Reformer Release

Hi everybody. I'm Kristy Cooper with my new friends at least. And Rihanna here from Perth, Australia. Both of them are mat based instructors who are going to be challenged hopefully by me and this class with pushing them a little bit on the reformer to take them through a little bit more, just a little more. That's all we're going for. So what I have them on that we're going to start with just a mat based warmup. You know, make them feel comfortable. They just got here, they're my guests.

So what I have them set up for his foot and leg work. It is three red and a blue for both. So if you have a different reformer, you might want four springs or you might want it a little later still. So if you would just both lie down, your feet are going to extend over the foot bars and you want to stretch your legs out over the bar where your little bit away from the shoulder blocks. Right? So just feel that. And then they've been traveling. I haven't, they're new from me and we're all excited. So what we're going to do now is look how pointed their toes are. I love it.

I'm going to ask you to just inhale and exhale and just truly let go. Yeah, just like literally, I swear, I mean we have a diverse springboard diving board and we have a dancer and um, this is going to be fun. Okay, so again, just you're here, we're all here. Now take a deep breath for the couple of times on your own and just melt into your reformers. These are your dance partners, your diving board for the next however long. When you're ready, you're going to take your feet onto the foot bar, the arches, or the heels onto the foot bar in parallel with your feet just a little bit apart. Okay. And again, what I'm heading into is a shoulder bridge like, or a pelvic curl just to warm up the spine. So feel the backs of the arms, feel your spine, feel your bones in the mat as much as you can. Take an inhale. Don't worry about your feet. You're going to exhale and just roll up from the pelvis all the way. Bone by bone. That's it. That's it. Just getting used to being here, getting used to the environment I'm getting used to you Riana and go a little higher. Push into your feet. Inhale, exhale from the top of your throat.

Bridge

That's going to save us later. Inhale and exhale to roll down almost as if you were reaching missions over that foot bar, giving yourself your own version of traction. Soften a little, both of you that will help me in all of that. No exhale rolling up. It's like the breast really can move. There you go. Riana. There she goes. Like whole throat just sort of softens. So you're up there, you can almost drag toward your heels. You inhale, you exhale, you roll down. There you go.

And when you're down you really are down. Prove it to yourself. So stadium for a second and archer, low back a little, and then go back to what you think is neutral. Do two of those just to kind of feel where you are. You can adjust your feet and anything you need to anytime. Take your next inhale. We'll go one more time up. Exhale, peel up. Good, good.

And what they're both doing really well is they're keeping their knees parallel towards their feet. They're not splaying. Their inner thighs are working. Inhale, exhale, come on down. Make it feel good. When you get there, you can just take your arms around to the pegs behind you and hold onto those. If your shoulders are okay, you're gonna let the elbows drop out. If not, you can let them hold up a little bit. Pick the legs up to 90 degrees and maybe a little closer to you. Yup.

Table Top Hip Rotation

Your knees are totally lined up and exhale the ring back to center and I'm speeding up. Not a lot in the action but more in my voice in here and then as you start to exhale, it's really almost a deflation really. Well it is not almost of the lungs so that the body can just follow it. The body's smart and exhale. Her feet like to think a lot of her pies, right? Yours are a little, there you go. That's it. It's just supple and exhale.

Really good. Really good. Let's do a few more. Inhale. So again, what's nice is that holding that anchoring of the upper body. Beautiful and exhale. And last one for now in here, I'm just giving her a little resistance as you might feel that opposition a touch more right from there. Grab onto your knees with both hands. Pull them in really close to you. Crawl your head up like you're going to touch your forehead to your hands.

Yes. From there. Extend your right leg out only and both hands go to the left. That's right. However you want. And switch. Just switch and switch. Good and sweet. Keep going. Again, I'm going to keep saying it. I can tell the whole time, so I'll try to minimize it.

