Get Up, Stand Up!

Good morning, everyone. I'm Amy and thank you again for joining me live for Pilates Anytime. So excited to be here again in my house and my den. And for all of you who were here with me last week and the week before, and if you're here today, thank you so much for joining. And the sense of community that I'm receiving and picking up on is incredible.

And I hope you're feeling that with each other too. As you see each week, we're doing something just eyer. I am a little bit different. Today is more active. You'll probably sweat a little bit, and I hope you have your TheraBand and your magic circle nearby.

If for some reason you don't have either one of these, that's fine. Really it's fine, and I can cue that along the way. But what I'm playing with today with the two forces, kind of these external forces being props, how we utilize these props to find a deeper connection within ourselves. (clears throat) Excuse me. But also I'm kind of looking at the magic circle as exercises and connections feelings to bring us in to our body, inner thigh work, scapular stabilization, weight shifting so that you have to really be inside yourself in your spine alignment in your center for a sense of balance on your legs, but also literally a sense of balance.

And then the TheraBand to actually extend us out and take us out of what we centered, but also kind of to go out of center to recenter, off balance to recreate balance. And yes, there's a little bit of play onwards with the world that we are in right now and what's happening. And I think we're all feeling a little knocked off balance and it's okay to feel that way. And we can get up. We can stand up, as the theme is for today, and rise above that, come out stronger, surprise ourselves.

But you know what? You have to go in in order to go out, right? So there's that inward to outward concept. And then lastly, we will play with opposition, the theme of opposition. So similarly, what comes in goes out.

So there's some opposition there. Ground force reaction, the floor is solid. We push down into the floor as we extend up away from it, things like that, okay. So start with your magic circle. If you don't have the circle, again, just interlace your hands and place them right on your lower abdomen.

And we'll do that with the paddle of the magic circle right on the one. And so I'm above kind of across the line of my hip bones, below my navel. And that's where I want you to go. My arms are kind of short. So I have to hold the band of the ring this way.

Some of you can actually get your fingers around the front. Legs together, please. And what I want us to work, the concept is taking the ring in. And what I mean is, no, we're not pushing the ring against our body. Don't hurt yourself.

I want you to, literally I'll turn sideways. Act as if you take this part of the band into your abdominals to feel a response of widening or possibly stretch even right in the beginning, in your back, okay. Taking the ring in. So let's take a breath in to prepare. I want you to exhale and cool the ring in and some energy up Release.

And again, bringing the ring in, energy, up, setting those shoulders back, not too aggressively. Just feel that collarbone roll back, that feeling of the abdominals inward upward. If you want a little press with your hands against your ring for extra feedback, feel free. But again, it's not by pushing yourself. Take the ring into you.

Take the strength into you. That's your exhale. Rely on that today a lot. Inhale, let's do one more there, (inhaling deeply) and exhale, (exhaling deeply) whatever breath you want. Okay, keep that feeling.

I'm really gonna recall on that a lot. Taking the ring in, taking the ring in. Now let's move this ring right behind the base of the skull. And I want you to hold your hands in the front of your ring. And again, if you don't have your magic circle, clasp your hands behind your head works the same way.

What I want us to feel here to help us establish a sense of alignment, head over shoulders, shoulders over ribs and hips and feet that we have the back of our brain back against the magic circle. We're not pushing. We're just connecting. We're feeling the back of the head. I've been saying back of brain a lot lately.

It feels good to me. And that's that brain is like floating back there. It's us sitting down on your spine, compressing down. There's an energy of the back of the head, back and up. Okay, just hold that connection.

So what's opposite to up is down. I want those shoulders down and I want your legs really grounded down. I'm gonna have you think about your inner thighs right now, the back of the inner thighs specifically. Contract, please, just a little bit, which might bring you into your wrapping feeling around the side thigh into the back of your legs, okay. Onward we go with the head position.

What I want us all to do is cervical flection and a little bit of thoracic flection. And what we're doing, I'm turning sideways again, you guys can stay there, is the feeling that the back of the head and brain glide back and up to start the flection at the cervical spine and down into the upper back and maybe your mid back. So we haven't just collapsed the chin on the chest. There's an active sense of a back body that's lifted up and kind of cascading over the front of us. And then as we re-stand, keep the brain connection against that magic circle or in your hands, if you're clasped.

Let's inhale, prepare. Lengthen up and now it's that gliding the back skin, the skin on your back body, you know, sliding up toward that brain. Maybe the brain is kinda falling forward. My legs are active, they're for deflection and rolling back up, right? This whole class is standing so you don't get to go down and do the a hundred today.

