Class #3533

Zesty Mat

60 min - Class
322 likes

Description

You will get sweaty with this fun Mat class by Sarah Bertucelli. She teaches a traditional BASI Flow class, focusing on moving with ease and joy. She keeps the class moving with zesty transitions that will let you rock and roll through the exercises.
What You'll Need: Mat, Towel

About This Video

Sep 11, 2018
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Transcript

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Hello there. I am so excited today to be here at teaching a math class with a bunch of my friends in the house. We are going to rock and roll and have a fantastic time. I intend for this class to be a zesty, powerful, pretty traditional Bassey Pele's flow, so we're going to get sweaty and have some fun just to remember if there's anything you can't do that doesn't work for you, modify and that goes for the people in the room as well. I don't really want to stop and start too much and I don't really want to break down exercises very much. I'll cue them, but I want us just to kind of have fun and have a moving experience and see where we can go. Sound good? I do have a towel just in case.

Roll Back

I know for me sometimes rolling up can be difficult and having a towel is a nice little treat and I've asked all of my, my classmates to have one too, just in case I decide to use it for something else. So maybe have a towel nearby. Okay, so let's go ahead and start sitting with your feet sort of toward the front of your mat because we are going to roll back and I want to make sure you have room to roll back. Okay, I'm going to put my towel back here. Actually sound the way. Hold on to your legs. You can either hold your shins or the backs of the legs, whichever you prefer, but use your arms to sit up straight. And let's take three breaths to set the intention. Inhaling, growing tall through the crown of the head and exhaling. Draw your shoulders back and grow a little taller.

The intention to move with grace and power. Yeah, one more breath, but also moving with ease and joy. Gently release your arms and take a breath. Exhale to round. Enroll yourself all the way back. Just one graceful rollback check-in. How does your body feel?

Slide your feet close to your bottom and then lower your head down and settle for a moment here. Your chest is open, your pelvis is neutral in health through your nose. With an exhale. We engage our abs and flatten the back without going all the way up yet. Inhale, put your pelvis back down and again, exhale, engage your abs to flatten your back. Feel your tailbone lifting. Your legs are still somewhat light and lower down. One more time here. Exhale, engage your abdominals to lift your pelvis.

Pelvic Curl

Now curl all the way up, so dig into the legs and press your pelvis nice and high for the pelvic curl. Inhale here. Use The exhale to lower down one vertebrae at a time. Now, I do intend to get a zesty pace here, but we need to make sure we're ready for that. So exhale to PLF. ADDS backs of the legs, inner thighs taste each and every vertebra. Inhale here with the exhale first. Soften your sternum, lower through your back ribs, your low back, and finally your pelvis comes home again like that. Inhale, exhale to peel up.

Shoulder Bridge Variation

Feel your inner thighs engaged, keeping your legs in place. Take a breath and exhale to peel down one vertebra at a time. Just one more pelvic curl. Just like that. Please inhale and exhale to peel up. Fill your jaw, soft your chest, open your inner thighs engaged. Stay here for a few breaths. Tuck your pelvis just a little more.

Soften your sternum to make sure your ribs are in place. Feel ease across your jaw, your face. Lift your heels with an inhale and with an exhale, press your feet flat. Two more like that. Inhale to lift your heels as you press your feet to Tuck your pelvis.

Just a little more and one more breath. Just like that. Exhale with flat feet. Take a breath and lower down one vertebrae at a time. Reach your hands to the ceiling and then open your arms wide to the side with an inhale and with an exhale, lift back up. Breathing and moving. Inhale to open, stretching wide through the collarbones and exhale to lift up. Just two more like that.

Arms Open Close Side

Inhaling to open and exhale this time. Inhale open and keep your arms wide. Now, if you happen to be on a table like me, feel free to hold the frame of the table, float your legs, or not float, but sway your legs toward me. Just relax your legs toward me or toward the screen, and then use your abs to pull the legs back to center and go the other way. Feel that release through your hips, that release in your spine, and then use the abs to pull back to center. And again, your jaw is soft, the opposing shoulder blade stays grounded. Pull back to center, and one more time in health twist and exhale.

Supine Spine Twist

Ooh, chiropractic adjustments are good. Float one leg to table to up. Float the others. Squeeze the legs together and let's continue on in hell. Use the exhale to pull back through to center and inhale to twists and exhale to center. And again, picking up the pace. A little. Exhale all the air out.

Supine Spine Twist w/ Leg Extension

Remember we're breathing and moving, exploring our bodies and enjoying. Okay the ride. One more time. Okay, beautiful. Release your arms to the ceiling first and then stretch them behind you for your a hundreds prep here we're exhale to lift the head and chest, low back, grounded. Ease through the back of the neck and gently lower down. Exhale to lift.

Hundred Preparation

Okay. Arms down by your side and inhale to lower back two more like that. Exhale to lift. Nice ladies and lower down. One more time. Let's lift and Ho start the breath. Inhale, you didn't keep your legs bent or you can stretch your legs up to the ceiling.

