Slide and Shine

Thank you for joining me today, the Wall to Wall with me. I hope you enjoyed last class. And if you didn't, go to Pilates Anytime and check it out. So today we're gonna be using the towel. All you need today is a towel.

And this is quite a long towel, but it is face towel I think, but that's all you need for today. And I'm gonna still talk about what we learned from the wall from last time. And I hope you enjoy. I'm really excited to share some of these things with you and let's move. So we're going to start with the hundred.

So as in the beginning, we're taking it easy and now, we slowly each class, we kind of moving a little harder and harder and harder. But modify, keep your head down, bend your knees, all these things that you need to do, you know your body better. Right, so go ahead and lie on your back and just to get a nice start, go ahead and bend your knees into your chest. Give yourself a little hug. It's always nice to open up your lower back from standing, sitting, walking.

And now go ahead and place your feet on the floor and maybe come up for a second, set up your towel. So the first thing we're gonna do today is we're gonna open the towel. We're gonna place it right by our feet. And the first thing we're gonna do is just the little of what we call the pre-Pilates. You're gonna press your arms down to the mat and you're going to really open up your shoulders, collarbone is nice and open.

Your neck is long. And someone asked me last time, you asked me to imprint and scoop. There are different terminologies, but the point is that you try to pull your abdominal muscles in without moving your pelvis. So I do want to you to pull everything in and feel like your spine is becoming one with your mat but you try not to move the pelvis, yeah? So let's press the arms long and strong, ribs are in and let's pick up your right leg and then your left leg.

Now, keep them in the air and you're going to place the right toe into the mat and then pick it up again, pretend the mat is hot and you wanna pick it up again. So just in right and left, your knees are 90 degrees and you just tapping. And this is a really nice place for you to, you know figure out are my hips helping me? Am I moving my hips? Or am I really using my hands center?

Can I keep my sacrum heavy and my tailbone down and still draw my belly button into the mat, my ribs drawing into the mat and you keep alternating. We have three more and left leg and then two more, right leg. And as you move your legs, you keep your center nice and tight. And last time with your left leg and release. Good.

Now, we're gonna try to bend this knee into your chest, right leg, right foot is gonna place into the mat. And now you're going to use the towel to slide your foot and then draw that leg back in. So as you move the right leg on the towel back and forth and you're sliding your foot onto the mat, and then you're sliding it back up, you want that movement to come from your center. So you can either keep the knee in the air but you can just place it on the mat. And you really focusing on the right leg or the leg that you started with.

And you wanna move that leg, so that's the four more and you wanna drag that towel into yourself. So you should be feeling the back of your thighs and your seat. And in, let's do two more, slide out. Feel that abdominal muscles drawing the leg in, almost like when you do the foot work on the reformer. And last time, one more.

Pull in, in, in, in and out, out, out. Nice, so let's go ahead and switch. So your left foot is gonna be on the towel and your right leg is just gonna hang up for now. Check out your hips, pull everything in and we go slide out and slide back in. Maybe I should have started with my other leg, this leg, so you could see better, but oh, well.

Pull everything back in. So feel that this leg is not moving independently, it's moving from this deep center. Everything is starting, your abdominal muscle starts between your chest and you wanna contract everything in to draw and control this leg because when it's in the air you wanna have that nice, deep connection. So you sliding out and you sliding it in. And you adding a little bit of difficulty to bring it in, so I'm really pressing my heels and I'm cleaning my mat really well.

So it should be nice and shiny after pull my heel into the mat and then draw it back in, like it's going through mud or molasses or honey and pulling. And you should be feeling the back of the thighs, which is really nice. Pull in, the seat should be helping. Let's do two more times. So pull down and in, abdominal muscles, belly button everything is drawing into the mat.

And let's do it one more time, out and then draw everything in, the arms are still active. Every part of the body is doing something. Nice. Now, we're gonna try with both legs. So zip the legs, draw them in without tension.

You just drawing them in, pressing the arms into an extension. Like you're doing chest extension with your ribs in. And we go slide the legs out, zip the legs together and you pull them back in. So you should be feeling your inner thighs, the back of the thighs. It should be feeling your center, drawing the legs back in and your chest expansion and your neck is long, you smile with your eyes.

So your whole body's working together as a unit, you're breathing in and out, naturally and you pull everything in. So you really should feeling the drawing in, it should be as much as hard as you want it to be. You know what your body feels like today. So you wanna draw your legs together and then back into yourself. Let's do two more.

So drawing into the mat, into each other and pull it back up. Last time, slide out. So my heels are doing more of the work than my toes. And again, pressed down in, in, in, in, in, wonderful. Now we gonna do both together.