Single Leg Stretch

You can hold your knees, yes and no stress. Good. Then push your knees upward toward the ceiling and curl up as you push your knees towards me. That's all good. I might've pulled you a little high. My fault. Double leg stretch. You're going to reach both arms back and the legs forward and circle around. Grab on and inhale and good.

Double Leg Stretch

It could then bring your head, neck and shoulders up and actually for both of them, I'm going to bring their leg to about 90 cause that's going to be harder for them. Right? You can hold on for as long as hard as you want with your hands. In fact, pull into your hip socket. Right? You can come down to tiny, tiny, right there you go. From there it's pull, pull, switch legs, pull, pull. And for both of them I'm encouraging a little bit of a holding back to that 90 so they have to hold themselves up rather than just stretch the leg. They already have stretched out. Okay, good. Good. Yeah, of course it is. I mean it would be different from me. Right?

Single Straight Leg Stretch

Just like you haven't Rihanna, pull yourself up again just where you were. Then put your hands behind your head and you're going to reach out in long down to three from the middle. Exhale, we're right back to 90 in health down. Soften, soften. I promise you, you will get way more out of it for now. I mean, you can go back later. Do it again. Only two more promise. We'll go right into Chris Cross after this. Cause that, is that the good news, right? Is this already too or is that one that I thought so good. I almost let you off the hook. Beautiful. Reach, reach, reach, and then we'll bend both knees, twist toward your right knee and go switch and switch and switch. Beautiful. You have your breathing, right? That's the main thing, but think of the shape you're making, right? You're squeezing out.

Lower Lift

Criss Cross

Exactly. And and you like you feel that you can, you're locked in, right? You're just secure. There's a subtle down, sorry. Now there's going to be a settled down or drag. Right. So there's instant engagement of the hamstrings just makes everything better. Push out on an exhale. If my breath pattern doesn't work, you'll change it.

Heels Parallel

Just asking you and Ben to come in. We'll do four more press and pull and press out and you know, it's one of those situations where I want to go. Good. I'll be over here when you're done with that and we'll do something next. But there's things that are really working for them. They've got their arms, Preston and I think this is probably for their arms or Preston. They're actively stay here. Go to the toes, balls of the feet, and you can start. Um, the backs of the arms are pressed in, the shoulders are open. I wouldn't maybe encourage both of them to bring their arms closer to their hips so that they can actually feel the upper back a tad more.

Toes Parallel

Pilates Stance

Very nice. Every now and again Rianna and think of dropping those backs with the size cause you start to get into a bit of a Tuck or I don't know if it's Tuck. It's a bit of a grippiness in the front. That's it. Let's do two more for her. That's great. Really Nice. Last one. You'll come back down to the foot bar when you get there. It's beautiful.

Go back to parallel feet. Push out to straight. Get there. Prove it to your Beth who had lower both heels down, both heels up. Bend your knees. Been, pull yourself back in, push out again, down then up and pull back in. A subtle change for you. Only just, there you go. Same thing down and up and then I'm going to change it. Now you're going to do three when you get out there. So push out. Go down and up. Three times. Squeeze my hand a little.

Tendon Stretch

Here's five. Nice job on your ankles and now you can feel that one and two. Beautiful. Thery and down. Stretch your whole spine for one more time for five. Come on down. Can we do six? Sure. Out we go.

One and stretched from the back of your body. I don't know what that means either, but just look for it. Is that three? You guys all know you'll come down after six, four, five, six. Come down. Take your feet over the bar for a second case. You need to check them out, whatever. Put them right back. It's the same position. Exactly. Pushed back out way up high on the tiptoes.

Running

Sometimes what all do, this might be too much, so don't let me do anything. I might even grab underneath it. Keep this one straight. Bend this one still and the pole right. You can hook yourself, you can help yourself. Turns out switch sides when you're ready. Who was that?

