Today we are going to be working on precision. Do you know how important precision is in all of your sports and dance? For sure and everything. So when you are trying to make a, when you're watching tennis, right? This is really clear in that there's these lines and the ball lands not in the middle area because if it lands in the middle area and like kind of no man's land, it's really easy to return all the time.
But if it's like the very corner on the, the line bouncing out, like it's really hard to hit those balls back. So the, they work a lot on precision on exactly the targeted spot that that ball's going to land. Or if you're shooting a soccer ball, it's exactly in the net. If it's outside of the net, it's not a goal, right? So you have to really work on being accurate. So Pele's works on accuracy. So every exercise is not haphazard and silly.
It is very precise and accurate, but it is fun to be silly sometimes. Right? Do you guys like to be silly? Yeah. So like, you know, it's okay to be silly in your movements, but it's not going to help you too much in sports or in dance because then you would just spin off your rocker, right? Just like when you rock, if we're not working on precision, you won't have control. Right? So we want to work a little bit on that, but you can also be silly today too. So let's go ahead and take the mat and we're going to see how these exercises, and I don't want to work every exercise to be totally precise, but we'll end with saw and that one has extreme precision to it. So go ahead and sit down any way you can. Nice.
And Go ahead and lie down on your back and make sure your head's on the mat a little bit more towards me in a little bit over towards the center. Perfect Ellie. Good. And Bend your knees. Good. And your feet flat. Excellent. Alright, so with breathing with the the hundred, it's really just about the breathing. Okay. And we're gonna make sure our belly is being warmed up. So precision helps us to figure out what the goal of the exercises.
And in this case it's that your belly is getting warmed up and you're pulling it in and you're strengthening it. So let's take a big breath and we're going to exhale, bring the right knee in and then hold on to it and exhale, bring in the left knee, hold onto your right knee for me as Stella. There you go. And you can use your arms if you want, but exhale and bring up your head almost tucking your ears up. Good. And now what's most important, like I said, is that your belly is working. So I want you to feel is your waistband on the mat. Good.
Now straighten your arms. They were that manual heart pump and we're going to pump them up and down and exhale. Let's lift your head up a little bit more and now you're just going to keep working on pulling in your belly. Perfect. That's a perfect position, Alec. Keep doing it like that. Big Breath, big exhale. You're in a pull in. Oh, I love that breathing. Do as many as you can. Like that big breath and we're working towards a hundred you can straighten your legs if you want, but only if you are precisely, accurately bullying in your belly.
Good and big breath and exhaling. So you don't want your belly to look like a loaf of [inaudible] bread rising in the oven. Instead it wants to look like I've taken an ice cream scooper and scooped it out. As you exhale. Do One more big breath, no loaves of bread rising in the oven and exhale, scoop it in and in. Hug your knees in and say hi. Love you legs. I'm so tired. Okay, that was a good job. Nice work. Okay, we're going to go ahead and sit up and do the roll back. Good. Okay, so the roll back. Why is it important?
Sometimes you may have heard of scoliosis or you might play a sport like tennis that you use your right side the whole time or if you're left handed, you use your left hand the whole time. And so what happens? Or you might be balancing on your right leg the whole time, whatever it is. Right? And so you're always on this right leg while you do anything with your other leg. Okay, well that side gets really strong. And when muscles get really strong, like a muscle builder, they get really big muscles, right? So the side that's stronger gets a little bit bigger and the side that's not as strong, it's a little bit smaller and then your body's not even so the roll back or the roll up makes sure that your muscles are even and your back is going down evenly. Okay.
So let's say I decide to roll back on the roll back a little bit to my right a little bit to my left, a little bit to my right and left. That would be really not good for your spine. Or if I tried to lift up like an account out of a coffin, the like a vampire out of the coffin. It's not good for your back either. So instead if you round your back and you make sure you put down one and then the next and in a straight line and in a very straight line, not going one side or the other. And then when you roll up, you try to separate them. Like I'm pulling up a strand of pearls ou and pulling up one pearl, the next Pearl, the next Pearl until you're all the way up. Okay.
