Traditional Mat Flow

Hi everyone. It's Amy Havens here and you know where we are, we are at Pilates Anytime. I am so excited to be back. Not quite yet in there, but we're out here and we're moving together. So thank you for joining me.

Let's do some mat work. I want everyone to start on your back. Let's just lie down. Enjoy your environment wherever you are. I want you to rock your heels a little bit on your mat.

Just kind of start some movement. So you're rocking your heels back and forth, forward back, just start to let the rib cage also settle. Let the breath become more full. (Amy breathing deeply) Get a little energy from the bottom of your body all the way up to your heart, to your head, to your eyeballs, down the front of your body. And then everybody just settle in.

Feel that energy in your body as you bicycle your legs toward your torso. Wrap your hands firmly around your shinbones. Take a nice deep breath through your nose, and let's warm up the upper back with a nice forward flexion of your spine and let your tailbone curl up and your pelvis really get pulled back into a posterior tilt and just feel what part of your spine is making the most touch to the mat, okay? And then just lower your head back down. Let's take another breath.

And as we exhale, same thing, lifting your head, almost like you're rolling your ears towards your legs, torso towards your legs, your legs towards your torso. And just take a moment to just really feel what part of your back, how much of your spine, and then more importantly is, are you balanced from your left part of your spine to your right side of your spine? Okay? And then lower back down. And one more time, and curling up.

So I'm gonna think about that one more time, give you that chance to feel the left side of your back and the right side of your back evenly weighted. Some of us probably had to calibrate into that. Now, as we start to get ready for the Hundred, take your legs where you feel best with them today. Get more of your lower spine on the mat. Maybe even your sacrum on the mat.

Keep that upper body right where it is. And here we go. Inhale. Three, four, five. Exhale.

Three, four, five, two. (Amy breathing deeply) So keep feeling, even weight on the left side of your back and the right side of your back. (Amy exhaling deeply) Reaching for something in front of you. Even though I'm facing away from the studio doors I'm reaching toward the day we can actually go back inside. We're halfway there.

In two, three, four, five, exhale. (Amy exhaling deeply) Reach, stretch your legs from your pelvis. Stretch your lower back away from your sacrum up and over your back. One more breath. Wheel those knees in, get that big curl and roll yourself up.

Reach your arms forward. Everybody, round forward with your body. Now, let's work on some opposition here real quick. Naval back, here we go, rolling yourself back. So we're gonna take three roll-ups today.

Enjoy the stretch of the body. Inhale, exhale, over. Lifting the skin of the back up to stretch. Rolling yourself down. Managing your inner thighs, getting longer as you roll down.

Here we go. Still my nemesis, it'll always be roll stretch. Take yourself back one more time. And you're even on the right and left side of your back. Feel the lift of your stomach.

Feel the lift of your lower back, skin up and over. Let's do some pulses. (Amy breathing deeply) Think of the pulses as your chance for some opposition. Energy and arm and legs forward, stomach and lower back back. Four, three, two and one, roll back all the way flat and rest, okay.

Bring one of your knees tightly to your chest. Your knee can be a little bit open towards your shoulder. Enjoy that deep flexion in your hip joint. And then change legs. (Amy exhaling deeply) So I'm not truly parallel.

Let your knee open a little bit towards your shoulder. You should feel pretty organic. And each side again. The other leg matters, really stretch it forward as well. And then change.

Bring both knees in. Okay, and hug, hug, hug. We're gonna go in for roll over everybody. Stretch your legs up, anchor your shoulders back, take a deep breath. Here we go, up and over.

Now I want you to think of your sit bones being up to the ceiling, lift your low back skin up, flex your feet. Now, if you wanna drop those toes down to the floor, stretch a little more and roll yourself down. Just to 90. Let's do it again. Breathing in (inhaling) exhale up and over reaching those sitting bones up toward the ceiling.

Flex your feet open and lower your toes down while you lift your sit bones higher and roll yourself down. One more time. Inhale, exhale, bend over. So I want you to think some negative space between your legs and your torso. Ready?