The Hook is good, right? Be careful, but yeah, it is. It's like, oh right. I can make myself a good, wow. Look at those hyperextended knees. It's okay if you can still feel it, but I'm wanting a tiny bit of Ben warn of a Ben. This one? Yeah, here you go. I was like, what's happening? And really that's what you're looking for. There you go. All right.

Come on down and let's just have you swivel up at La. Have you take off your springs and not all of them down to red and blue. In this case, we're going into the a hundred ish. We go ahead and lie down once you've done it, and so I have them on what I would call a medium weight. I'm going to leave the, am I going to leave the bar here? I'm gonna leave the bar here since I didn't tell you not to. That's cool.

Reach back, grab your straps, Shimmy a little bit away from your shoulder rests, and then the way I'm going to start this, while you don't do the reform of that often says just like that. Good. So what we're doing is we have some resistance. We're barely off the stopper. Arms are absolutely straight and shoulder distance. Okay? Now what I want to do is have you leave the legs exactly as they are bringing your arms a little more. Now exhale, just curl the head. Neck and shoulders up. Good. Good. You're looking forward. Stay there. Let the arms only rise up.

Hundred Variation

Exhale, curl up and then take it back down. Everything. Exactly. Touch your head down, exhale, curl up again. Maybe start to feel again, keep going and down that the handles, if you could, they were be attached to your upper arm. It's that sense of, it's not about the hands is I'm moving from my spine theoretically and actually, and exhale one more like we're going to stay up there. So get calm when you get there. A few come. Doesn't matter where the legs go, but the arms do the same thing they did before. Inhale up two, three, four, five and down. They don't have to go high for that whole time. They're just rising a little and they're lowering and when you lower those arms, you are squeezing the air out. Right for your arms. A little closer.

Riana it'll feel better. Yep. And one more. I know it's more than a hundred but that's okay. It happens. Bend your knees and take yourself down. Nice work. Yeah. Okay. Let's do instead. Better coordination, which would, I would sometimes do here. I'm going to give you one that I think I can talk you through.

It's essentially gonna, you know, Snow Angels. You don't, you're in Australia. You do this, this no there. Yeah. Okay, so what we'll do, the football going to be here, so your legs will be a little higher and that's okay. That's a nice way to learn it. So come to what I call the ABS starting position. The knees are about 90 arms and you're ready. Again, not a lot of tension in the hands, but there's enough to keep the resistance. Inhale, exhale, curl up like you're doing the a hundred when you get there.

Coordination Variation

That's closer to dance and diving. Maybe. I Dunno. Exhale. But again, it's like you're squeezing the air out. The shape kind of matters here and exhale, it looks beautiful and now you can become fee in it. Have I just two more squeezy. Crazy me. Squeeze the air first. Beautiful. Bend the knees and come on down. Excellent. Feed on the foot bar carefully cause it's lighter for your, the leg weight and push out to the straight legs and then you're going to step into it one foot at a time. Nice.

Then the knees, once you get there to a frog position. Beautiful. Great. And then let me know, you know, I don't know you well enough and you all at home should make sure that you're using resistance that makes you feel a little bit in control but that you're in charge at least 49% of it, hopefully 51 so from here, just to simple frog, it doesn't take effort. It's just like straighten your legs and then you pull them back in. Right. That's great. So what I'm offering her and you can do for yourself is just this idea to make an exaggeration out of it. This idea of she's got our heels together strongly, but she's pulling me to her and then then you find the amount of energy you actually need there back and forth. And you can go deeper with that frog.

Frog

Circles

We'll see. Yeah. Cause if they do with this light tension, one, one red, one blue, they're going to feel it more or sooner. Otherwise I, they're going to be here all day with the how much energy is being diverted away from. We really where we really want it. And again, I'm really just kind of going for freedom in the hips, but the abductors are usually where we'll get it. Let's come up, stop there. Oh, it's working. I don't, you can't see it, but the more you relax your feet, she shaky. It's great. It's not nerves. Exhale, come down next time you exhale. [inaudible] inhale separate comrades. Perfect. That's right. Let's, let's do something different. That's really the only reason for the record that I am talking about their feet because they're so used to a certain way and we're here to explore.