I'm sure you're fine with that. Two more times, exhale and elevate the brain light up and over. I want you to shift your body weight forward. Everybody have your heels very light on the mat. Legs active, light heels.

Roll yourself up. One more time. Check your shoulder position, lower them down. Exhale, that brain gliding up. It's like it's coming over to head, the neck bending, the upper back bending.

Stay right there. We're gonna use that connection. Roll back up. But turn back to the first exercise where the ring was over in your abdomen. Light hands, remember.

Let's do forward rounding. I'm gonna turn sideways, take a breath in. Just standing roll down, the back of the brain glides up. You're taking the ring in, you're rounding forward any amount. My first one right now, I'm only going to about a quarter of my way down to the ground.

That is what I need to do right now. Take the ring in, bring it into you. Roll yourself up to standing. Nice and tall back of the brain is back and up. Let's breathe in, prepare.

Again, exhale, standing, roll down. Any amount forward, take that ring in. You can be in parallel legs, you can be in turnout legs. Take the ring in even more. See if you can let the brain slide over your head a little bit more.

More ring in, that's navel to spine, more rounding forward and roll up to standing. We've got one more time, inhale, and exhale again. (exhaling deeply) Taking the ring in, letting the head round, letting the spine round maybe go a little bit further this time, if you're ready, take that breath in. And again, roll all the way up to standing. Okay.

So let's move into holding the ring, getting some arm and upper body. So, hands on the outside of your ring, and I want your legs again, nicely together. You've got the wrap between the back of the inner thighs, right? And then take your arms just forward. I like the hands open.

You can also just clasp your hands because some of you like to hold it with your fingers. I like the length of that connected energy. So let's just start raising the ring shoulder height and then lower this. What I want you to, just keep doing. What I want you to think about right now are the relationships of collarbones and shoulder blades.

Collarbone is long and wide, we all know that. The shoulder blades are like little hands kind of hugging the sides of our back. Just a gentle little embrace, not a grip. And they're not pulled back. They're just this wonderful, calm, like our hands holding the ring.

Stability, okay. Lift lower. Two more lift. Is the back of your brain back? Yes it is.

And lift, hold. Now with this, everybody bring the ring toward your chest on an exhale, bring it forward as you inhale. Do it again. Exhale, bring it to you. Take the ring in, inhale, reach out.

We're going eight of these. (exhaling deeply) So that's my breath. When you use eight, here's number four. So when I bring the ring to my chest, I'm also keeping the ring a little pressure on it. So I'm some activation on my upper arm muscles, the connection of my back muscles along my spine.

We have two more. Wrap the legs, keep them active. Now, last time. Bring it to your chest, everybody hold it there. Apply a little more pressure as you exhale, inhale, release it.

Three more only. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) So when you press the magic circle, the ring, let's think about how that helps us with balance. We pull in to ourselves. I'm contracting my leg muscles just as much as I am my chest and my arms. Okay, that was our four.

I wanna here take the arms forward and down. Hold it three quarters of the way down and waiting to start some knee bends. Now when you bend your knees, keep going, knees track straight ahead. Your brain is back, your shoulders are back. You've got all that beautiful warmup and connection.

Think about this as a ankle flection, ankle glide. I'm also thinking my shins kind of drift forward. Four more times. Knee cap should be straight forward, everybody, kneecap straight forward. So my leg alignment is such that I have to do that little parting of my knees to keep myself there correctly.

That's fine. Okay. Now, we're gonna add the two together. So I want you to inhale, raise your arms, exhale to the chest while you bend your knees, inhale, reach it straight forward, exhaling down. And we're doing series of eight.

(inhaling deeply) Exhale, pull it to us as we plie, inhale, reach it away and lower down. And (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) So I'm working with the feeling of wrapping the legs, keeping them in a wrap while they're together. Four more. Lift. The shoulder are like little hands on our back.

They're not hugging too tightly, but they're holding. You can feel how the shoulder blades are right against the rib back. We have two more. We'll stay down in the plie on the second one, which is coming now, so we lift. When we bring it to the chest, I want us to hold the knee bend.

Go a little lower if you wanna feel it with legs. Now, take a breath. We're gonna do a three count hold. Press the ring, hold for one, two, three, release and then control. Three more.

Exhale, press, hold. Two, three, release with control. And pull into center. Two, three, release with control. Last one, press hold, two, three, release with control, reach your arms forward and down.