Flex, roll down all way, all the way. And now do that deep flexion of both hips again. Here, knees towards shoulders. And we're gonna go into single leg circles. So take one leg down, the other leg up, a little external rotation.

Today, pull it closer to your chest. Feel that from your core, your stomach. Circle around and hold it, pull it towards your chest. Circle around and pull it towards your chest. (Amy breathing deeply) One more this direction, reverse.

Pull it toward your chest. Still involve the other leg on the mat, reaching down and out. Pull it up towards your chest. Two more. (Amy breathing deeply) Hold it here.

Put your hands behind your thigh. Walk your hands up your leg a little bit. Pick up your head and your chest. Two reasons: You're getting more flexibility focus, and you can see that your other leg is still in line with your hip. Let's pull this in, hold it tighter, closer, more stretch.

Keep your leg here. Lower your chest back. Hold your leg right where it is. Open your arms to a T. Pulse your leg towards your torso, up, up.

This is stomach and inner thigh. Just four, three, two, and one, and lower the leg all the way down, okay. Ready for the other side. Bring your arms by your side. Your leg is up, you're externally rotated.

Bring it out toward you, right? Get that feeling we just connected. Circle around, bring it up toward your chest (Amy inhaling deeply) and up toward your chest. Five each direction you know, (Amy breathing heavily) and up last one. The other leg has a lot of energy.

Now reverse it towards your chest. (Amy breathing heavily) Two more. Feel strength, get the flexibility, and you're gonna hold it. Hands behind thigh. That's fine, or higher.

Try this one, lift your chest up. Remember, you're trying to keep your line of energy alignment here. Bring some extra flexibility focused to your hamstrings. You may not be perfectly level in your pelvis. You're not gonna hurt yourself.

Bring it towards you. Hold it there, guys. Lower the head. Arms out. Let's pulse for eight, seven, six, five, last four, three, two and one, bring your knees to your chest, knees are apart, hug, bring yourself up.

Roll up for Rolling Like a Ball. Scoot your hips forward. Your choice to keep your knees open or closed. I'm keeping open today. Pull your body in small roll and roll up, roll back, roll up and roll.

Just feel some even rhythm. Four more, let's go back. Lift those sit bones up, roll. Last two. Whoa, let's try to balance on this last one.

Let's see what shows up. What shows up? Okay, place your feet down. Lift yourself tall for just a minute. Now I want you to roll yourself back.

Bring your knees again into your chest. Have your hands on your right shin and reach your left leg forward. Curl yourself up. Let's do a little lowering of this leg and squeeze your glutes as you do so. Pull this thing in twice so we have a pull, pull and pull, pull.

(Amy exhaling deeply) Pull. Keep that upper body in one position. Three, two, one, both knees in, don't lower that head. Extend your legs. Hold your legs, reach your arms back, lower your arms, pulling in.

Two more, stretch. Hold that body design, move the arms, move the arms, and in. One more time. It's like you're trying to haul out the front of your body. Reach, in, and roll up to sitting, and let's move our hips back.

Spine stretch forward, okay. Take a moment and really sit as tall as you can. Energy in your ankles, toes are face up, arms are front, breathe. Like you're lifting the skin of your back up, flex forward. Go as far forward as you can, try to keep those sit bones in the same place right behind you.

You don't shift off the sit bones. Bend more, bend more, bend more. Roll yourself up. Twice more, everybody, breathe in deeply. (Amy inhaling deeply) Exhale deeply.

(Amy exhaling deeply) Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Roll up. (Amy inhaling deeply) One more time. (Amy exhaling deeply) So equal efforts of contracting the abdominals as you are lifting the skin of your back up. You're trying not to just flop on your legs.

Really keep your sit bones, your feet flexed and roll all the way up. Bring your arms with you. Press your arms down. Bring your arms front. Lift, press your arms down.

So as you press your arms down, why not grow taller? Why not try to grow taller? One more of that direction. Now, change your arms, scoop the arms, lift the air up, press the air down. It's a chance to get a little extra resistance in your muscles.

Trying to effort sitting taller. How much taller can I get here? I don't know. One more time. Lift and lower.

Let's go for Open Leg Rocker. Okay, move yourself up. Open Leg Rocker. Here we are. Hold onto those ankles.