Hundred

Keep the pumping kind of soft. It's quick, but it's also soft. Feel free to take the legs a little lower if it suits you, but make sure your low back stays grounded. Find your edge. This is my edge today and that's okay. Try squeezing the legs together a little bit more as you continue to breathe. Okay. With each inhale, can you lift just a little higher?

Let's call it one more breath. [inaudible] hold. Draw your legs in, forehead to knee connection. If you're able to and lower your head down. Take your legs to a table. Pop Chop position. Lift your head and chest. Lift your pelvis as well and let's just get a little rock and a little roll going.

Roll Up

Okay. Until you find yourself balancing on your tail here, we'll set up for our rollout. I always like to roll down first. And if you know you're going to have a hard time getting back up, you can get your towel in place round through your low back, engaging your belly muscles and just roll yourself back. See how it goes. Can you roll down without falling? And if you're able to, you may be able to roll back up. So we inhale to lift the head and chest and we use the exhale. Ooh, teacher needs a little help from her hands to roll back up.

Inhale here, exhale to peel yourself back. Now if you're having a hard time getting back up, you can do a couple of different things. You could bend your knees, which is what I'm going to choose to do on this next one. Oh, not quite moaning and groaning for you, and exhale to peel back again. Or You could put that towel underneath your back. So by putting the towel underneath your low back, go ahead and roll up my friends. If you just take a nice little towel and put it right behind your pelvis here.

It might give you just enough surface area to be able to roll back up with ease. You can watch it on me as we peel back [inaudible] I now have the floor just a little closer to my low back and it's like magic. I have no problem grounding down through my low back and working through the tightness in my spine. Just one more. Rolling back. Exhale for three, two and one all the way back with the arms. Lift the head and chest and we roll up to three and four.

I'm going to move that map towel out of the way. Scoop forward on the mat. Round through your low back. Just your tip toes down now. No hands yet. Round through the low back. Fully commit to your abdominals. Feel softness through your neck, shoulders, drawing back. See if you can float your feet up fully committed to your abs.

Rolling Like A Ball

Then find a place where you can touch with your hands, but pull your legs in closer. That should be your rolling like a ball shape. Yes. Give it a go. Inhale. Okay. In halback. Now, certainly I want you holding all the way down by the feet if you can, but if you're not quite able yet to hold that position on your own for any reason whatsoever, two more.

Rolling then feel free to modify last time. Please balance on your tail and stay. Take your shins parallel to the ceiling. Hands. Hold the backs of the legs. Open your heart. Hint of a smile across your cheeks. Let's get juicy. Exhale to peel back with control. Draw your legs into a table. Top Position. Hands reached just beyond your knees. Double leg stretch happens.

Double Leg Stretch

Now we reach and we pull and we reach and we pull. Find the breath. Try to stay lifted, lifted. When you go back, think about that. Lifting a little more as you go back. Beautiful. Breathing and moving. One more here. Single leg stretch leg closest to me comes in.

Stretch the other leg out. Change now. Feel that your arms are helping you work harder. Using the arms to pull the pelvis or pull the leg into the pelvis will help you create more power here. One more time. Both I one more time each side now please both legs come in, lift your chest and stay criss cross hands behind your head. Twist to me first so I can see everybody and change. Change. Beautiful.

Single Leg Stretch

Feel the control from your legs. [inaudible] one more time. Each side please. Both legs come in. Stay. Bring the hands to the backs of your legs. Lift higher. Yes. We're going to continue on the leg closest to me. Walk up, walk up, walk up. Slide the other leg down to straight. Strong legs. Hint of a smile.

Criss Cross

Hamstring pull. Here we go. Okay. The little pulses on the leg. That's up. Nice. I like what I see. Good job for those of you have done it twice today already. You know who you're talking to or who I'm talking about. I should say.

Single Leg Pull

Here we go, Bob. Bob, Bob. Now let's keep the same pattern with the hands behind the head. Here we go. Ba stay lifted. Beautiful. Yeah. See if you can really ground down through the leg on the floor.

Single Leg Pull Variation

[inaudible] are you ready to add rotation? Here we go. To me tapped. Ah, we got it. One more breath each side. Here we go. Don't just flop down. Two legs. Up. Lift, lift. Now. Straight legs. Just rock and roll. Just rock and roll till you find yourself sitting.

Criss Cross w/Straight Legs

Stretch your legs out in front of you. [inaudible]. Exhale to roll back for four and three and two and one. Bend, one knee, so it's close to your bottom. And then the other. We are warm. Yes, pelvic curl comes. Now. Exhale, curl your way up.

Shoulder Bridge Variation

Find a nice bridge here. Pressing your pelvis. A little higher. Inner thighs are active. Inhale, use the exhale to lower down four, three, two and one go again. Exhale to peel yourself up, preparing for the shoulder bridge and exhale to period. Peel yourself down. Shoulder bridge happens next time. So exhale to peel up. We stay. Really. Press your pelvis nice and high and bear the weight into your left leg.