We gonna lift the legs, before we did one at a time, and now we gonna do with both legs. So zip up your center. If you want to keep your fingers there to see what your pelvis is doing, your hips, you can do that. You can pick up the leg and maybe not go all the way down, so you can go maybe a quarter of the way and then bring the knees back up again. Keep the legs 90 degrees, down and then zip up again and bring it up.

I'm gonna go all the way down to the floor but you can go just a quarter of the way or halfway and bring it back up, down, down, down, and up, up, up. And Joseph Pilates could stand on my tummy. Is nice and hard. My pelvis is not helping me, which is a big topic, you know, neutral spine, imprinting all that wonderful things that we talk about it but tried to keep the pelvis nice and relax and your center nice and in, and that's what's moving, and giving power to your legs to move and rest. Good, give yourself a nice little hug with your knees into your chest.

You can rock a little bit side to side. Good. So now what we're gonna try to go with both legs down. We're going to slide the towel, slide the towel back and then pick up your legs again. So let's do it.

Press the feet into the mat. Find your towel, slide your legs out as your core goes in and up through the head. And then you pull the core in and up to draw the legs back, and then pick up your legs off the floor. Again, place it on the mat, slide the legs, draw them together and pick up again. Place it on the floor.

Slide out, slide back in with your waist, getting tiny and smaller, and pick it up. And two more. Place it on the floor. Once again, my heels are doing most of the work and draw back it in, pushing the floor away with you arms and pick it up the legs. Last time.

And if you wanna do one leg at a time still you can do that. And drawing back in, draw your center and pick up the knees. Nice. So now let's transfer the towel. Let's make it a little hammock for your head.

So you're gonna lie on your towel again to a point where, depending of how long your towel is, but I want it right underneath you where you can hold on to the corners of your towel and keep your neck long. So we're gonna try that last bit again, but with your head up. And we're going to hold on to the corner of your towels, keep your neck long. It's almost like what I was telling you about the hips and then lift your head up, come up and don't let the neck help you, let your center help you, and then place yourself down again. And again, lift your head, ribs are in, neck is long.

You honestly coming from your center not from your neck and come down, and again. So this is nice and helpful for so many neck issues. Keep your hips from tucking in, right? Keep the hips, sacrum nice and long, tub on down and then go back down. Let's do two more times and come up with your long neck.

Cause sometimes we stick the head and we're not really using the center, we're using our heads and neck and then come back down and again, long neck. Your elbows are really a little closer to your body. You should be shaking a little bit. Hold, hold, hold up there and then come down. Let's do one more for bonus.

Long neck. Come up with your head, lift up tall, hold one, hold two, hold three and bring it back down. Nice. So now, lift the leg up. I know you don't have the towel underneath you, so if you need another one to bring it on your feet you can go ahead and do that.

We're gonna combine what we did with the legs and now add the upper body. So lift the head, stay there. Keep the neck muscles relaxed, but your center walking really hard. Now you can just do one leg at a time from here, if that works for your body, or you can do both legs. You can go down and then pick it up again.

So this is a nice little way you can break down the hundred and pick it up again. Let's do two more, So nice and strong center, last time and place the feet on the floor. Rest your head for a second. A very short break and then come back up again. Stay there.

Let's combine. Let's lift the knees and now we're going to place the feet on the mat. We're going to slide the legs and then pull them back in, like you drawing your carriage in and pick up your knees again. Feet on the mat, slide out, draw the legs together, belly button and pick up your legs off the floor with your nice, beautiful long neck, so there's no tension on your neck. Your tummy should be working really hard and pick up your feet.

Let's do three more. Down, slide draw it back in and pick it up. And down and slide and pick it up, and up. Last time down, slide out, slide in and pick it up. Wonderful, and rest for a second.

Good, let's come up and use your towel, for the hundred now. So hopefully you warmed up. You're going to crawl up your towel and make it feel like it's a bar now. And the ideal I want you to have today is that, depending of how wide your towel is, so I'm gonna come in a little bit in line with my shoulders and I'm constantly keeping my towel nice and tall, nice and firm. I'm going to bring my towel underneath my legs.

I'm gonna keep my knees 90 degrees and start my hundred pumping my arms and pulling my towel, so I can feel the outside muscles of my arms. So go ahead and you can keep your knees bend or straight, it's up to you. Pick up your head, look to your tummy and pump your arms, inhale and then exhale your air, and draw your legs together. You can do your little parallel position with your legs. A little V.

Inhale and exhale. Draw the center in, heavy sacrum. So no talking, breathe in, two, three, four, five, and exhale. Two, three, four, five. Keep pressing your towel, like if it's a TheraBand and you opening and your pulling, let's do one more.