Extend a little bit of turnout in your legs. Just feel the shape for a moment. We have the lower back in a curve, but the upper back in a lift. Here we go. Roll across that spine.

Come back up and try to find the chest lift with your curl tail. You're rolling evenly on the sides of your back. On the left and right side evenly, rolling up. Three more, inhale. (Amy breathing heavily) And in.

(Amy breathing heavily) Last one, let's balance. (Amy exhaling deeply) Now, holding here everybody, let go, add a little bit of open, close, open, close, open, close. Four more, and three, and two. Let's go for corkscrew. Roll it over.

Now tracing down one side of your back. I'm gonna go down this side. That's my right side of my back. Don't worry about your swively hips. Track your spine.

I'm gonna slow these down so you really track your spine. (Amy exhaling deeply) Center at the top. Now this side, track your spine. (Amy exhaling deeply) Track your spine. (Amy exhaling deeply) Ready?

You got it, down you go. (Amy exhaling deeply) And your spot. Oh, these are so good and hard. One more each side, track that spine. You wanna open up (Amy exhaling deeply) and mobilize.

All the way around you gotta center it. Roll up. Open your legs, let's go for some saw, okay? Yeah, a little saw. Arms extended.

Now, before we twist, I want us to bring our shoulder blades behind us for a moment and release them And gather the strength in your upper back and then widen that. One more time. Keep the shoulder blades together. Now start to turn toward the front leg. This one, this shoulder blade keeps coming behind, this shoulder blade gets to go forward.

Reach, reach, reach. As you transition, both shoulder blades come back. Twist so that back arm is already ready for what it needs to do. Let's twist again. The front arm gets to go into that protraction really stretched.

This guy keeps going back and up, back and up, back and up. One more time. (Amy exhaling deeply) And everyone roll up and just pause for just a moment. Feel how you're feeling right now. We're gonna go down for a little shoulder bridge.

So bring your legs together, hips come forward and roll back down. Okay, for shoulder bridge right now, I'd love if we can have our legs together, knees together, ankles together. Bring your hips up. So it's a hip lift. It's not so much a rib pushing thing, right?

So we're trying to get this strengthened to lift here. Arms long, take a leg up, flex, pull it toward you more so it's down and up, down and up. Five of these. (Amy exhaling deeply) One more. I'm gonna keep the leg up, lower the pelvis.

Press yourself up, lower your pelvis. Single leg strength in your glutes and your hamstrings. (Amy exhaling deeply) You wanna land evenly on those pelvises, right? Not twisted, land evenly. That's plenty, bend and release.

Other leg, up it goes. Flex the foot, bring it towards you, and we've got down. Up, down, up, and three, four, last one. We keep it up, lower the pelvis, press it up again. You're trying to land evenly.

This leg stays energetically reaching up. You're pressing yourself up using your hip muscles, up. Two, and last one. (Amy exhaling deeply) Bend your knee in and massage the spine. Open the feet now.

I'm gonna do two just regular pelvic curls. Easy does it. (Amy exhaling deeply) And then we're gonna move into some sideline work, (Amy exhaling deeply) rolling all the way down. Okay, so just take an arm, roll to that side, make some adjustments on your mat. I'm gonna take advantage of the whole mat and bring my pelvis to the back, my legs to the front end corner.

This elbow back in that sunshine. Huh, I feel so good! Okay, take a moment. For today everybody, reach this waistline really long on the mat for just a minute and then feel what it is to lift it. Do that again. So there's a difference of stretching it down, which creates some lateral flexion here, and then the lift.

One more. Both are good to do. Well, they're hard. I'm gonna try this one today. Hands behind.

Front back requires more balance. (Amy exhaling deeply) And back. I'm going to do five repetitions. If this is too much on you, just put your waistline back down on the mat, flex at the hip, extend at the hip, flex at the hip holding here. Now, this arm is gonna release.

If we had that sky cam, hopefully we'd see a nice diagonal line from the hand to the foot. I want us all to stretch like crazy. Stretch this so much that you feel your skin change. (Amy exhaling deeply) And then bring yourself together, okay? Now lower that waistline.