Hope you're feeling like you're getting some connection and some warmth I'm feeling. So let's turn the legs out and turn them parallel. Think about that from your upper leg bone femurs and sockets externally rotate, parallel. So yes, you gotta shift your weight back on your heels slightly to change that position for more. Kind of going out of center to find center.

And in, and repeat. Last two. And because I think you've all enjoyed this so much, I'm gonna stay in turnout and repeat much of what we just did with more flow. Inhale, and exhale, and inhale, and exhale. If you wanna take your arms higher, please be my guest.

This is get up, stand up. So if you wanna get those arms up, you may. Four more. If you're just at shoulder level, that's perfect. One is to think about how the legs are still active.

They have not given way. They're very active inner thigh to inner thigh. Now hold the ring either chest level or about a third of the way down. Let's bend the knees again. Straighten the knees.

We dancers know it as a plie. Most other people know it as a knee bend. We wanna do the knee bend in good alignment. So that means the back brain is back. It's not jotting forward.

The back of the ribs are back, right. Four more and bend. Yeah, go a little deeper if you guys want, feel those legs. Down and up. And of course the pattern, we did eight times in the pattern.

But before you do, bring your ring up, bring it above your head and just get long for a second. Okay. Good long stay along as you lower the arms, just stay along. Now we're gonna add the pattern with the arms and plie. So we left.

(inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) Hold, press the ring, reach it forward, lower. Eight total. Now, if you're feeling warm enough, I hope you're getting there. Push more with the ring, press more. I've definitely have heard this cue before with lots of different teachers and I've know I've said it myself.

We wanna change the shape of the magic circle. We wanna move it, make it narrower. Use your muscles. Get the blood in there. Get that heat.

Right, we've got one more in the pattern. When we lift, we plie, we'll hold it to the chest. Take a breath, everybody. Three count hold, press hold one, two, three, release the hold. Three more press hold two, three, go a little deeper in your legs.

Last two press two, three and release, and press feel strong, strong, strong, release, and lift. Okay, take your legs back to parallel. Halo. Put your thumb inside the ring. Now please take your arms high above you if you're feeling okay with this.

If this doesn't work for your shoulders, you take them as high as you want. Hold for just a moment. So I've got my thumbs inside. I want us to pull the arms apart a little. You can't go far.

Now reposition your thumb on the outside of the ring. Bend your elbows, make a little halo or a little hat with your magic circle. Bring it back up. Let's exhale to the hat. (exhaling deeply) Inhale up.

Think about what the shoulder blades might be doing. They're still little hands hugging your back ribs. They're not gripping, they're stabilizing so that you can move your arm bones and your collarbone with ease, with strength. Four more. I have a little light press in against the magic circle to feel the relationship of my arm muscles and my back muscles.

Feels nice for me. Last two, wrap the legs, keep taking the magic circle into your abdomen. Stay here, everyone, stay right there. I want us to rise the heels, (gasps) lower the heels rise. Rise the heels, lower the heels.

Just two more here. Lift your heels like a little weird visor across our eyes right now. Lift your heels, lower your heels. Lift the arms, lower the arms all the way down. Okay.

Take your magic circle. Place it to the side of your head, one side. Having good neck alignment is helpful for good balance. It also keeps our, can we go back to the brain again, keeping the brain in a container that's organized so that our neck isn't too sideways or too sideways forward or back. We don't wanna move the head.

Take your other arm and make a nice strong design with it. Wrap your legs, pull the stomach in so you feel like that taking the magic circle in back of the brain is back. Breathe into your nose, exhale, press your magic circle with your hand to the ring, hold for three, two, one, release. We don't want the head to move. We want the ring to move, we move it, we move it, we move it Two more.

And feel strong and balanced. You can contract your legs together. It may help the work with your arms strangely now. Last one, press and release. Just four on the other side 'cause we have side of the head, side of the head, below the neck, behind the head, front of the head.

Okay. Other arm is a beautiful design, it's strong. It's intentional. Inhale, here we go. Press the hand to the magic circle.

Keep that next stable. Inhale, release. Stand a little taller back brain up, shoulders low. Last two. Exhale, smile every now and again.

(laughs) You know, we're so serious. I say it every class, we're so serious. We take ourselves so seriously, which is fine, but we have to have some fun, okay. Now let's take this magic circle underneath the chin. Yup, right here.

The hands are stacked. Remember, shoulders are down and back, legs are active. Back of the brain is backing up. We're pressing the hands, these low hands up, this pad against the chin, not chin to pad. Don't chin to pad, it's up.