Inhale around. Okay. And for the sheer sake of I may have over corrected them or you, all of us knowing you're going to keep your spine, so go a little freer. Just whatever happens. This, you know, are tapping now. Just fluid for you to have. Are you good? Good, good, good.

Yep. It looks really good. Um, I hope it feels kind of good. Let's do one more around, I think I already said it, but one more round. Come down to the safe. Little lower than 45 for these two. Maybe not for you. And then from here it's okay. It's going to get worse. Turn out cause you're doing it really well and it's just a little different. That's all. So all we're doing now is opening to the side.

Open Close

I'd raise them up a little cause I don't want to overstretch you. Maybe a little more, just so we know. And then you can take a stretch by taking your hands on the inside. Actually have the straps and carefully either rest your hands there, gently pull whatever feels good to you. If it feels good to you, that's going to be a good stretch. She's still on camera. It works. Okay. Just take your time.

If you feel like you're done with the stretch, the way out of it more safely, if you've really gone for a big one is to lift up with maybe one at a time. You know, so you're not just using your leg strength to do it, but rather use your hands to pull back to center and I, I'm ready for you to be done. Thank you. Okay, so you're going to take one foot off reach for the foot bar with that leg. That's right. And then if you keep it straight, the other leg comes off easy and now you can bend your knees and come on down. Fabulous. Yeah, so far so good. It's okay. Come on up. We're going to do a little scooter.

So you come off the side and I think what I'll have you do is Riana you come on this side and I'll have you on that side for this one just to teach it. So there's a couple of versions of scooter and I am going to do a couple of them. One is going to say I'm starting it as a build onto the knee stretch, which will come later. It's related to almost everything we've already done already. I'm going to start it, uh, with a blue, the lightest spring. I can choose actually not. I have a yellow, I'm not choosing yellow. I'm choosing a blue m and then I'll probably up it. So if I could mimic you or you can make men with me, we're going to, you can just follow along.

We're going to put our hands on one side of the reformer and um, the foot at the shoulder block. Let's start with that. So Yup. Just like that. So there's a version that we'll do in a moment that will work the glutes. So if you want to work with the glues, just stay tuned. But before that, let's work the app. They knew I was going to do scooter and they got all excited, but we're not doing that part yet. So what I'm going to ask you to do, at least, is both of you move your foot that's on the ground almost to there, and maybe even forward farther forward to the leg of the reformer.

That's a good place to start. Then with the knee on the carriage you're going to, if I, if I'm mirroring you, so to speak, or you're gonna lean back towards me round the back. So it's really going to be about the abs first and this heads to something later. We only bring your carriage back in all the way, and that's actually the exercise. Yeah. Okay. From here, you're going to push the carriage back. Just the care, sorry. Sorry. My fault. Lift lifter. Lift your knee off. Just hover it. Now push the carriage back without changing his mind all the way up before it.

Single Leg Scooter Series

So bring the carriage all the way back in, way back into the stopper. Way Back in. Yup. And now the way back here with your arms. Sorry, I keep an event and now go push out. Pull in, push out, pull in, trying not to move anything out. There you go. And then if you can, it's a hard one to learn, but it's a skill. There we go. She just got it. I'm going to back away so you can see it. It's like a scooping and it's almost easy on the leg, right? They want it harder, but it's not. Let's do a couple more and before I do the other one that you want me to do, I'm going to have you walk around so you stay with that feeling.

So walk around to the other side. Yep, that's fine. Hands on, you sit back kind of far. So you really almost like an a starting race position. There you go, round your back a lot. However the knees so that hips can be Lovell. Yup. Take this knee off and keep it off. Now scoop in and, and now find that exhale bringing that carriage. And that's nice roundup. So if I were to hold that carriage back, you'd round your back more or at least there.