Turn this leg out. Bring your toe to your knee and externally rotate at your hip. Hand is here. We're gonna do a little bit of external rotation sequence. Tap the foot five times, tap the knee and then tap the ankle.

Five, four, three, two, one. We're gonna count down for four. And four at the ankle. Three at the knee. Three at the ankle, you get it.

Two, two. And two and then eight singles. One, two, three, four, keep turning out in the hip. Hold it. Stretch like you're stretching a leg spring on the Cadillac and little circles.

My foot's cramping a little bit, other way. In four, three, we're gonna do the whole sequence again. I'm gonna take up the tempo a little bit more, ready? Five, four, three, two, one. Five, four, three, two, one.

Two, three, four. Keep your tummy pulled in. Keep your hip turned out. Keep the coordination and eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. And long, and then up and down just four.

Big kick, and big kick, and big kick, and big kick. Okay, we're gonna transition. Everybody turn face down. Take your hands by your shoulders. Start with the balls of the feet tucked on the ground.

Knees down on the ground. Awareness of abdominal support for your low back. And then from here by extending your hips, your quadriceps will engage, your thighs will lift off of the mat, and then do the teeniest little Cobra. A little crooked here. The teeniest little cobra on your mat or a little preliminary swan, okay?

When you come back down, you can rest your knee, rest your forehead. So let's do that again. I want you to charge up your quadriceps, your hamstrings, your glutes, the hips just went into extension. Hover that head, little baby cobra, open that collar bone and lower down. Let the knees rest.

We have one more and then we'll do some heel beats. Here we go. (Amy exhaling deeply) Quads are working, glutes are working. You've got your knees and hips extended, opening that lifted. You can even let go.

Lower your legs, just hold for a moment and come all the way down. Let's go ahead. Stack the hands, put that forehead down and bring your legs close together. Long waistline. Lift your thighs, everyone.

Turn your legs out with flex feet and let's beat. Two, three, four. Exhale, three, four. (Amy breathing heavily) Emphasize the wrapping of those thighs. Check your shoulders that they haven't crept up, but also long legs.

Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Tuck your toes down. Hands by your chest. Push yourself, make a cat back just to rest that spine for a moment. You could even move the cat back slightly couple of times.

And then of course we'll do the other sidelines. So here we go. Turn yourself around. Okay. Couple of little things to check.

Remember, we started with the waistline long on the mat. So feel what that is versus lifting that, using those muscles to hold that lifted side, okay? And then sink again (Amy exhaling deeply) and lift again. And it's important when you sink and lift, no matter which position you're doing, you've got awareness of the rib cage in line with your pelvis and your tailbone in a level position, right? That's where we're going.

Front kickback, kick one and two. Try to stay in the position that you committed to there. Back, front, back. Two more. Front, back.

Last one, front. Holding it back, enjoy the stretch. (Amy breathing heavily) Like you have a wonderful friend right here just reaching for you giving you a little stretch there, may be pulling on your foot. Oh, it just feel so good. And then everybody come on down, okay?

Inner thigh time. Turn the leg out. So we draw that line. Toe to the knee, external rotation, holding your core steady. Five taps at the knee, five at the ankle.

Three, four, five, and four. Just counting that down. So really, the movement is at the knee joint tapping and tapping while we're stabilizing at the hip. Singles for eight. And five, six, seven, and hold.

Stretch it long like you have a leg spring on your foot. Wrapping four circles this way and four circles this way. Okay, we're gonna repeat the whole thing a little bit quicker. Toes cramp, it's one of those things. Here we go.

On one, two, four, five, and one. And keep the turnout of the hip. Three, two, three. Down, two, three. One, two.

And single, four, three, two, one. Stretch at big kicks for four. Up, and down, and up. Give that leg a lot of work. Lift and lift and release, okay.

Turn to parallel. Come all the way up to sitting for a minute. And let's go back to sitting toward our feet this way, okay? Just pack your legs in front of you. Reach your arms forward and stretch just so you feel some evenness in your legs and some evenness in our lower back.