And we're resisting that, right, and release. Let's breathe in. (inhaling deeply) On an exhale, hold for three, (exhaling deeply) two, three, two more only. (inhaling deeply) And exhale, press. (exhaling deeply) Take that ring in here to your stomach last time and press.

Hopefully that gives a tone exercise for your neck muscles. To the front of the head here, everybody, hands in the front of the ring. A lot of us know these exercises. And again, if you don't have your ring, you're just doing it with your hand against your head, okay. Same thing.

Hands, press the ring. Shoulders low. Here we go. (inhaling deeply) and press two, three release, and press two, three, release. Two more.

Take the ring into your stomach, back of your brain back. Last one here, press two, three, release. And then everyone just to do one more time, the ring behind the head, just behind the head. I'm gonna stand sideways. We take the head a little bit back into the ring, the brain into the ring and release.

And exhale, brain into the ring, and release. You're getting your head very well organized over your neck and shoulders by this point. Nice, strong, active legs. Okay. Guys, we're gonna move on to adduction, more adduction with this thing between the legs.

So right into your inner thighs. And I want you to stand in a small Pilates stance. If you can get your heels together, great. I'm gonna part my heels just a little bit. Now keep your knees bent to begin this exercise.

Start, see I've got a little knee bend. The objective is to close the ring. Take a breath in. Let's exhale. Press the ring with your legs.

You may have to adjust that circle a little bit. Use your adductors. I want you to think about back of the inner thighs a lot. Inhale, release. We're doing eight of them.

Exhale, press. Release. And actually can maybe put your hands on your abdomen so that you can feel that imaginary taking the ring in here too. And can you make that ring more flat? We've got four more.

(exhaling deeply) Four. Check your alignment, your toes aren't gripping. Your head is nice and easy over your shoulders. You're feeling very strong in your legs. Three, your last one, and hold, hold and hold and hold for one more moment.

And then I want you to let that go carefully and move the ring down to your ankles. We're gonna stand parallel. I should've also said you could do this with a small ball or pillow. I think a lot of you are resourceful and may have gotten one of those for yourself had you not used a magic circle, okay. Now, just having the ring at your ankles is fine.

Let's stand narrower. Alrighty. So you're actually standing with more activity in the rap and in the adductors. Remember your kneecaps are straight forward, okay. So, let's go ahead, exhale.

Adapt even more, and release. And for us, I'm trying to narrow that ring. Even though it's way down at the ankles, the work is way up here in the leg. Yeah. I've queued this before where I almost think that I'm bring my leg bones toward each other, even though they don't go that way.

The muscle contraction goes toward the midline. to our center, which we're gonna need even more in a minute when we balance. Two more times. This last time everybody stay right there. Stay right there.

Shift some weight to one leg then the other one. You don't have to lift the foot. You could just simply shift your weight, okay? Try that. If you wanna go more and you probably do, you can lift your foot up barely off the floor.

What I want you to think about what that's about though, is our pelvis stays in a very level formation for us, okay? We're in balance. We've got this. We're standing up. We're getting up, we're contracting those adductors a lot.

We're taking the ring in here in our abdomen. I want you to do one more each side. We'll stay on this next side. Stay in here, take a breath through your nose. We're gonna press the ring and hold it for three counts.

We've done it a lot already. One, two, three, release. Three more, press. Two, three, and release. Okay, standing leg matters.

Ground it down. Take the ring in here, back your brain up. And I heard a few of you say, oh my gosh, it works. (laughs) Your balance is better that way. Hold the contraction.

Let's pulse it, pulse two, three, four more, four, three, two, hold it, hold it. Step down onto that foot. Shift your weight. You've got this, guys, stay balanced. All the parts are there.

Your head is back. You're taking the ring in. Your standing leg is strong underneath the hip. Breath through the nose. We're pulling this leg in three counts.

One, two, three, release. We're trying not to pick up our hip. One, two, three. You can put your hand on it like I have mine. Keep that hip low, it's level with the other side.

And your last one, press hold, one, two, three now, eight little pulses, go. One, two. The other leg might wanna help, keep it steady. Just four. Three, two, we did great.

Hold it there, step that foot down. Keep the adduction, keep the adduction. And what I want us to do, rise up to a small relevant or lift your heels off the floor just a little and lower eight times. I'm gonna start moving my arms because I feel like I need to and challenge my sense of balance when other things are in motion. Four more.

Up, and down and up, and down. Last two. Up and down, up and down, hold it up. Okay. Let's get some joy Pilates, hands behind our head as if the magic circle were behind your head.

Press your head back. I'm gonna take a parallel knee bend. My heels are off the floor. I'm gonna bend and straighten, and bend. Push the floor down.