So that precision of your spine, of the bones in your back are really important for a healthy back to avoid scoliosis or to avoid having a stronger side than the other so that you can keep enjoying all your sports and that you don't get injured. So let's try hands underneath your knees and picture are back maybe like the week, uh, the spokes of a wheel, a bicycle wheel, and you're gonna [inaudible] roll through each spoke and they roll in a straight line in a really, really straight line as they go down until your head goes down. And then you're going to inhale, lift your head. And now it's like a strand of pearls that's being picked up. Try to round a little bit more until you're home.
And let's try that again and rolling back in a straight line. Good. And then inhale, lift your head up, remembered. Use your breath. Exhale so that you can, and I'm going to keep watching you and helping you. So we're going to roll back in a straight line. Pull back. Oh, I loved how you pulled your belly in there and see when you feel yourself wobbling at all. That's how you're going to just keep practicing. Inhale, lift your head up and you're going to keep getting stronger at it by using your belly to live. One bone at a time, not 10 at a time. Two more squeezing your legs. Good.
Great job. Now Inhale, lift your head up and I'll help hold your feet. See if that helps you to round route. Ooh, that's so good Ellie. And we'll do one more. Making sure we come up evenly too. I like how you rolled down on the way up. You kind of lead with your right shoulder. Lift your head up and come up evenly.
Rounding only with the right. There Ya go. And we're going to go all the way down again. Lower back first, lower back, lower back rounding. There you go. Good. Did you feel that little flat spot in the beginning? So as the more you do Platas, the more flexible you'll become in your lower back. And the stronger you'll become in your stomach and it, and there won't be any more flat spot. You want to be able to move your spine.
Any way that you can let stay down, you're going to stay down. All right, good. Now we're gonna do single leg circles. So I want you to bend your right knee into your chest. Good. And Hug it, and then straighten your right leg up to the ceiling.
Good. And so what we're trying to do here is keep our box square. That's this on the mat. And let's look at that foot. We want to press your arms down by your side. Turn that leg out just a little bit so that the knee looks towards the shoulder.
And we're going to have the toe be right at the nose and we're going to cross go down and stop what? But the nos. Cross around. Bet the nose. Hug your knee back into your chest. Good cause that your leg will get tired with me. Blah, blabbing all the time. So all I want you to do in this exercise is to try each time to hoo. Pause at your nose. Not at your shoulder, not low, but as high as you can and at your nose so that we can try to practice a little accuracy. Sound good? Okay. Press your arms down. Exhale, and take that leg up and start it with it.
As high as it can up to your nose. How high can you get it? Nope. Start. Start at your nose
Oh, let's go the other way. So we're going to go damn cross and stop it. Your nose down. Cross it. Step it. Your nose down. Crossen stop at your nose. Down. Cross and stop. So we go this way. There you go. Two more no's. Don't stop at your shoulder. Oh, one more. Cross the body. Okay.
How'd that knee back into your chest? Good. Put your foot down. Go ahead and put it down. Hug the left one in. Good. And straighten that leg up to the ceiling. Good. And stretch it. Always give it a good stretch behind your thigh. All right, and press your arms down and let's have that like at your nose and we're going to [inaudible] cross around and stop at your nose.
Cross around and stop it. You know it was good job. Cross around and stuff. Two more. Cross around and stop. One more. Cross around in whole. Oh, we're going to go the other way down. Crossing stock down. Drawing a circle on the ceiling. Down, crossing stuff at the nose. Good. Three around and up. Good. Two more around and up. One more. Awesome. Hug your knee into your chest.
Good. All right, put your foot down. Okay, so let's hug the right knee back into your chest. Straighten that leg up. Good. Straighten the right leg up. Yeah, you both are pretty flexible. So go ahead and slide the left leg straight on the mat. And that one's going to be right down the middle of your body as if you were standing on one leg. You wouldn't have it like out to the side and try to stand on one leg, right?
So have it right down the middle of your body. Good. And now let's, let's have a little more fun. Keep your arms down by your side. Pull it up to your nose. With your s you must stomach muscles. Now I want you to go as far right as you can go. Right, right, left. Sorry. Go, go. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Do you ever lose control? Just a little bit and then go down towards your foot. Good. And how wide can you open it? Wide. Wide.