Feel that, feel the pelvis. Lift your right leg up to the ceiling. Left leg is down, right, like is that, that was a lot of right and left. I'm sorry if I'm a mistakenly accused something. Flex your foot. Point your toe and reach down. Flex up, point down, flex up. Exhale. Inhale, focus on keeping the pelvis high. Nice breath. Last two, last one, and Whoa. Pray. Place the foot down.

Reconnect to your core. Press down through your strong arms and change sides. Flex the foot in the up. Exhale down in hell. Up. Okay. Feel the breathing in the moving.

Last one. Oh, placed for down per arrest. The pelvis even higher, perhaps even flair the ribs a little bit. Going into a little back extension. Little opening here and then lower your spine down one vertebra at a time with ease. Sway your legs to one side. Sway your legs to the other side. Stretch one leg long on the floor. Stretch the other leg long on the floor. By way of roll up, we come up to a sitting position.

Roll Up

Should you need to get up a different way? Feel free to use your towel, your arms, whatever modification you might need. I'm always okay with that. Take your feet about the width of your mat and flex your feet sitting nice and tall. Try to feel equal weight on both sides of your pelvis with your arms stretched out in front of your spine. Stretch. Exhale to peer forward. Two, three and four. Head is relaxed here and now use the exhale to stack your spine.

Spine Stretch Forward

Elbow straight. Sit Tall. So again, see if you can feel that movement through each vertebra, but also try to sense that you're sitting on both sides of your pelvis equally. And exhale to stack your spine. Two, three. Andrew, just make your fingers together if you would please. And exhale to peel forward. Our teacher rail would call those pitchforks. He would say, Sarah, no pitchforks. So here we go.

No pitchforks for Andrea. One more time. Exhale to peel forward. Hm. Beautiful. And exhale to stack your spine and stay right here. Lift one straight leg up and bring it to center. Lift the other straight leg up and bring it to center. Sit Taller, clasp your fingers together. Actually place your hands behind your head.

Spine Twist

Press your head into your hands and your elbow slightly forward. Everyone twists toward me so I can see you are good. Lift your Chin heart a little. Thank you. Unwind. So do that without flaring your ribs. Just check in. Feel both sides of your pelvis really equally weighted gorgeous.

I'm going to twist all the way around to see Hannah and Mandy. Look up my dear sweet friend. Lengthen, adding the pulse. Here we go. He Duh, Duh. Good Chin Up. Just a little bit more Mandy. Good. And just to tie. Yes. Now I like it. Good and exhaled to Dah di Inhale Dah Dah, Dah. Chin up please. Chin up. Good.

So the head is pressing back but with the Chin up. Yes. I love it. Last one here. Pause. So we're going to scoot forward so that your feet or our or your bottom is toward the front edge or your feet are on the front edge, I should say. We're going to roll back. I don't want you to fall off your mat. That's the key thing there. Take your feet wide and sit tall.

Open Leg Rocker Prep

Pitch back so that you're in a flat back leaning back and then float your feet up. Hang out. Knees are bent for our first version of open leg rocker. So feel this straight back. Draw your shoulders back and look up. Curl your pelvis underneath you to roll back. Inhale. Okay. And exhale, straighten out your spine. Good.

Curl your pelvis back. Okay. Check in with your legs and make sure they're not coming closer to you when you roll. So feel that the shape of your arms stays the same. You're really doing this movement by articulating through your spine. One more good. Change your gaze. When you roll your spine. Stay here. Choose to stay here or straighten one leg.

Keep your thighs though where they are, and straighten the other leg. Open like rocker. Yeah, here we go. Inhale. Cool. And that's how good here now and straightening out. Boy, I love this one. Always love me. And Open leg rock or how about trying it with no hands.

Open Leg Rocker

Here we go, right? One more time. No hands. Let me see. Yeah, balancing. Hold. Good. Bend your knees. Bring them together. We're going to roll back to the rollover. So here we go. Inhale, we exhale to roll back one vertebrae at a time. Place your hands down, stretch your legs to straight in hell. Legs come up. Exhale to roll over. Flex your feet, separate your feet, touch the floor if you're able to, and then roll down with control. Enjoy that. Bring the legs down.

Roll Over

Point the feet together. Inhale, exhale to rollover. Hello, lacks separate touch. Han, we rolled down with control. Check in with your arms and try to keep them grounded. Inhale, exhale, rolling over. Flex, separate touch down. Exhale to roll down to three. One more time please.

Flax, separate, touchdown and roll down. Two, three, four. Bend your knees. Bring them together. Place one foot down. Place the other foot down. Take your feet pretty close to your bottom and then separate your feet a little. Take a breath. Exhale to do a pelvic curl. So lifting up, go beyond the pelvic curl. Hoisting your pelvis up a little higher and placing one hand on each side of your pelvis and your elbows down. Now check in here.