Inhale, two, three, four, five, exhale. Keep the neck nice and long, like we learned with the towel behind their heads. And now let's bring your legs under again, your towel over the thighs, and we're gonna pump into 50 up here. So keep pulling the towel away. Breathe in two, three, four, five, and exhale, two, three, four, five.

In with the air, and out with the air. And again breathe in two three, four, five, and exhale, empty your lungs. And let's do one more. Breathe in for four, and exhale for six, five, four, three, two, one, and rest your legs. Ah, rest your head down.

Well done. Let's bring your arms up by the ceiling, and then over you head. Keeping a nice distance between your shoulders and your ears. Let's do it again. Arms are coming down by the thighs.

Then arms are going up, your ribs are going down. Your waist is going smaller and your arms are going over the head with the ribs in. Now, we're going to do the roll up. You can either keep your knees bend or straight, listen to your body. Lift the arms up, pull your towel away, head up nice and long, the neck remember, inhale, come up, exhale, go forward.

Lift your waist. It's nice to have the wall here so I can still push, like we did last week, push to pull into my center. And now pull the towel away and right nice and slow pulling, pulling, pulling your arms away from each other and bring the arms over the head. Bring the arms up, head up, inhale, come up, long waist, long neck and then exhale. Your waist is going behind you as your arms are nice and the alive, reaching through the wall and roll down, pulling your arms away, feeling that connection with your back muscles.

So the towel is really helping you to connect with your back. Arms up, head up, inhale, roll into yourself, and then exhale. Pull the towel away. Keep the arms nice and high in line with your ears, so there's energy going forward and your waist is going back. You stretch, send you a belly button backwards and then roll down with control.

Legs you're hugging together, exhale. One more, arms up, head up, inhale, roll, nice and honest. If you need to hook your feet under something really heavy a furniture, please do. Roll down and exhale, exhale, exhale, exhale. Nice, we're going to do a little prep for your rollover.

So you're gonna fold your towel, bring it right underneath your thigh, your knee, really, and your calves. And this is just to make sure that you're moving from a very honest place because every time we lift the hips all over or up off the mat, the heels come up and we kind of swing and use momentum. So having the towel back here you got to hold that towel, pull the tummy in it feel like you're doing the short spine on the reformer or the mat., pull everything in, chest expansion with your arms and now lift your hips and then come back down and then you heel should not move, should be squeezing that towel for dear life. And again, scoop and roll up which is going to be very useful for rollover, for corkscrew whew, all those things, Jack knife. So this is the prep for success, pulling everything in, lift your hips and go over and come down.

And I know maybe for some of you, you could come off the mat maybe just an inch, which is fine. As long as it's honest movement, you really getting stronger and again, lift the hips really hug your towel as much as you're trying to lift your hips off floor, yeah? So this is just as important as lifting. Hug the towel, two more chest expansion with the arms and lift, lift, lift, lift, lift and come down with control. So there's nothing helping you.

I really took all this momentum power away from you and I'm trying to walk you nice and honest. Last time, hug the towel, lift the hips and go over and then come down slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, and rest. Hopefully that made sense to you. Take the towel out. Whew, and then get your towel into a bar again and then bring the arms over the head.

And you're going to go ahead and bring your right leg up and give yourself a nice, wonderful stretch with your leg. So right leg up or whatever leg you wanna start with. Just give it a little stretch and let's go ahead and do the same with the other leg. So your left leg is gonna come up. You're gonna give a nice little stretch.

Cause after squeezing the towel like you did, these guys, your thigh and the back of the thighs and the seat should had been working, so this is nice to stretch as well. Good. Now, let's bring your towel underneath you again, press your arms down and then bring your right leg up and feel like you've still pulling the towel away. So lift the right leg up and we go. Circle the leg into the body.

So we do the single leg circle and across and up, around and cross and up. So there's a bit of an action, and up, around and up, down across and up, two more. To the nose, last time and reverse. And how much can you feed your power with your arms and hands, pulling away, two. Out, across and up.

It can be a small circle or big, is up to you. As long as this hip is nice and anchor. Last time and rest, good. Now, let's swap your legs. So bring your right leg down, left leg up, point your toe, straight up, just a little tiny bit.

And we go. Press the towel out and down. Cross that leg into the body around and up to the nose. Energy through that leg. Think of touching the ceiling with your toe, so there's energy up.

Think of anchoring the opposite hip. Think of pressing your arms down and, out and across and up and hold, across, around and up. Last time, and reverse. Out across to the nose, out across long neck. Smile with your face, so no tension on your neck or face muscles, out, across and up.