Eight of these. Down. (exhaling deeply) So the back of the brain is back. Bend with knee caps pointing forward. Three more.

You're gonna stay down on the third. Second, last one hold it, hold it, hold it. Let's pull out the little plie squat we've got. We've got one and two. Get into those legs, and four, and three, two, again, and eight, seven, heels can go higher, and six, one more set.

And a one, two, and a three, four, we are strong, strong, strong, strong, and lift. Oh, fantastic. Take that away. Shake your legs. They should feel really light, super light.

Okay, let's play with the band now. So take the ring away. But before we do, stand just parallel, legs a little bit apart. Notice how you feel. Hopefully warm, some muscles vibrating.

But if you close your eyes, hopefully you feel balanced, that your weight is evenly distributed across your body and down on your feet. Okay, that you feel connected from the inside. So let's keep that connection going. Take your TheraBand, open it up, put it on the ground. You're gonna step on it.

Boom and boom. Right in the middle. I'm gonna have to stand with our legs in parallel, a little space between. Make sure this is even. Depending on the length of your TheraBand and how much resistance you want, I like to hold as I say, cuddle all the extra band into my fist.

It's a light fist, I'm not over gripping, okay. Now, this external force is trying to pull me down. We've done all of that work to stay balanced and lifted. So I'm actually gonna have a start here with extending the sternum and coming into what I call a standing swan. Let your arms release behind you a little bit as well.

Pelvis presses forward as the upper spine reaches back into an arch, and then let's come to vertical breathing. Standing, roll down. Just like we did earlier with the magic circle like you've got it on your abdomen, you're taking it in, the back of your brain is reaching back into the circle. Now, come down as low as you want. There is no resistance there, there's no feedback from anything.

When we roll up, you know you're gonna catch that resistance but we're strong. We're Lincoln and we're pulling that up. We're grounding our legs down into the earth so that we can extend up and back with efficiency, with shrinks, with ease. Two more of these, breathe in and exhale. Everybody's standing, roll down and go.

Let that band go. Take the ring into the abdomen. Let the brain hang down over your toe. Deep inhale, exhale as you start to roll up. Its navel to spine, stomach up and in, there's the resistance.

We lift up against it. We're standing up. Lift that sternum. You can let your arms drift back a little bit. It's really quite nice.

One more time, guys, inhale. Exhale. Are you taller? Are you taller as you go down? That is a strange juxtaposition.

How can we be tall when we're going down? I think you know what I mean? Roll up. Once you feel that resistance here is those muscles, the spine extensors. Oh, up.

It's a good idea too to adduct your legs. Even though the legs are not completely together, energetically, we are adducting to be in center. Stay upright. Bend both knees, point those kneecaps forward. Now hinge yourself forward at your hips.

Okay, bicep curls. Let's get some muscles. We're getting out and do some muscle work and a lot that up. We're gonna do eight curls. Now I've got my weight back on my heels so that my glutes are working.

My back is working. Yeah, and four, and three, and two, and one. Let's take eight rows. Being elbows out to the side, I have to loosen up. Elbows out and up.

Think about this coming from your shoulder blades now. Now the shoulder blades. Let's let those little shoulder blades instead of being so stable. Let it move back on your back a little bit. Those little hands kind of doing a little clasping behind your back a bit.

I hope that image worked. So I'm not really thinking of my arms as much as my shoulder blades. For two more. And your last one. Triceps, just press your arms straight back and arms back.

Change the grip of your band to suit your need. I'm thinking about the arms being long. It looks like they're going down to the carpet wall corner. Last two, seven, and eight. Okay, now, you might want this amount of resistance.

You may want less, do what you need. Weight shift again. I'm gonna go to one side. We did that with the magic circle. Now, test your balance, everybody, literal sense of balance on your leg.

Pick one foot up. Not bad, huh? We're connected. We've connected. Step it down.

Do the other side. Where's your brain literally in your body? Bring it back. Take the magic circle into your abdomen. Keep your shoulder blades nicely snug on your back.

Step down, go to the first side again. We're gonna move this leg now. Get some side leg action, little skater. It can touch the mat if you want. It can touch the mat.

I'm thinking leg down and kind of diagonal away from my other leg. If some of you want more, you just pull it up in the band. I'm gonna stay down. (laughs) Yeah, and four. Stretch it, three.

You're connected from the inside, so move out and move out. Step it in, change sides, reconnect. Shift your weight slightly, just enough so you can step the foot up. Ready and skate. Exhale, skate.