Bicycle Prep

Can you lift your heels up and just hold yourself here with your toes? Just your tip toes here. Can you lift one knee in toward your nose and do you have the strength and the balance to lift the other knee in toward your nose, keeping your pelvis resting in your hands. Good. Put one knee down, Woo. And then the other knee down, hopefully with control. Put your feet down and rolled down. So that's the position we need to be able to find to do the bicycle, which we will get to eventually. Try that again. Exhale to peel up, press your pelvis, nice and high hoist. One pill, one hand underneath your pelvis. And then the other, get the elbows really underneath you. Now that you know where we're going, use your abs. Lift one leg up.

Perhaps it's the other side and see if you can, oh, this side, I can't lift first. Lift the other one up. Keep your pelvis like that. If you're able to put one down and then the other down. Yeah, and lower down. All right, so now lift one leg to tabletop followed by the other. Stretch your two legs straight to the ceiling. Take your legs away from you. Moving into the Jackknife in Helton 90 degrees.

Jackknife

We exhale to roll over the legs first, go down in space and up and then roll down one vertebrae at a time. Reaching the legs away in Halton 90 degrees. We're rolling over the legs. Go down. Use the backs of the legs as they go up. Okay, and roll down. And just one more time like that.

Inhale to 90 exhale to rollover. Hand legs down and up. Okay, and roll down one more time and we stay there. Inhale, exhale to rollover on. Stay warm and bring your hands to the small of your back. See if you can wedge your elbows.

Scissor/Bicycle Combo

You've got to really get those elbows up underneath you and press your pelvis. Sit your pelvis in your hands, bend your knees. It's a little easier. Now here, use your belly. Try stretching your two legs up to straight. We try the scissor here. One leg forward, one leg back. Ciao. It's that same feeling of the pelvis resting in your hands.

Bicycle. Here we go. One leg dow to the scissor and the knee. Try to touch the floor to the scissor. Try to touch the floor, one word side, uh, to the scissor. First up to the ceiling. Bend the knees toward your nose. Give your body and nice ball shape.

Release with your hands on the floor or roll down. [inaudible] holding the backs of the legs. Lift your head and chest. Lift your pelvis as well and just give yourself a nice little rock and roll. Boy. So much easier to rock and roll when we've warmed up. Yeah, let's everybody skew back a bit. We are going to go forward. Cross your legs here. Okay. Holding onto one foot with each hand.

Leg Pull Front

If you're able to see if you can roll over your legs and come to a quadramed position. Modify if needed. Hands are underneath your shoulders, knees are underneath your hips. Feel your head back where it belongs. Like a proud mammal. Yes. Proud ladies here. Use your belly muscles to support slide one like back slide the other leg backward and plank position. So be here for a few moments and feel length through the crown of the head. Push through your heels, healing length from your tailbone out through your legs.

So kind of feel lengthening through your low back all the way to your feet. Go ahead and point your right toes and lifted up. Five Times. One, two, three. Good. Andrea, four and five changed sides. Take your head back. A little. Hana, two good. Three, four and five. Two feet are down. Lower yourselves all the way slowly to the floor. Slowly, slowly and rest. Placed one hand outside of your shoulder, your hands outside of your shoulders rather, I'm sorry, hands outside of your shoulders and your head is just hovering off, away from the mat or the floor. Spend a couple of moments here thinking about what the underside of your body is doing. Can you feel your three points of your pelvis, your pubic bone, and your two hipbones?

Single Leg Kick

Perhaps try turning your knees inward a little bit or separating your legs to try to feel that connection. In fact, when you tuck your toes under for me, everybody and press into the pads of your feet so your legs are not on the floor. And when you did that, could you feel how the pelvis made it a more firm connection to the mat? I hope so. Keep that connection and support more with your abs. So pull your abdominals away from the floor and your legs are not on the floor. Now using your upper back, shift your chest down to float your head up. Continue with this forward feeling, pulling forward with your body, even using your arms to assist and just keep your legs like that for now.

And hopefully your low back says it's okay and lower down with your back. But keep your legs like that one more time, please. So as you, as you find that thoracic extension, that forward sensation with your legs like this, you might feel even a stretch through your flexors or your legs. That's what I'm looking for. Hold this place one arm out in front of you, elbow and forearm down, other arm out in front of you. Clasp the fingers together. Pull forward with your heart. So pull into your arms, your heart forward. Now.

Point your toes keeping your legs lifted. Single leg kick. Here we go. Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh. Sure. So the idea here is that you keep your upper back super engaged, your abdominal super engaged, and to me the kicking kind of distracts you from all of this work. So try looking around too. Just for fun. Yeah. Look up. Look at someone and keep breathing.

Can you push into your hands more than your elbows? See if you feel a little more tricep action. Yeah. One more breath please. And then both legs are straight. Gently come to rest there everybody turn their head toward me or the front of the room and then clasp your fingers together at the small of your back and bring your elbows toward the floor. So the elbow toward the floor position, I'm really looking for if you're able to bring your legs together, if not, let them be separated. So how are your legs again, away from the floor and bend your knees here with a little count of three. One, two, three. Inhale and we'll lift you back. Extension, stretching the arms to straight, opening through the heart. Look the other way. Hands to the back. Elbows down. We pump. One, two, three.