Same energy on the bottom leg as the top leg, last time and bring it down. Nice. Let's hold your towel again. Up to the ceiling, head up. Pretend your towel is still behind your neck and roll up with a nice, beautiful long neck and come up.

Wonderful. Now, let's do a rolling like a ball. And the variation that I'm gonna teach you now is to make you ball nice and tiny. Yeah, Ramani used to say, a ball does not open. So this is gonna help you to feel like that tiny ball.

I'm bringing it under my feet, I'm holding with my hands, nice and strong, my arms. My knees are open, so my head can go under and in. I'm still thinking of lengthening my waist. So I don't, and I don't wanna collapse with my ball, I wanna lengthen, pull my leg in and we are good to go. Inhale to go back, and then exhale to come into the ball.

Let me scooch back, so am around the crisp. And again, inhale to go back and exhale. And we try not to open that ball, pull the leg in, length in the neck and the waist kind of like the stomach massage on the reformer, and up. You can use your breath and up, up, up, up, up, with your long waist and out, and then come back up again. Let's do two more.

And back, and up. Remember last week we were against the wall. So feel that using your center and nothing else. Last time, the best one, inhale and then pull yourself into a tiny ball, and rest. Good to now, let's go ahead and do your stomach, five stomach series.

So you're going to place your towel behind your head with the same idea of keeping your head nice and long. Now, bring your right knee into your chest. Lift your body. Keep your head up, left leg out, right leg in. And you're going to alternate your legs, pushing the imaginary wall away with the leg that's going away from you, as you pull the other one in and in.

Let's do one more on each leg. Now, you're going to go into a bicycle, so you can scrape the floor every time you're going to go into your single leg circle. And five, five. Good, bend both knees, hug your knees. You're going to reach your arms over the head through your double.

Reach out the legs and arms out. Pull your towel and hug your knees in. Again inhale, reach out, pull your towel, pull, pull, pull, pull and exhale. Inhale, reach out long legs. Squeeze those legs without tension.

So you wrapping, you're drawing, both legs are becoming one leg and bend in, exhale. And again, inhale. The neck is still nice and long. Reach the arms up to the ceiling and in. Inhale, reach out, exhale, bend in, push the wall away with those legs.

Pull the towel away with your arms. Exhale. Let's do two more, inhale hold your breath. Long, strong legs controlled by your center. Exhale, in, just like you did when you sliding the towel with your feet.

Hold and exhale in. Let's bring your towel behind your neck, long neck. And we're gonna go. Legs are straight, pull, pull, swap, pull, pull, swap, pull, pull, pull, pull. So you just staying long like you did earlier and then see can I come up any higher with my center and not just moving my head.

Cause our neck muscles and bones are so flexible so we can look, we can drive. We can do all of these things. So control the neck. Come up with your center and pull, pull. Last time, pull, pull and rest.

Good. Keep your both hands back there still, anchor your sacrum, legs together. You're gonna go down, down, down, and up one, down, down, down and up two. see this side, the range that you wanna go. You wanna go all the way down.

You wanna go a quarter of the way and then up. Think when you come up you reaching your legs through the wall and then up to the ceiling, down, down, down, up, an down, down, down and then press your head into your towel, so it stays along. And down, down, down. Long waist, long neck. Down, down, down, up.

Last time down, down, down, up and hold, rest. Now, I'm gonna show you a crisscross variation which is really nice to articulate your thoracic spine, your upper body. So you're gonna bring both legs together facing the camera and bring your towel behind your head. Leave it there for a little bit. Get it ready for you to lift with, but before we do that, you're gonna bring your arms together and you're going to reach the top arm away from you to the floor on the other side.

So this side is a bit tough for me. So you're gonna find that one side just feels easier to twist than the other. So the hands are clapping and then you bring them apart, scrape the ceiling and then go all the way over. Now, stay there for three, two, one, and release. So there's a nice twist rotation of your spine.

Now, take a hold of your towel. Keep the knees one on top of each other 'cause it's gonna try to sneak out. So keep it there. Twist with your body and face up to the ceiling. Once again, come up with your long neck, hold and then come down.

So you should feel your obliques. The waist come up, up, up, up, up and down. And once again, control your neck. So you don't wanna yank the neck, you wanna keep the neck long and come up truly from your waist. Your belly button still going in your ribs are still going in, and then you just challenge a bit more.

Now last time, and then this time we're going to bounce it up here. We're gonna stay up, and up, and up and three and four, five, six, seven, and eight and come down. Nice, hopefully you felt that. Go ahead and keep your body, you are provided the same way. You're just gonna bring your legs to the other side.