It's almost like the spring desert. There you go. I know. It's frustratingly good when you get it. Okay, so that's that idea. We'll stay on this side. I will add some spring for them. Come all the way to the stopper. Yep. I just added one one full spring. So they're now at one and a half, which I think is a little much, but we'll see. So now my version of this is going to be, you can stay there. You're going to, instead of rounding your back, just sit back and hover that back knee. Okay.

And this one, we don't have to go so fast so the back knee is lifted. Go ahead and push out all the way, all the way. Is that too heavy? Has It? Okay. She can handle it. Good and bend it. Good. And what I'm loving about this, this is also like me stretch, but it's closer to the flat back version. Let yourself crease it that hip. There you go. Good. Let's just do a couple more like that.

Let's get on and how are you doing? Fine. The next version of this as an option would be bring it to the stopper. I'm going to lighten for sure. You're as maybe hers, taking the half Spring off to come to upright balance. Really up, right. Okay. And then straighten and bend all the way into the stopper. Yeah, bring it all the way in. There you go. There you go to two, five.

There's two or three more. Could try for full extension if you can't, don't hurt your low back to do it, but there you go. Yeah. Other side. Nice work. Yup. They start smiling when they can feel the bumps. I love it. We started with the flat bag version. That's great. That's really good.

Just out and, Oh wait, let me put the spring back on my thought. Yeah. Okay. And this one, this version, when your hands are on, hopefully here in the long enough spine that you can stretch it all the way out. So don't cheat yourself on that part. Okay.

Nice. All Nice and straight. They're not wobbling. I mean, they're feeling in, I hope to some degree, but they're not shifting their hips much in it. And if they do, they're fixing it. Okay, that's good. So next one, come in and all these, we'll take off the blue kids to that upright there, right? The forward knees bent and now you just straightened to the extent that you can. There you go. Chest itself. I know. Balancing [inaudible] [inaudible] let's do two more. Last one and in a week I'm fantastic. Okay.

So I'm going to keep you on a red and blue and since I don't knew that Wellman start you on a red and blue and we may change it. So we're going up into um, an upstretched position or a pyramid position thinking I'm going to change your foot bar just for the height or how long you are. So I'm just lowering rounds a little cause she's taller. Okay. So stand up onto your carriage knowing that the springs are not heavy at this point and you're gonna put your heels partway up. The shoulder blocks, they don't have to be super high, but just up there, shifting your weight back. That's it. So that you get this nice long line of the back.

So subtle sense from me that the tailbones lifting and then you can draw a bubble. You can drop your head a little. Beautiful. All right, now it's not heavy, so just let the weight of the strength of the back of the legs push the care down a little bit. Nothing else will change one little more than that. Sorry. Then it's again, the app that's far enough. Exhale and pull the ABS in so that the springs do the work to bring it down and push out a little, a little just about their nest. Start. Exhaling Elise. And that brings it back in. There you go. So the later you get on your feet on that exhale to rise up, almost the, the springs end up doing the work, but your abs are really having to pull up for that to accommodate it.

Up Stretch

Long Stretch

You can both probably take a little bit more on the traveling of back. Alright. And then lift up off. My fingers. Don't collapse into the shoulders and back. Let's just do one more here and as you come up, think of rising off my fingers a little. There you go. Okay, go back to a pyramid shape position. Put your heels down. It's still lots of blocks though. Sorry, and just put the heels flat on the carriage. That's it. You're going to go later. I'm gonna leave. Here's Rianna and again, it's warm for length. All right.

And then wherever you are on your former, think of rotating, those armpits may be inward so that upper back feels like as long we're not going to hang the head. You're going to be more pointing to that bar. That was gorgeous. You actually were in a good spot. I just want to pull on you. Lift your head a little right there. Yeah, that action. But pull the ribs in the little and now we just press the heels back and down a little and bring it forward. Just like you did before. Good. Back and down and forging. Go a tiny bit faster. Rihanna.

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