Double Leg Kick

Inhale, look and come down on two in hell. Two, three in hell. [inaudible] one more time in how to lift and hold. Release your arms. Come overhead. Swimming happens now. Okay, good. Keep your legs straight. Oh good. Look at that. You've managed your neighbors. I love it. We've got ne's and Audi's over here.

Swimming

Good job ladies. I knew you would. Good. One more. Full breath. Bring your hands underneath your shoulders. Pushed to your hands and knees. Use Your abdominals to support. Sit back in a rest pose or a child's pose. Breathing in and breathing out.

Child's Pose

Yeah, come forward to your hands and knees again please. Passing through plank position again. We'll slide one leg back. Feel that length through your whole back body. Push through your heel, stretch through your low back. Other leg. Tip forward onto your tip toes and lower yourselves all the way to the floor. Yeah, roll to your side. Facing me.

Push Up

Rest of your head in your long straight arm and you can just stay there for a moment while I get my microphone out of the way. There you go. Hover your legs away from the floor. Option one. Keep your hand here. Option to put your arm here and we lift the legs up. [inaudible] inhale down and exhale up and inhale down. [inaudible] now stay here. Lift and hold. Take your arm up to the ceiling.

Side Leg Lifts

Retire. Lift your top leg. Bring your bottom leg up to join in. Squeeze. Lift your top leg. Bring your bottom leg up to join and squeeze. Now lift your head, lift your arm and put your fingertips down and just kind of float your way up to this position, but don't rest so you're still lifting. You're dreaming about lifting, you're dreaming about lifting. Let's keep this arm position today. Here we go. Flex your foot and we go forward.

Side Leg Adduction

Wow, that debt lifting, lifting, nice shoulder Hanna, right shoulder. Thank you, my friend. Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh. The whole back. Go back to the lifting externally. Rotate the leg that's behind you and reach higher. Now slowly rotate around and put your hand down.

Side Kicks

Bare weight into your hand in your form and pull your body forward. Now I'm pulling on your foot. Reach it back even more and lift it higher. Now take the leg up for me five times. Owen. That's because I wanted to feel my glutes today. Yeah. Three shoulders. Four. Thank you. And Five. Okay, this is for fun. You Ready?

Side Leg Extension w/Lift

So stretch and then you can come in and while we get into a nice little stretch position, I can just easily take the same like you were just working and hug it into you. I'll just suck my microphone right back where it belongs and we'll be ready to keep going. Look at that. We don't need to worry about it on that side. How do you knee into your chest? Try to feel both sides of your hips, both sides of your pelvis down. Yum. Feel free to look around. There were dolphin out there earlier today, dancing and swimming and playing. I haven't seen them for awhile, but please tell me if you do.

Hip Stretch

Let's change sides. So if you'll just flip to the other side, you'll rest your head on your long straight arm and your two legs out in front of you or two legs down slightly out in front of you so they're not behind you. Start with your hand flat and your head resting on your long straight arm. Your abs are engaged here. And then lift your legs up. And here let's just keep the arm there for a few moments or you can put your arm up by your side, your choice, and exhale to lift. Now when you lower your legs down, don't make it about resting there lowering, but really they're just lowering in space. There's never a rest moment.

Side Leg Lifts

Beautiful. My friends two more and then we lift and we hold. Take the arm up, the stay here, reach. Then that topic just comes a little higher. I feel your belly muscles lengthen through your low back. Bring the bottom leg up to join and then that top leg just a little higher and then the bottom like comes up to join and we hold it. Did we too? On the other side? Just two, right? And you lift taller and you lift your head good and you try to lift your arm and you feel your whole body levitating and then you just kind of put your fingertips down and it should be like, shh.

Side Leg Adduction

Just so easy to slide up in your mind. Keep your legs lifting for a little bit and feel all this working. Then place that bottom leg down. This hand can be behind your head, but keep the lifting. Flex the foot forward. Good. Think about your supporting shoulders. You really want to levitate out of the shoulder.

Side Kicks

Oftentimes when I'm teaching this, especially for the first time, I let people really reach the arm out this way, so it says if I'm pulling you up, so keep that sensation. Nice. All right, last one, take the leg back and hold. Reach your top arm. Oh, tater rounds. I'm pushing down through my bottom arm to find the rotation. Then I put my hand down.

Side Leg Extension w/Lift

Take that back leg behind you more and find external rotation. That means knee and toe up to the ceiling. Good morning, glutes. I also get such a wonderful stretch. We lift here and lift and hold. Reach more and then up and around with your hand. Hold onto the foot. Enjoy the stretch. You can push the foot to the hand or pull the foot to the bottom.

It doesn't matter to me and let me come on up and find a stretch. So I like to really feel both sides of my pelvis down here. And then for me, it takes a few moments to, to work into the actual stretch. I first have to get my pelvis down and then I can bring my knee toward me. I think I used to always pull my knee in and I missed out on this grounding. So something to think about. Sometimes.