Oh, feels nice. And then we do the clapping and opening. So you gonna bring your arms together, nice and straight. One hand on top of the other. And then you're gonna keep looking at the hand and follow the hand until you find the floor on the other side.

So this is easy for me, but the other side my body did not like, which I know I have to make it work. So I feel more balanced. So for you pay attention to what that feels for your body. Maybe it's this side and then you just kind of spend a little bit of time there and then last time. And then we're gonna just hold it here, for three, two, one.

Hopefully both of your hands and shoulders are down. And then rest. Good. Go ahead and take your towel. Keep your knees nice and honest.

One on top of each other, facing up to the ceiling and then your eyes are gonna scrape the ceiling. And then it's gonna say hi to the top of the wall, and then you come down with control. So keeping the neck nice and long, come up again and then down and again, come up, lift, lift, lift, and down. Really try to hold the urge of coming up any higher with just the head. So you try to keep it with the rest of your body, that's the idea.

And then really challenge the obliques here the waist and come up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up and down. And again, come up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up and down, and again forward, all the way up, and down. Last time, this is the five, so we try and do five in each side, hold it here and then we do eight little bouncing and up, up keep the neck long. Walk with your waist, your abdominal muscles. Your neck muscles are working.

They should be getting stronger and stronger but you don't wanna just move with your neck you wanna move with your waist, and eight and come down, nice and rest. Good. So now you should be nice and ready for your crisscross. We're just gonna do three in each side but this whole articulation of your spine should allow you to get there. Hands behind your head.

And we're gonna go to the right first, so left elbow to the right knee and then see, can I come up a little higher because the toe was helping me? I felt connected, I can come high and I'm gonna hold. And then I'm gonna go high, high, high, high, high to the other side. So I don't wanna come down, and rest. Stay, stay, stay, come up high, cause the tendency is to go down to swap, isn't it?

So stay high, high, high, high, high and go to the other side. Hold one, two twist, look back, back, back and up, up, up, up, up, up, up go to the other side. Hold two, three. Let's do one more on each side. Switch and hold one, two, three, and last time on the left, and hold one, two, up high, three and rest.

Oh, I've done. Good, let's take your towel up to the ceiling and roll up. Head in, inhale. Take your breath in and halfway there, you start to exhale and then bring your head to your knee. Give yourself a nice, yummy stretch.

Lift your waist when you do that and rest. Ooh, (indistinct). So let's do your spine stretch forward, the same way we did last time, in class. So try to become one with your wall so you can articulate and really pull yourself into the wall. Now today with a little extra challenge with the towel.

So find with your towel, your hands up just as wide as your shoulders, maybe a little bit more, a little wider than your shoulders messy hair, and shoulders back, stay nice and tall. Your waist is into the wall. Take a deep breath in and then exhale. Pull your head off the wall, shoulders off the wall. Everything else, almost like there is a vacuum behind you and it's sucking your belly button into the wall or hoover as we see here in England, and scoop, scoop, scoop as you go down and then just indulge yourself and bring your head down and reach your arms long, pulling those toe and then roll up.

So really pull yourself into the wall. Pull the towel, feel outside muscles of your arms, as you articulate the spine to return. Again, maybe a little faster this time. Inhale, take a deep breath in and feel your head, your shoulders, your ribs, you waist and exhale, pull, pull pull the towel away and then roll into the wall. One bone at a time, sit up nice and tall.

Inhale in, exhale, active arms, active waist, active legs. Everything is doing something, head to the floor or as far as you wish, and then roll into the wall, push the heels away, push, push, push, push and sit up nice and tall, and rest. So your arms should be getting a nice workout. Go ahead and turn around. And we're gonna do the open leg rocker the same way we did your ball, yeah?

So your towel is gonna come in the bottom of your feet. You hold the towel. If you need to, open the feet a little bit more, bend your knees, be nice with your body, head in and we go, back. Let's see if I can come up and then come back up again. Good.

So you try to hold with your arms nice and long. Almost like if you're doing the tree, keep your arms nice and long and again back, inhale and then come back up and exhale. And of course, if it's hard for you to just hold really easy and the bottom, depending of how long your towel is. And so listen to your body. Now, with your arms not being able to bend it makes you work really nice and honest here.

Inhale, take it back and then come back up, pulling your waist in. And again, two more, take it back and then see, is your hip going to one side? So that's another thing that you can listen to. You can see, feel, go back keep it straight and come back up. Nice, well done.