It's as if I was skating. Could you hinge more on your standing leg hip, more weight on the back of your heel? A little different connection on this side of me. That's okay. Two last time.

One. Woo, well, that is a nice connection exercise. Release it from there. You'll need that in a minute, I promise. I try not to break promises when it comes to movement, okay.

So guys let's stand with our legs apart now. We've done a lot of things with legs close together. So our legs are apart. Let's think about the adductors though and feel them at work it's as if you're pulling the mat together. They should be active.

Take your hands in a position where, let me get myself organized, your hands are just a bit wider than your shoulders, okay? Arms up, arms down. Let's just work a simple but relevant stand up with the arms. Keep those legs active. Let's breathe in and out.

(exhaling deeply) Same to come down. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) Legs are still active, they're rapping. I'm thinking about my shoulder blades now pressing in on my back. They're not going up. The bottom of the shoulder blade is pressing in, bottom of the shoulder blade in.

Okay. Two more basic arms above head. Feel the stretch. Feel that efficiency of being able to raise your arms up. Yeah, and easy, easy, easy.

Now, you could keep doing that or come along. I'm gonna try to extend the strength out by pulling the band. But I'm also bringing my shoulder blades together. That's what's making that band lengthen. Here I go.

So think shoulder blades are in charge of this. Now they're coming very close together on our back on purpose. They're actually wanting to shake hands. We know what I'm talking about. We're being told right now that you may not be able to shake your friend's hand, I just disagree with that.

(laughs) Not me. I'm a hugger and I like to touch. So I wouldn't have my shoulder blade touch one another on my back and notice, if you're noticing what I'm doing, it's allowing me my arms to move bigger, bigger range. Two more. Allow it to happen.

Be strong. Don't forget your legs. I think some of you might have been for getting your legs. Adduct those legs. Here we go, everybody.

Last one, let's take it behind. Take it behind your back. You've done it already. Roll your hand into the TheraBand. Lengthen your arms down.

Just hold for a minute. Something very simple in standing organized. Feel strong. Wicked wicked posture, man, right? Super strong.

Take the arms, lengthen them down, and now press your wall behind you. It's an energetic pressing the wall, arms down and back. We don't collapse this chest, no way. You've done way too much to keep that chest open, to get those shoulders strong, to get your upper back active. Now we're really isolating arm movement.

Keep your legs engaged. Good, last three, press and press, and press. Fantastic. Release the rap. Take your band behind you, arc all the way up.

Now, shake your hands, shake your legs. Four more. We're gonna do a full breath up and over, the arms up and overhead and then all the way back to the front, okay. So just four more like that, active legs. Pull out in the band a little bit to start.

Here we go. Pull on it, make the shoulder blades come together. I'm gonna inhale and exhale forward. Last three. Make them count, shoulder blades.

So the ribs haven't done any dancing, have they? No, because you're taking the ring in the magic circle to your tummy letting your shoulder blades move. The last one. And then we're gonna come up, give our shoulders just a little bit of a rest like this, but now it's time to do some lateral bend of the torso. Okay, 'cause we've been pretty upright for awhile. And I know you're probably wondering when is the side bend coming?

Now, arms above your head, okay. Pick a side to go to, either one. And as you go to the side, it's the opposite leg that becomes your strong anchor. Open this side rib cage. So my ribs are reaching to my plant, feels pretty nice.

And then all the way up to the other side. Open the ribs, and center. Let's do inhale, exhale over. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) inhale, exhale up, root those legs down. Inhale, exhale over and inhale, exhale up.

Four more. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) So, the activity of the legs is just as important as what's happening up above. And one more each side. Ooh. Yeah.

My room is getting very warm. (laughs) Last time. All right, we're gonna come up to standing, everybody. Lower the arms, we're adding on to that. Let me wipe the sweat from my lip.

Here we go. Arms above the head. Take it to your side bend, okay. Challenge that bend, right? This other arm is reaching high.

This one I'm gonna pull it down four. Now it's the shoulder blade again. The shoulder blade, active legs, shoulder blade, and shoulder blade. And then the lifted that arm helps me come up other side over. Four times, pull the arm.

But remember it's the shoulder blade and your legs are anchored. And three, and two, and come all the way up, lower your arms. We'll do it back and forth eight times, ready? I'm going. Great for the waistline.

Over and pull and lift down to the center and over and pull. Reach out to come up. How much can you extend out of that beautiful connected foundation we created? Reach out, pull down. Left four more, make it yours.