Hip Opener

Sometimes we have to be where we are today as opposed to where we want to be or we think we should be. Right? Yeah. Alright, so now we're warm and we can start to really work, right? That's about it, isn't it? It's the way it goes. Huh? Here we go. So let's do some back support. Okay. I have a little thing I like to do here. So I'd like to offer it up to you.

Leg Pull Back Prep

So here, take your hands behind you. I want to do this too so I can enjoy looking out at the water. It's just so beautiful this time of night. So press into your hands and in your mind, levitate out of your hands. So my hands are here, but I'm not leaning on my hands.

Oftentimes when I'm teaching this exercise, people will say that their risks bother them. And I feel like if you really use your body, you can get out of the risks a little bit perhaps, perhaps. So press your body forward now. Just keep your hands there and round through your low back. So this is a little little change. Let the elbows make their way to the mat.

Good. Now stay rounded. Look at your pelvis and feel your belly rounded. Push down through your feet and then straighten out your back. So pushing into your elbows and your hands. Lift your heart, let your head go back a little bit and then round again and look toward your pubic bone. Now here's the challenge. Can you press into both hands equally and press back up without shimmying side to side. It was quite a lot of triceps in that it's quite quite a challenge, right? Yeah. So open your heart here. Yes. Keep your abdominals on if you can, but really feel that you're opening your heart in, you're kind of leaning forward and then around through your low back. Let your elbows make their way back so it becomes a really big chest opener really.

And that's one of the reasons I like this because what we need for the next exercise is the chest opener and then open the heart. Good. And then round again and see if you can press your way back up. Let's do that one more time. Anybody else feel their upper back really working. They're like, I can feel my middle back. Right. Okay. So here we go. Round and feel nice little heat growing. I enjoy. So right here as I open my heart, I'm squeezing my actually my shoulders a little bit together and away from my ears to lift my heart, my sternum, and then look toward my pubic bone again and press back up. Okay, so now just shake your arms. Come to a forward fold. Okay, relax.

So you can always return to that if you need to. If your risks don't like you to be on a flat hand, you don't have to. But for those of us who are ready to do the full back support, that's where we're headed. Okay, so your arms are are straight, your hands are down, press your heart open. But I want you to really revisit this of really using those upper back muscles. That's really a lot of times what we're missing.

Leg Pull Back - Basic

And perhaps bend your knees a little bit and push down into your heels and feel the hover there. Just that. Yeah. Now press up and lower down. Maybe your legs. Stay straight. Press up. Open your heart and come down. Let me just see one. Press up. Open your heart. Wow. They look good. I'm joining in. You have two more in you. Here we go. Press up. Good. And one more time.

Not that I expected anything different but and lower down. Good. So sit tall. No hands, straight leg walk, walk, walk, walk. Try to lift your straight leg up. A lot of the work that we need with straight legs really requires us to have straight legs and the ability to lift them up. Right? So again, your pants are going to be pulled on as you walk forward, right? And as you walk back, they may be pulled off perhaps. Right. Okay.

Hip Walks

This is for fun, but it's also meant to bring you forward on your mat so that you can roll back. Inhale, exhale to peel yourself all the way down. Nice, easy movement through the low back. Send the arms overhead. Okay. Lift your head and chest and see if you can with ease roll up. And is it easier for anyone else later in the session?

Roll Up

Just so much easier for me. Like explore again, the single most challenging exercise for me. When my body's ready for it, I can do it if I'm fatigued, maybe not. That's okay. Okay, one more time. Stay rounded here for the Bassey rollout. I'm going to exhale to peel back. Ah, uh, and how we're going to roll back up. Scoot forward on your mat, keeping your feet where they are.

Tip back onto your tailbone. The teaser is coming. Now your chest is open, one leg lifts the other leg lifts, and you can always stay with bent knees. Feel this position right here. Feel your arms good. Stretch your legs to straight. If it's hoots, you try to take your arms up by your ears for the full expression of our teaser. Keep your legs there as you roll down. Modify as needed.

Teaser 1

Ah. Oh. We're going to do one more. Even though your teacher is struggling. One more. Okay. Hold it here. Hold it here. Lower your legs without dropping them to the floor.

Bring your arms and legs together. Teaser. Yeah. Hold here. These are three roll down. [inaudible] [inaudible] I'm having to modify. I have no problem with that. The point in this class was to push my own body.

Teaser 2

[inaudible] hold, hold. Bend your legs. Relax over. [inaudible] right, right, right. [inaudible] I'm doing all the ones I should do with my friends right here. Would you please come to your knees with all my friends out there as well. Those ones that challenge us are the ones we need to be doing more.

Teaser 3

Find the love. Find the joy. Find the passion. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh, hello. Teacher had a calf cramp. That's not the choreography. Here we go. Arms out to the side. So here's spend a few moments lengthening through your low back and squeezing your inner thighs together. See you feel light here. Grounded at light. Yeah. Here we go. We're all going to go the same direction, so just make sure you can go that way. That's your right. Yes. We are going to exhale up an over.

