needs to make that workout even stronger. Thank you so much for watching.
Mention
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Lesley Logan (Teacher) |
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Amy Goeldner |
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Debbie |
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Jac Griffin |
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Destinie S |
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NancySanchezPilates |
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Gia Calhoun |
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Lorie H |
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Jessica |
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Connie M |
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Dana T |
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Tina Tricomi |
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Lori M |
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Julie M |
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Angela M Tamborello |
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Sarah B |
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Madhavi A |
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Jan C |
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Michele M |
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Alisha R |
Comments
Skip to Latest
Alisha thank you so much for taking class with me! I'm so glad you enjoyed the tips. xx~LL
6 years ago
This was great fun. I appreciate how you teach with honesty and acceptance about where your own practice currently is, which is so encouraging to follow and have a healthy workout within one’s own current functional boundaries. Thanks! Will apply some tips to my classes this week!
6 years ago
Michele OMG! That was my best snake in a LONG time too! Thank you for flowing with me and so happy you enjoyed it! xx~LL
6 years ago
Jan that makes me so happy that you did the control balance off! I think it is a great exercise to have fun with. Thank you for doing it with me! xx~LL
6 years ago
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