Well good. That's all right Ellie. Good job. Oh, you're very, very flexible there. Nice job is Stella. And then pull it back up to your nose. There you go. Yeah. Hug your knee into your chest for a second. Good. So eventually you're actually gonna do him that big, that big. I'm going to push this away to give Ellie a little bit more room to do it that big and I want you to just have some fun with it. You guys are kind of limber and flexible and try to use your belly.
If an adult tried to do this, we might crack stuff and pull things, but you girls will bounce back. No problem. So let's put your arms down by your side and just have a little bit of fun. Bring that leg up. Good and cross as far as you can. Go down as far as you can. Go with him. Come back up. Cross that way Ellie, cross around up. Good Cross. Go for it around and open. Good. Really go over.
Let's go the other way and open around and pulling the belly in debris. Juno's good. Two more. Just enjoying the movement. One more time around and pull it up and hug the knee into your chest. Nice job. Put that foot down and keep it bent as we work on the left. Okay. So how did the left knee in, I want to make this leg down the middle a little bit more bent and straighten your left leg up to the ceiling. Good. And always give it a good stretch.
Put your hands behind your thigh. All right. Put your arms down and we're starting at your nose. So we're going to do the precision right and we're going to cross a little bit Dan, and stop it. Your nose. Cross around and stop at your nose. Good. Three around and stop at your nose. Good to around and call. One more time. Cross around and hold reverse down around and stuff it.
Your nose belly stays in and woo. Good job with your stomach down around and pull it up. Good Dan around and stop at your nose. Two more around, up one more time. Beautiful. Hug that knee in. Keep it and slide your right leg down the middle of your body. Cause we're standing on one leg and it can't be out to the side, right?
So that's be down the middle. All right, and we're going to now just go for it. We're going to put your hands down and that leg is up good. And you're going to pull it up to your nose as much as you can with your stem tummy muscles. Then cross your body as far as you can go. And then as low to that other leg and then as wide as you can go bet your nose. Where's your nose? Don't go stay on Lala land. There you go. And Cross.
Go down, open up and bullets your nose. Good crusts around. We're just doing three. Reverse it. We're going to go the other way, Ellie. There we go. Up and opening and down to that foot. Good. One more. Open, a bit. Cross and up to your nose. Good. Hug the knee in. Good. So one felt extremely controlled, right when you stopped it, your nose and the other one was a lot more freeing, right?
Was the second one a lot more fun. But could you feel your muscles work a little bit stronger in the first one? So good. So we want to find, we're gonna end up one day finding a happy medium, middle ground. K on those of getting that big range of motion, but keeping that precision sound good. That'd be one day. Let's do rolling like a ball. So we're going to sit up ho boys. Stella, here we go. We're gonna work on purse making, rolling like a ball. A little bit more precise. Okay.
So I want you to bend your knees and put your feet flat and we're going to just pull our belly in and exhale. Pull our lower back back until we're, um, our arms are straight. So squeezing the legs together again, draw the belly in and we're going to exhale until your arms are straight. Good. Now do you feel how round your lower back is? Good. Take a breath. Look how much space you have between your belly button and your legs. Keep that space as you come home.
Like someone's taking the nice cream scooper and scooped out your belly. Right? Perfect. So I want you to look at my back and my belly right now. This is the position we want to be in. Can you see it Ellie? Good. Now I'm going to switch it. Okay. Estella.
I want you to really watch this. As soon as I pushed my weight forward and arch my lower back, I lose my tummy muscles and I'm using my back to hold and that makes me very stable. So I'm going to draw my belly up and pull back until my arms are straight. Good. And then keep pulling my belly button away from my legs. And we're going to stay here and we're going to bring our feet a little closer to us. And you're going to say, I can keep my stomach like that when I lift up a foot.
Check it out and lifting up a foot. We're lifting up a foot, one foot [inaudible] and nothing changed right here. And we put the foot down and we're going to lift up the other one. [inaudible] nothing changes, right as Stella and put it down. And we're going to pick up our right foot just a little bit by pulling your belly in. Good. And guess what? You're going to exhale and you're going to lift the other foot. Okay?
And we're gonna keep the ice cream scoop. Yeah, we're gonna pull up the left. Getting better. And pitcher be down. Last time we're going to do the left. Can you feel your stomach work, Ellie? Good. And we're going to add the right and down. Whew. Okay. You're gonna take straighten your legs and just enjoy stretching.