Adjust things as you need. Yes, there I go. I had a grip differently and to find my holding connection differently, I'm gonna say it that way. That way, hold it. Hold the space for my arms to move, for my body to move down, out, up, and release, okay.

Bounce your shoulders a little bit. Okay. Guys, I wanna do a full circle now, meaning I'm adding some flection and rotation of upper body, but let's do standing rotation. Again, if your legs feel comfortable wide, keep them wide. I'm going to 'cause I'm gonna just keep working at.

Bring your legs to the midline. If you wanna come into narrow, you can, you can even go parallel. Do what makes sense for you. Okay. Stand up, get up, get up, stand up.

We're up, our arms up. Okay, shoulders aren't though. Two, pick a side and I want you to think about where your chest is in that part of your spine, the thoracic spine, and rotate that chest, but not the pelvis. Come to center the other way. So the pelvis stays opposite of what direction you're going in.

Let's breathe in and out as we go. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) Use your eyes like laser beams, looking through the space. Carve a really beautiful horizontal line through space with your eyes. The back of your brain is back though, right? It's like the brain is shooting these beams right out your eyes, allowing you to rotate.

Yeah, I know it's weird. Other side, we've got one more each direction. Laser beams for eyes. Kathy Grant worked a paintbrush for eyes. I love laser beams.

That's all good. And what is helping us do is feel connected from this big old brain and head to our eyes and how we move through space so that we don't have something out of alignment and zigzags unless it's on purpose, right? Okay, so bring your legs together. But this next part, I do want us to do some standing with our arms above our head. Take an inhale, we're going back to the beginning, meaning a forward reflection of your spine.

I'm just gonna come just in kind of my thorax, my chest. So crown of head toward the strap, roll up to standing. Three more of those. Inhale, exhale and round down. I want you to adduct your legs, go all the way through the checkpoints.

All right, two more. Adduct the legs. Take the ring into the abdomen, back of the brain is back and it's up, your last one and exhaling down (exhaling deeply) and up. We're gonna combine side bend and forward fluxion is little. Side bend, rotate to forward flection, come all the way up.

And then you side bend to the other side. Start coming down, rotate forward flection, and all the way up. Side bend they're tiny now. The upper body, like the flag on the flag pole, your legs like the flagpole, let the fabric, being your upper body, move with fluidity stability with the legs below and keep going side, rotate all the way up. Take it four more times.

Oh, go a little further. Go a little bit bigger and up. So I'm kind of doing a quarter circle, just to the front and up. Last two and over, in. Okay, this next exercise after this is gonna be a big movement exercise.

Come all the way up, drop everything for a second. Keep ahold of your band. Okay. My hands are sweating again just like they were two weeks ago with the ball. You guys knew it happened there, okay.

So what I'm gonna have you do, we did that little skater exercise awhile ago. Remember that you kind of pushed in? Instead of just that, we're gonna actually step out to a lateral lunge like this, just step out lateral lunge. So this knee bent me forward, right, we know that. And my back is flat.

My butt is really sticking out to the back. Now I pushed this foot against the match to stand back up. Just practice that a couple of times. You don't have to go low. Some of you wanna go really low, please do, it's your workout, right?

Now let's have the TheraBand. I'm gonna pull it out as a lunge, let it come back as I come back. Oh. Now, I'm feeling like I wanna do a little more when I come back, and I raise my arms up and my leg up. Test that balance.

Go out and pull. And put all the things together. Take the ring into your stomach, make sure the brain is back. If you stick your neck forward, you're probably gonna lose your sense of uprightness. (exhaling deeply) One more.

(inhaling deeply) and up, (exhaling deeply) and then hold. Other side, but then I haven't got an idea with that, okay. Move on your mat. So let's just practice it. Step out, knee is forward, chest is up, and you push and you return.

You step out, you lunge. You push, you return. Add your accoutrements if you're doing them. Open, I'm gonna go right forward, lift. (exhaling deeply) Use the ground now.

Push into the ground, push into it to climb up high. Get grounded, in other words, right. Four more. I've told you, get up, stand up, get up, stand up. (inhaling deeply) (exhaling deeply) Use this inner connection to create outer connection.

One more. Then what's really fun for me (laughs) is instead of just going sideways, although that's fun, oh, is to go a little bit on a diagonal. So we'll go one side to the side and then we'll go to the back diagonal. I'm gonna go back here. That leg hasn't moved though.

And then I'm gonna come back up. Let's try it. To the side, arms up, to your back corner. You might wanna change your vision and look into that corner Look straight ahead here. Turn and look where are you gonna step.