Slide the hand into the mat and then lift. So you go as high as you need to, but I really want you to chest expansion, you pushing of the floor and lift lift, lift, lift, lift, push, push, push, push. Think of your arms going down into the mat but also towards the wall to open up your chest and clavicle. And again, lets do two more and lift up, push to pull and then push, push, push, push into the mat reach your arms and come down. Oh, nice work.

So hopefully you get some sort of feedback with the arms reaching down and forward to the wall. Now, take your towel again, bring it up to the ceiling and roll up nice and slow. Good. And then we're gonna do your saw. So you can keep your arms here.

You're going to hold on to your towel, maybe a little closer this time, not so wide maybe a little closer. And we just gonna reach forward and stretch and pull your arms away. Roll into the wall or your imaginary wall if you don't have a wall behind you, twist, twist, twist. Now, when you twist and if you do have a wall behind you feel that the opposite hip it's anchoring, and you're gonna reach forward, reach forward, reach forward, anchor the opposite hip, lift that waist as you reach and pull this towel and then roll into yourself into the wall. Sit up tall, inhale.

The opposite hip is anchoring and exhale, empty your lungs. Lift that left hip, lift the left waist. So if you're going to the left, you wanna lift the left waist and then roll into yourself. Let's do one more time in each side. So inhale twist and exhale go forward.

Lift that right waist, lift, lift, lift, pass your foot and roll into yourself. Last time, twist left, anchor the right hip or anchor the opposite hip, and then reach forward, exhale. Lift that side of the waist. So nothing collapse, everything is lifting and then return to the wall and rest. So now we're gonna do some extension work.

So we're gonna go forward away from the wall. I'm gonna open my towel. I'm gonna place my towel down. And I'm just gonna do a little bit of work here where I'm trying to bring my wings, my scapular down. Yeah, so to connect with my back.

So my arms are straight and I'm just bringing my head off the floor a little bit and then really connecting this slide with my back. And then each time I can come up a little higher and higher and higher and higher but initially needs to come, the hands connected to the floor, the towel to slide into the back. So it should feel really nice. And you always pulling the belly button off the floor, so you not feeling in your lower back. If you are, come down a little back or skip this one watch and again, pull back into the wings into the waist.

And that's from that place you lift. Another very important thing is remember what I try to keep the neck long. So when you come up, press the back of your head up to the ceiling. So I'm not doing this. I'm coming up, pressing the back of my head.

So it is more of a unity of the neck working together and not just my skull, really moving, come up, draw the shoulders, come up, up, up, up and then push the back of your head. Now, stay here. Legs are together, and see if you can do your neck roll. Shoulder to shoulder, straight ahead and reverse. Shoulder to shoulder and forward, wonderful.

Now let's go ahead. You can be messy. Go ahead and fold your towel, bring it right behind your knee. And you really wanna squeeze the life out of this towel. You're gonna bring your one hand on top of each other and rest forehead.

And instead of doing this, the normal single leg kick, we going to just do a little variation. So you're going to kick into the towel, one, two, and lift the thigh, one, two, bring it down. Squeeze, squeeze, up, up. Squeeze, squeeze, up, three, nice. Squeeze, squeeze, and up, four, squeeze, squeeze and up five.

Squeeze, squeeze and up six. It can be as many as you want. Now just go up and we're gonna go up and down, up and down, squeezing your towel the whole time. Up and four, five last time, six. I just made that number up, it can be any number five, three, five, eight.

We're doing six today. I think Pilates teachers are really, I can't count. So I'm so focused on the work. And again, squeeze, squeeze, switching legs. And then we bringing it up one, two and down.

So I'm doing my other leg. Squeeze, squeeze the towel, lift two. Squeeze one, two, lift one, two. Squeeze, squeeze, lift, lift, squeeze, squeeze, lift, lift. One more time.

Squeeze and then you lift, lift and just the lift part for six. Bring it up and down. Keep your hips nice and square. That's two, three. Your neck is relaxed four, five, last time, six.

Beautiful. So hopefully you felt that, I did. Now, you're going to fold this nice and pretty again into a bar or a elastic band, really more than a bar, because you pulling it away. There's life to it. and you're going to bring it right behind you.

So you're gonna start with the elbow bend and you're gonna rest my head this way cause of the mic, you're gonna squeeze one, two, three. Imagine that towel and stretch the legs and then come up with the arms. One, two, three, and then you can swap your head if you want. Right cheek, left cheek and three kicks and straighten the legs. Open the chest, reach the arms to the wall.

And then up to the ceiling. So its not just up is reaching to the wall as well. Kind of like you're pulling straps and now, kick, kick, kick. Reach to the wall, up to the ceiling. Legs are together and other side, kick, kick, kick, and one, two, three last time, one, two, three, and up with the arms.