And now we're going to challenge you with the rocking of rolling like a ball. So when you come back up, you're going to want to come back up. And instead of holding this position right, you're going to want to go, whew. To hold your balance, but that doesn't hold your balance. Okay? We need, every time we come up, we're going to have to say, nope, I'm not, I'm not going further than this. I'm staying right here. So I want you to picture that rocking chairs right here and you're going to rock back and then hold. Now when you rock back and sell, you want to make sure you don't go onto your neck. We kinda talked about that.
So you're gonna, your head might touch, but not all of your weight on your neck. So rocking back and when you come up, say I'm not gonna pop my lower back out and stick out my ribs. Right? Because of course we're breathing too. Let's try it. Feet bent. Good. Maybe bring your bottom a little forward for me, Ellie. So you have more room behind you. Good. Alright, you too.
Astella skip forward a little bit. All right, thanks. And we're gonna let's get back into that position. Pull. Exhale. Pull the belly in. Yeah, there you go. Stay there. And then bring just one foot up off the mat when the EPA little add the other exhale at the other. You want to come forward just a little more Stella there. Ah, now there's a rocking chair, right?
So you're gonna rock back. Beautiful and rocked up. Can you hold? Oh, did I forget to tell you that you can't touch your feet. Ellie knows it. Okay. Inhale, roll back. Exhale. Rock up. No, no. Pop in the back out and inhale. Roll back.
Exhale. Well the feet did good. Oh the back and we lost her to the side. She loves her a little to the side. Okay, let's do a few more. It's, these are things that we are just going to get stronger and stronger at. Ant Inhale, roll back and exhale. Good job.
And inhale, roll back. Ooh, that was a good tummy. You know when I come over you lose your concentration cause I'd come over so I need to leave you alone on the last one. Cause the other one, I saw it out of the corner of my eye was great. Last one in with the air and exhale round, round, round. Very good. Excellent. Good job. See I, it's when I look, but that was a very good position right there. Very good. All right, so something to work on. Okay. I know you even play flag football sometimes, right? Yeah.
So I'm really important whenever you're trying to go from side to side, you want to be able to really keep your balance as well. Okay, so next we're going to do single straight leg and double straight leg. Okay? Single straight leg. I want you to think that your legs are like a knife and they're going to cut down the middle of your body. So let's go ahead and we're going to lie down. We're going to bend your right knee into your chest, hold onto it, lift your head up, lift that left leg up and with your belly and make that left leg be down the middle of your body. Yep. And we're going to pull in our belly and switch.
Make the right leg down the middle of your body and we're going to pull your belly in and switch and down the middle, not out to the side anywhere. Good. And your left knee is almost onto your chest and switch and pulling in and reach. Good. And so it's just work on having that leg down the middle of your body. That's all I need you to keep going. Well, I look at you. Good. That's it. Nice.
And always put the belly in. And last one right and last one left. Let's see that left leg. Go down the middle. That's the right. Oh, you can do one more to be even. Good job and hug in both knees. Very good. All right. How are we doing? Let's do double leg stretch. Lift your head up. Oh actually keep your head down for a second. Sorry.
Okay, so on double leg stretch, I want you to reach your arms straight up and your legs go together, but they're also straight up. Good. Okay. Can you get that position? Great. The bellies in and your arms are straight up. So this is an angle. Do you guys know that? Fancy word from school? Okay, so your arms and legs are at the same angle right now, but if your legs go down a little bit, a little bit more lower angle, your arms have to go back. Not so far. It has to look just like your legs. So just a little bit [inaudible] if they were to go the legs a little lower than the arms would have to go a little lower until you're all the way down.
Open up until you're all the way down to the ground. Ooh, that was pretty coordinated. Very good. All right. The tough part is we're working on this and we're getting stronger, so we're going to keep things pretty high. But as you get a lot stronger, you can go all the way pretty open. So hug your knees into your chest, lift your head up, and if you can keep your belly in, knees on your chest, grab on your ankles, heads up, head up. Good. If you can get your belly in, you're going to have your arms and legs go straight up. Straight up is your belly and your back flat. Good. Hugin good.