Side Plank Variation

Focus on reaching up his much as you're reaching down, don't make it about getting to the floor. Reach up, reach up and reach down and come back to me. Yeah, I love this. And here we go. Up, up. So I was actually teaching Hannah yesterday, the butterfly on the Cadillac and I was like, this is that first part of the butterfly. Reach, reach, reach. Now it's no longer the butterfly. Cartwheel into your hand. Take your top leg forward. Yeah. Feel the support from your underside body.

Take your bottom like back. You're in your side plank. Lengthen through your low back. He's through your neck. Good. Let's take a soft seat on our bottom and stretch out the side body. As you do so, feel this lengthening here, right? The hand is resting by your side. We inhale to our plank.

We exhale, lift the hips, look down, come back to side plank length and through your low back. Take a soft seat and make it like this extra bit where you lift up and stretch. Good in how to your side plank. Exhale, side bend. Inhale to me. Exhale, soft seat and just like an extra [inaudible]. One more time.

Inhale x hell in hell. X Hair. There's always one more time cause we inhale up and we stay. Okay. Take that bottom knee underneath you. Setting up for our side. Kick. Kneeling. Your arm is tired. Yes, my arms. A little tired. So don't use it so much. Use your core. Keep it there, but don't use it.

Kneeling Side Kicks - Front and Back

Float your leg up. How high can you get that leg? Go ahead and place this hand behind your head. Flex your foot as you go forward and back and forward and back. Nice. Ladies. Forward and back. Last two back.

Last one and back. Take it straight out. Woo. Bring the leg in. Okay. Keep your arms lifted. I know it's a little tired. It's good if you need to adjust to just because we're going to go the other way. Keep your arm lifted. Mine's tired too. You can do it right. You can all do it.

Side Plank Variation

Lengthen through your low back. Feel your inner thighs and we reach up and over reaching up as much as you're reaching down. Come back through nice little side bend and reaching up as much as you're reaching down. And again, reaching up as much as you're reaching down. And then you cartwheel into your hand. Take your top leg forward and your bottom leg behind you.

Squeeze your inner thighs together. They help you gaze forward and then gently have a seat. So here, feel that stretching without leaning into your arm too much. It's like you're levitating out of your arm, lifting up and stretching your side body. So we inhale to our side plank and we exhale to our side bend.

And in looking forward and exhale, have a seat and stretch it out and in hell lifting up and exhale up and over. I just had a moment, Andrea, if you see me doing pitchforks, you're welcome to tell me to not. Okay. Tell me. Rail told me. Told you to tell me. Okay. Last time. No pitchforks from rail lift, lift, lift back through to send her. Have a seat and we come up one more time. Here we go.

Inhale. Good. Take your bottom knee in my arms. Use it less. Use your body more hand behind your head. And we go forward. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Last two, last one back. Find your balance. One size easier than the other.

Kneeling Side Kicks - Front and Back

Good. Take your arms forward, Tuck your pelvis and feel the thigh stretch here. No pen. Lift your heart. Look up. Look forward. Flex your spine, Tuck your pelvis forward and look up one more time. [inaudible] okay. Hmm. Good. Let's turn.

Thigh Stretch Variation

So our heads are facing center, so I'll come this way just to change views here. So let's come to our hands and knees first and make our ways to our belly via push up position. So plus press one leg back and then the other. Feel your support here and try to fill yourself more in your arms and your core. Then your legs. It's like you could kind of let your legs go a little if you want it to.

Push Up

And then all the way to the floor, that's good. Bend one knee holding the top of the foot, stretching out through the quadricep here. You can stick with just one leg at a time, but if you know you're comfortable with the rocking and the rocking prep, that's where we're headed. So feel free to bend the other leg and hold onto the top of the foot there. And then here, use an inhale to push your feet to your hands and lift yourself up and use an exhale to come down.

Rocking

Okay, and inhale to lift up. Okay. And exhale and in how to lift up. And I want to talk. So stay here and breathe with your inhale. Can you lift higher? Exhale. Inhale, lift, higher. Exhale.

Do we see how we're just slowly starting to rock? That's how the rocking gets started. Not by throwing your head around. Inhale, lift higher and rock forward. Inhale, rock forward. One more breath maybe for you. And then feel free to take a break. And I just cannot go without doing this myself. And I wanted to see if my queuing made sense. So it's this inhale [inaudible] rather than throwing the head around to get that rocking going. Right.

Boomerang

Ah. So bring your hands underneath your shoulders, pushed your hands and knees and sit back on your feet. Stretching through your low back. [inaudible] we are all warmed up and ready to go for the fantabulous boomerang. What do you think? So shift to a seat. Taking your feet on forward. Part of your mat. Okay.

I've been known to do the boomerang for a long time. Perhaps this will be a boomerang marathon day. I think I've got some crazy fun hair for all you people out there and [inaudible] world. It's okay. Squeeze your thighs, your thighs together, your knees, kind of not so much your feet. So I want you to avoid hooking your feet cause I find a lot of people hook their feet too much. So see if you can keep your legs straight and squeeze your legs together.