One, pull the towel away and rest. Good, and sit back on your heels, around. You can rest your head on the towel if you want, if you're sweating. Round your body, pull the mat away to round your lower back, round with the upper back of the waist in the lower back meets, and round, round, round, round, round and turn around for neck pull. So you don't need the wall, but if you have the wall, you can push your heels away like we talked about last class.

Place your towel behind your head, bend your knees if you need to and roll up with that neck beautifully, long up, up, up, up, up, up, up, and then you're going to stretch. That's what we call the neck pull. Stretch the neck, pulling into your waist. Sit up nice and tall. Stay flat, flat, flat, flat, flat to go back.

And then you around again to go down, reaching your heels away. Again inhale, come up. Exhale your head to the knee and sit up nice and tall. Feel like you're doing the flat back. Push the heels away and round to go down with your long waist.

Push your heels, push your heels waist in, in, in push your heels. Last time. Inhale, come up. Exhale, half of the way. When you press the head down is a long neck, long waist, scoop waist belly button, round to come up.

Beautiful. Let's place the towel on your feet. You gonna do a little mini bridge from here. So you head is down, neck is long, bend your knees, press the hands down. You may not move very much, which is fine.

Pilates mix is very humble, it's very humbly. Lift the hips and you're going to move the legs out and in, out and in, out in, out, in. So your mat should be nice and clean after we done. And last time, nice, round to go down and then take your towel again. So you feel free to have fun and try with one leg.

You can do that too. I'm gonna make the towel into a band again or towel, and I'm gonna do my side kicks. And this time I'm gonna make my sidekicks really unstable and reach my arms forward. So I'm gonna take my legs forward put in front of my hip. I hope, that's okay here with the mic.

And I'm gonna take it forward and back. And it's gonna be really unstable for me, so maybe he wanna do with a smaller range of motion, which is fine. We don't have a Pilates police, it's okay to do as a range that works for your body that suits you. Pull this towel away feel your back and your waist. And two more, kick four for two and then take your time going back for maybe three counts.

Last time kick, kick, and one, two, three, very nice. Circle the leg one, two, three, four, straight, long arms, eight and reverse. So we're doing ten, one, two, three, four, five, six seven, eight, nine, 10. Plenty. You can stay on this side.

You're going to do your mermaid on this side. So open the towel fold, and you're going to bring your hands a little bit in front of your shoulders, so it's not directly out. So it's happy shoulder. Go ahead and give yourself a stretch first, and go over. Switch the hand, keep the hand in front of your shoulder, glue this one by your ear, go down, down, down, down, down, and then up.

Keep this lifting. So don't let that collapse. And you can just go a little back, and then reach up to the ceiling to return. So it's not so much that way, but also up and down and come up, up, up, up, up, up, up. Last time.

And this arm is nice and glued to my ear. Pressing, clean the mat to reach up to the ceiling. So once again, pull yourself up. Now, stretch and let's do the other sidekick. So you are going to make that bar again.

I'm gonna have to move this a little bit, bring the arms out. I could cheat and use the wall but I won't do that, because I want this instability. So bring the legs forward a little bit. Pull the arms long, take your leg up and kick forward for two, one, two, and then take it back. One, two, three, go forward for one, two take it back for one, two, three.

Push the arms out long into the wall and away from each other. So keep that towel nice and tall, nice and firm and kick, kick four and back. One more for five, kick, kick and one, two, three back. And bring the legs together and circle for ten. one, two, three.

Keep the waist long cause you want it to sink in. So reach out, kick and out, out and eight, nine, 10. Reverse, long arms. One, two, three, four, hips squared quiet. Breathe and eight, nine, 10.

Very nice. Come up for your mermaid. So you're gonna get your towel, but before we go we'd give yourself a stretch, lift up and over, lift out and then place the hand on the towel. The other one on your ear, go, maybe a meany one, the first slide. And the reach to the ceiling to come up.

And again, maybe a little more this time, down and then push into the mat to come up, two. And again, maybe a little further or stick with works for you. And come up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up let's do one more. You can go down to your elbow if that helps and then push into the mat to get up to the ceiling, and give yourself a stretch, all the way over. Very nice, good.

And let's do your teaser. So you're going to hold onto the towel. Very nice. And then bend your knees in, bring the arms over the head, legs out. And then reach and come up.

And then go straight down. Keep those legs there if you can or bend them, keep them on the floor, a few options for you, two, and then down. Last time and come up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. Now, can we stay here and lower the legs and bring the legs up and touch your towel, one. And again, two, really move those legs from your center and three.