If you can keep your back flat and open up a little bit, go for it. So your hands went back a little bit. So let's make the precision rate here. Head up so your neck doesn't hurt. Good. Pull together. Good ant reaching arms and legs rich. Okay. And exhale pretty good. So if I would measure those angles, they have to be exact. The arms and legs have to be exact.
Let me see exact angles. Choose an angle. Perfect. Those were good. And exhale to more your belly Zinn. Eyes on your belly. Eyes on your belly. Bulleted. Oh, that was even better. Exhale, one more time. I need your head up more. Astella and eyes on your belly hands can go back a little more for you as Stella and pull back in. That was much better. Rest your head down. Oh Nice.
Okay. Go ahead and sit up. Any way you can do it. And when we did breathing for spine stretch forward, a kind of did something sneaky so your hands were on your legs and as you exhale down, they slid towards your feet and as you inhaled up, they slid back. You want to do the exact same thing, but you want to do it now with your arms up. Sometimes that gets complicated, but I want you to pretend they're still on your legs. So taking a big breath, they're going to exhale. They just go forward as if they were sliding on your legs. And then when you inhale, they pull back as if you were sliding on your legs to come back.
Don't fall back a cell. Let's work on our posture. Yep. Good. And now go for it. Ooh, very good. And then inhale, sitting up. Try to let the head be the last thing to come up and we're going to open a little wider. There you go. And exhale forward. Good. So this is like the roll up. Inhaling up where you're going to roll up one bone at a time.
Good job. And then exhale head first and then squeeze ear out and one bone out and time. And inhale up one bone at a time with the head up as the last thing. An exhale down. Head down first, and then this bone and here and here and here. And then inhaling, good job with your arms and exhaling down. I want you to work your spines a little bit better though. So on your way up, let's divide our back. We're going to roll up our lower back, our middle back, our upper back, and then our neck before our head.
I'm going to keep your ponytail two more and exhale headfirst. There you go. And on the way up, you're going to roll your lower back, middle back. Make sure all of your neck comes up before you. Oh, that was much better. One more big case of the ponytail in the face. Exhaling. And then rolling back. Lower back, middle, upper. Now you can pretend like you're a horse and you have to get your ponytail out of your face. There we go. Good. All right, so it's really good for your posture. Okay. Really good for the articulation.
So we're going to work a little bit more on rolling, right? So we're going to do, um, open leg rocker. So Ellie, you weren't with us in a class, but we're going to bring your legs together. Good. And we're going to go fishing. So what does that mean? I like to pretend like you're going fishing at Grinnell. Grab onto your feet yet and we're going to reel it in so your belly pulls your feet towards you. Good. And now you're going to put, both are very flexible. So we're going to put our hands on top of our legs here.
I remember how we did rolling like a ball and we kept our lower back round. And now your heels can be up, but the ball of the foot, this part of the foot has to be on the mat. Good. Alright. And we're going to extend, let's see, we're going to extend Leh you're going to look cool. I'm going to be your mirror. We're going to, and you're going to follow me. Astella Kay. You're gonna extend your right leg. That's it.
[inaudible] and then put it down. Good. And then you're going to extend the left and you're going to put it down. Good. So what are we working on here? We have our Pele's box and this is where I called the Stella Humpty dumpty. And she's sitting on a wall and she can't weeble wobble a roll all around it.
She's supposed to stay real still. So we're, if you lift up a leg, you're still very still. So we're going to pull our belly in and extend the right leg and hold it up there and we're really balanced. We're really balanced. And we put it down where you balanced and you're gonna pull the belly in as your left leg goes up. Balanced balance, not falling onto one cheek. You have both cheeks. Aha. Good Correction Ellie. And put it down and you only need them to go as wide as the mat. Not Wider.
Let's do the right leg up again. Good. Hold it. And guess what? Hold it. We're gonna add the other leg. You can grab behind your cas if you need to. That's better. Good or your knees either one. Very good. So now we're going to hold and we're going to pull in our belly and we're going to be like Joseph [inaudible].
He used to sit on top of his desk and just teach for like a whole hour like this. Continue on everybody. Do you know that? Because he was very balanced and precise. Okay. So we're going to hold, now you want to focus on something. Can you find something straight ahead, Ellie? Find something straight ahead is Stella. And we're going to come right back up to it. Okay. So we're gonna, we're have to rock like this. I didn't tell you that Ellie. Here we go. We're going to rock back and rock and roll.