Now I'm not looking for it to be up, but I just don't want it to be hooked, right? See if he can do this. Toes are pointed. Both legs are turned out round through your low back. Put your fingertips down. Dig deep into your core right here. Two straight legs. Strong core. Lift your feet up. Minimal finger help. Okay, try it again. Lift your legs up. Minimal finger help.

Good. Come up to sitting. Change which leg is crossed. So that piece right there is so crucial for the freedom of the boomerang. Squeeze your legs together. Squeeze your inner thighs round through your low back. Put your fingertips down.

Try Not to change anything. Give it a go. Minimal help from your fingers. Yes, we've got it dead. Rhonda changed which leg is crossed? Go with me. We have fun. Yes. Squeeze your thighs together. Arms are out in front of you. Inhale, exhale, roll back. Hover your feet. Feel your abs hovering your feet. Don't hook them all rollover here. Switch which leg is crossed. Roll yourselves up to a teaser. Your two legs are still straight.

Don't Hook your feet. Take your hands behind you and open your heart. Release your arms. Come forward into a full inhale. Exhale. Squeeze your legs together and lover switch which leg is crossed.

Exhale, roll through your spine and find your teaser. Are you hooking your feet? Change it and kick stretch. Lower your legs with control. Reach your arms around. Inhale. Exhale, rolling over. Don't Hook your feet. Challenge. Use your inner thighs and Roland, hold. Check in with your feet, hands behind you and stretch a little faster.

Exhale. Say Hello. Fresh. Exhale, we're there and hell, we're there. Exhale, we reach. Exhale, rollover. Bam. Exhale. [inaudible] no, and reach forward just for fun.

Take the stretch out of it. Behind your back. So rollover, change. Yeah. Oh, and [inaudible], which were all over change. Yeah. Rolling and fun, right. Rollover. Sure.

Boomerang Variation

[inaudible] hurry each last day. Rollover change and roll up and release. So stay there with your feet. I'm crossed in a forward fold. Maybe you're making a forehead connection to your legs. Maybe not. My back is warm, that's for sure. Stack your spine.

[inaudible]. Make sure that you can roll back onto your back body. Take a breath. He's bent, knees straight, doesn't matter. My knees feel Molech they want to stay bent. So just rolled to your back body please. And here lift. Bring your legs closer to your bottom.

Hip Stretch

Lift your right leg up and cross it over your other thigh. Yes, we're going to have a little yummy stretching here. Don't we deserve it? And do just a little swaying side to side like this. Take your arms out to a t shape if you want more sensation and then sway your legs over so that the, the cross leg foot is down. So I'm, I've got my right leg cross, which means I'm going to the left and that should feel gorgeous. Reading in Henn breathing out. Yeah. Yeah. [inaudible] now just gather the leg that is closest to you so it's your right leg and pull it into your body. Allowing the other leg to straighten.

So hug that leg in, in whatever way. Makes Sense. Giving you this feeling of a split and then slowly put that foot down. Bend the other leg. Just be there for a moment. Lift the left foot up, cross it over the right thigh and just try a little swaying side to side. See what feels good and then hold over to the right side with the legs. So the left foot might be touching the floor and make any adjustments you need to. So this is a bit of a spine twist, but it's also a nice stretch for the hip.

Perhaps you feel that reading in and breathing out and then gather that leg that is closest to you. It should be your left leg. Does it matter? And slide the other one down. And then from this position, I'm going to ask you in the most organic and easy way to roll around and up to a standing position eventually. Like how easily can you roll maybe to your side and maybe through a squat position, like using the position just to feel your body and make your way without shaping it too much, up to two feet with your heart open. And I thank you for playing [inaudible].

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Comments

Ewa
1 person likes this.
Thank You :)
3 people like this.
I like this teacher a lot ..😍
2 people like this.
Sarah’s teaching is sooooo much fun! I could learn a lot from you to entertain my clients a bit while challenging them :P
3 people like this.
Sarah you Rock!!... Love! Love! Loved this class!! And your talented teaching style! I haven't done Boomerang for so long...but the way you set it up, got the legs engaged and the lightness in fingertips was so helpful!! ....Now if I could only get the Teasers!! Thank you!!
Laurie C
2 people like this.
Sarah, I really enjoyed your class! The cueing for the back support and boomerang was so helpful to me! I love your humor you always bring to your classes. Just reminds us to not be so hard on ourselves and to just move with flow and ease. Thank you!
Thank you so much Ewa. Rebecca grateful to be able to share. Joanna grateful to have the space to share my passion!(thank you Pilates Anytime. We should be having fun right?
Michele Harris Pilates PowerHorse YEAH for the Boomerang. Just love that exercise. As you see in the class, Teasers are not always great for me either. But it is about enjoying the ride right? Or at the very least going on the ride! LOL.
Laurie thanks so much for playing! Glad to hear you are enjoying my silly side. I just love teaching mat classes. Don't do it as much these days but need to change that.
1 person likes this.
Terrific energy and cuing. Love the variations. Thank you so much!
1 person likes this.
Had to laugh, since my name is Mandy and really felt you were telling me to lift my head up in spinal rotation. Haha! Great challenging class!
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