Hold it there. Can we go over the towel and under the towel, over the towel and under the towel. Now, everything goes down. So arms up, legs out, down we go, off we go, up to the ceiling, one, smile and again down. Long body, reach the arms and legs away from each other, two one more and down, and come up, and three, very nice.

Let's go into your saw, and think when your towel was tighten you up into a little ball, bend your knees. There are a few variations, we gonna hold the feet on the outside. Clap three times, go back make sure you have enough room behind you and come up. Keep that little empty bowl of soup. One of my teachers used to tell me, so your tummy needs to (slurps) scoop it in like an empty bowl of soup.

And we don't wanna fill it up, come up, keep it empty. Cause it's so easy to pop that belly button and be like, oh, I'm desperate, I'm gonna pop it out. So pull him in. Two more, inhale. One, two, three, up.

One, two, three, one more. Pull it in, one, two, three, and cross your legs and come up, if you have a healthy knee ta-ra, and that's go to the wall. So like we finished last time, I'm gonna add a little bit to what we did last week. And as we did try to press your arms into the wall and then walk your feet maybe away from the wall a little bit, make sure your lower back feels one with the mat, like did with the mat, feel into the wall, same thing we did with the mat pull everything in without moving your pelvis. Press the wall, take a deep breath in, lift your arms and then exhale with your waist, nice and tiny.

It's very hard to control the urge to tuck your hips in so try to live them alone. That drives you really tighten your hip flexors. Pull the waist, belly button without the hips. Take your arms up. Exhale.

Think of all the beautiful work you did today, thank you body. Thank you for taking me through that, allowing me move, long neck into the wall, like we did long neck with your towel. Last time, inhale. Keep your arms through a revision exhale and then reverse that. Inhale up, exhale down.

And the whole time you thinking is my belly button and my waist lengthening on the wall? Is my belly button and below my belly button really pulling everything in? Exhale, long neck. Smile with your eyes, so your facial muscles relax. And last time, take a deep breath in and exhale.

Very nice, we're gonna go into your squat. So we're gonna slide, so if your wall doesn't slide as well as mine does, you can pop the towel we just use behind your back or maybe how sweaty you are, if any how sticky you are and then come up, which is a great sign. I like sticky, I like sweaty because that means you worked hard and deep. Hold here, one, two, three, and then come up. Now, today we're gonna just try to do one last.

You're gonna bring her right leg in a little bit, left leg up and you just gonna do a tiny little mini squat. Hold, hold, hold push it to the wall and come up. Last time, down, hold. Don't get too excited, don't go too far as you pay for it with your muscles and then come back up. Good, last time down, down, down, and push to lift.

Good, switch foot. So we're taking the more challenging today, one leg at a time down, down, down, hold, hold, hold, push the floor. One leg is gonna feel very different than the other leg, down sliding. One, two, three. Up, up, up, up, up.

So that's my heart side. Last time down, down, down, hold, hold, hold and then come up, up, up, up, up. So I feel like (mumbles) a little bit, good. Now, go ahead and turn around and you're going to do your push up like we did last week. But today instead of just going into the wall and out we're going to push the wall and lean nice and smooth.

So you decide what you wanna be against the wall. I'm gonna go a little deeper today and I'm gonna push the wall. Push, pull those legs together, push the wall. Imagine doing this on the floor one day, we will do maybe, push, baby steps for success. Last one, push and good.

Now, come into the wall again. And this time you're gonna bring your heels against the wall, pull everything in but you will have a little space. So lift the arms up. We've worked on chest expansion last week, we just work on this bit. So I'm going to take it up a notch and I'm gonna take your arms up.

I'm gonna make you push with the back of the hands into the wall and then just say hi to the ceiling, to the sky and then circle the arms and bring your body back into the wall. Again, lift your arms up and then press the hands, push your body away from the wall a little bit and circle the arms around. So should that feel really nice. Kinda like on the barrow. Again, lift the arms up make it the best one, that's the last one.

Push into the wall, press your chest forward as you look up. So your hand still back there, head still back there, circle the arms out to the ceiling and out to the wall and come down. Ah, become one with your wall again, pull everything in, press the wall away, be nice and proud of yourself. Walk away, so you're gonna can push away from the wall first, ribs are in pretend the wall is still behind you and step away as if the wall was still there with you, and stand nice and tall. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Messy hair. I'll be here same time next week. Thank you for joining me. I hope you enjoy sweat, messy hair like me because means you worked. Thank you so much for joining me.

The Wall to Wall series. I hope you enjoying having fun with me and sweating and moving. Thank you so much. I will see you again, meet you again at Pilates Anytime next week.