[inaudible] good. And then on the other side, outside. Perfect. Okay. So look at my drawstrings. Pull your belly away from him. And then I need you to come right back up to my drawstrings. Where are they? Push your legs into your hands. That's it.
And roll away and right back to my drawstrings. Yeah, at roll away and right back up to my drawstring's good. And two more. Use your belly. Exhale that air. Yes. Oh that was your best one when you exhale. Good job. One more in with your exhale. Draw strings you.
But it was good form and you know what? That is more important. That was really good. Rest down your feet. Nice job. I didn't look at you at all cause so I assume that you didn't even wobble off this time. It's getting a lot better isn't it? Yeah. Beautiful. Good. Alrighty. Humpty dumpty stayed on the wall this time. Oh Darn. Okay. So we are now going to do our last exercise and this one I is really precise and I'm going to use a little bit of what I'm Kathy Ross Nash does to give you a little bit of awareness. Okay.
So you're going to separate your feet all the way to the edges. And let's put your hands behind your head and can you feel both cheeks on the mat? Good. Alright. Do you guys know your rights and less? Okay? Estella, you're going to have a hard time. I'm going to want you to follow me cause I'm going to do what Ellie's doing. Okay.
So you're going to bring your right elbow to your right knee and stay there. Oh, you can just do that. Good. Bring your right elbow to it. Good. Now you see how you're kind of looking to the side. I want you, when you sit up, don't sit up yet. You're going to stay like that. But do you feel both cheeks still on the mat? You got to keep Bocek super important. This exercise.
So you're going to keep both cheeks down and come up. Still looking sideways? Yes. Good. And now you're kind of looking at your left knee, right? I want you to bring your head down to your left knee using your belly, squeezing out your air. And again, both cheeks are on the mat. Are they still there? Good. Now roll up your back and look straight ahead.
Now we'll do the other side. Left elbow to the left knee and then pause and say is my other cheek or both? Cheeks still there? And then you're going to come up on that angle goal. So now you're looking at your right knee. Is that correct? Ellie? Good. And now are both cheeks still down and you're going to exhale and you're going to go down to that left knee to Java, Stella, and you're going to roll up your back and come center and relax.
So what was important in that is when you twist your ribs, you don't get to twist your bottom and come up with it and your feet, they don't move. The twisting is trying to get more work in your upper body. So if you can twist more, you have a much better swing in golf, in tennis, right? In volleyball. But if you're stiff as a board and you rolled together, you don't have much release. Right? Have you ever, you know I'm talking about the release on the tennis. Okay. So now we're going to add the precision or the breathing.
We're going to put your hands behind your head and this time we're going to twist to the right. So twist to the right. Good. No, I'm going to go where you are yet. Twisting. Good. Stay here both cheeks still on the mat. Ri. Reach your right arm, your left arm forward, and your right arm back. Did I say that correctly, Ellie? Good job. Now look at your pinky in the front. It has to saw off your baby toe. It's like a knife. Reached forward.
Saw off your baby toe. Not your arch, but your baby toe. And now sit up with your hands behind your head. Twist the other way. Now it should be your right arm reaching forward and the left one reaching back or you bummed both cheeks and reach that Pinky to saw off the baby toe sign. Good. And now come up this and keep your arms straight and we're going to twist hold. Are both cheeks still down and we're going to exhale.
Saw that baby toes you go forward. Exhale, exhale, exhale. Inhaling up. Good twist. Oh, those legs got shorter as you twist it. There you go. We're going to exhale down, sewing off your baby toe. Good. One more. Set. Arms out. Tooembarrassed at. Exhale all your air. Exhale. Exhale, exhale.
Inhaling up and twisting last time to the other side. Watch those legs from getting shorter and exhale sawing up. What do we sign off, ladies? Pinky toe. Good job. And then inhale, sitting up tall and relax. Beautiful job. So that was probably the toughest and most boring of all of the six principles is precision. But the more you practice and the better you get at it, the stronger you get at it and you'll be able to do so much more in all your dance and sports and everything. Good job, girls. Nice work.
You need to be a subscriber to post a comment.
Please Log In or Create an Account to start your free trial.