Turn and look at where you're gonna step. Four more times. Here's one. (exhaling deeply) And down. Yeah, whew, so you grounded me too.

Last two. So when we have all these moving parts, can we stay connected? Quite literally. Last one. Ooh.

Back, up, other side. Ah, this blood pumping this body heat. Here we go to the side, and up. Pick your corner, look and reach to it. Out.

To the corner of reach, you're using that TheraBand. Pull it, recover, pull it, recover. Four more. Pull. Push the ground away.

Back. Three more, guys. We've got a nice cool down, last two, pull, and lift. Pull all those arms, all your body, your legs back and up. Oh.

(exhaling deeply) Hope you feel winded like me. All that up and down movement with your arms right there. Pump of the blood pumping through the body. Take this away, no problem. Stand with your leg side by side.

Bring your hands on your abdomen here. Side of your ribs. Take a couple deep breaths. We can get that in there. (exhaling deeply) So we're gonna do a nice stretch for quad, kind of the quad complex.

I'm gonna call it the hip flexor quad lower abdomen. We needed big stance between like a big split stance. I'm gonna show you this way. Luna is taking class with us all of a sudden. So, she's gonna be...

She's doing good. So big step between the feet, bend both knees. My back heels up. Okay, from the front. I'm still trying to adduct.

I still have the sense that the magic circle is here and I'm pulling that circle in. My brain is back. Just notice how your sense of balance should feel pretty good, okay. Now I'm gonna turn you sideways again. You guys stay there just so you can see.

What I want you to do now with your arms, and I've done this before. Circle them, bring them up in a circle. Hey, the birds are singing again. Now guys keep the arms going. Move that pelvis of yours into a posterior angle.

Feel that wonderful stretch here, very deep. Two or three more circles. Cooling it down, slowing it down. One more. Keep the posterior tilt.

Keep the posterior tilt. I want you to fold your arms over kind of a, yeah genie round into yourself, open the back of your backpack, bend deeper if you'd like, and then come to standing, and just come to stand and change sides. Other side. So a big split stands between the feet. You got equal weight on those feet.

Bend both knees. The back heel is up. You started in neutral, but then I want you to on purpose, go to post your tilt, whatever you've got, whatever you've got, right. And then the circles of the arms, let them be big and expansive, right. You've got that solid connection on your interior.

You don't need to prop any longer to feel a connection from inside. Extending out. Two more, please. (exhaling deeply) Last time. Now it's a little breeze through the trees out here, great.

So circle, here we go. Fold those arms kind of genie arms. I'm gonna bend a little deeper. I'm still in that posterior tilt and I'm just gonna round my spine a little bit, taking the ring in, letting the back of my brain be back and up, and then come out of that. And I want everyone to stand just for a moment, just in a place that feels good for you to stand nicely together with your legs.

Close your eyes. And I am going to have us finish with one of my favorites, with some Kathy Grant's work is a listening head, and it's great. So choose one side of your room to look to, right or left. And it's very slow. How many of you actually used the brain along with ears in the queuing?

So it's like you're turning your brain from the back around to the side of one ear and tune into what you hear, guide it from turning your brain. Okay, and then come through center. It's a very soft thing. Intentionally, of course, we're cooling down. A lot of the prop work we did involve arms overhead and your shoulders and neck might have been getting tired.

I didn't wanna draw attention to that during the time knowing I wanted to finish with listening ears. So there's a weightedness in the collarbone and the shoulders, just like a big, heavy armored cape. Mine's always like a dark crimson red, okay. Charles Dickens. And then if I turn my head and my brain, it's a very regal thing turning.

You can close your eyes if you would like to. Tune in and then return to the center. I'm gonna have us all do one more each side on your own timing. Let's fuel the brain, turning the ears, registering your steadiness, and then return. You know, whether it's COVID-19 and the times that we're in, 'cause if we watch this class later, which we will, anytime we feel like we're getting no kind of bounced out of center, knocked off of center, it can upset things internally.

It can upset things in here, but we're connected from our brain, you know that. From our brain to our body, and our body to our spirit and our soul. So, hey, whenever we're feeling out of balance, let's just find a way to come back in body to get through it, you know, and we have such an amazing community through Pilates Anytime to be able to do that together and to let me do what I love to do, which is teach and to share with you and you all to share with me. So on that note, I'll say thank you and goodbye. I hope you had a wonderful class.

I hope you're sweating a little bit. I am dripping sweat, it's also hot. And I will see you next Tuesday same time, same place, different thing, okay. Thanks everybody. Bye, bye.