(Amy exhaling deeply) All right, everybody, let's roll up. Hips forward a little bit. Hold behind your knees. Teaser time. Take your legs extended.

(Amy exhaling softly) Reach your arms forward. Roll all the way down. You can take your legs with you. Take your arms back overhead. So I'm gonna do a little hybrid teaser.

I'm gonna take my arms out to the side and start to do that roll up as if I'm holding the straps from the reformer. I'm gonna pick those arms up. And as I roll back, keep my arms reaching forward. Trying to get that pelvis to rotate back. Arms up and over.

Let's try two more. (Amy inhaling softly) Just keeping it moving. (Amy exhaling softly) Scoop, pretend you're on your reformer. Lifting up. You could challenge it and take your arms higher if you'd like to.

And down. One more. A little hybrid of our teasers. (Amy exhaling deeply) Come on, girl, get it up there. Lift, lift, lift, and then come just to sit.

Cross-legged for a second, okay. Spine twist time. Let's just move into that spine twist. Adjust your pants if you need to. Flex your feet.

Arms open, shoulder blades together again, take a breath. We're going to the side for three pulses. One, two, three. (Amy inhaling deeply) I want you to keep your shoulder blades behind you so that you can open and use this width of your chest. (Amy exhaling deeply) One more each side.

Twist and twist, center lift. And let's take a little bit of a back support here. So hands back, I'm gonna turn my hand slightly to the side, okay. Sink your shoulders for a moment. You just sink.

Now, to come into that back support, let's first change the pelvis. Wrap the scapula back on your back. There's that wrap again. Wrap, wrap, wrap. Start leaning back on your arms, your pelvis will come up.

Press your heels into your mat. Keep wrapping the shoulders back. Take an inhale (Amy inhaling softly) and come down. When you come down, let your shoulders sink again. I'm gonna do that two more times.

Just let them sink. Same sequence, let's wrapping them back, the scapula and the collarbone. Really puff up. That starts to send the weight back to the arms where then you can lift your hips up, press your heels into the mat. See if there's any more wrap of your shoulder blades and come on down.

Okay, one more everybody. Here we go. And sink the shoulders. Wrap the shoulders, open the chest, lean into the arms. Let's hold, hold, lift, and come all the way down.

Okay, what I want to have us do next is turn again facing each other. So I'm gonna face you. Let's come up on our knees. And our arms can come out to our side. And the sidekick kneeling is kind of fun.

Let's just get to the position and kick the leg in front of us and see what happens. I'm gonna go this way. So I'm just gonna go and kick and come back up. Do it again. And kick and come back up.

A lot of times we just stay there. Whoa! That's the fun moment I want us to feel. So it's, coming into it is one thing, coming out of it is the other, right? And kick in front. One more.

And kick in front, and up, okay? Other side. Remember, it doesn't always have to look good and pretty. It's the effort, dynamic movement. Sidekick, kneeling, sidekick.

Wow, two more. Controlling that strength. And last time. (Amy exhaling softly) And up. To your first side.

Let's take a little side reach holding here. Just hold and hold. Maybe a little spine twist. I'm gonna rotate and reach this hand toward those ankles. I'm gonna come out of that end to that one arm balance and just return arm to the ceiling.

Just one more time. Overhead, rotate, take this available arm, reach it toward your feet, and all the way, and beautifully, smoothly transition to the other side. And now this hand is gonna go up and around back to those feet, swing it through and overhead. And one more to go. Overhead, reach out to get the hips up.

Push with the stable arm. Reach for those toes. Coming through and then back up on our knees, everybody. Let's take a little thigh stretch. So I want you to start this thigh stretch today with your toes bent.

You're not gonna like me. And sit down your hips to your heels for a moment. Yeah, this is a stinger. Just hold it, hold it, hold it. Try to feel that.

Be calm with it. (Amy exhaling softly) And then when you come up, let's take the pelvis into posterior tilt and come up. Now you can soften your feet. Thigh stretch. So let's take our arms with us in front leaning back.

Keep that pelvis in that posterior tilt and come back up tall. You have to imagine kind of holding something between those knees also. So that you don't let your knees splay, you want those legs to be nice and parallel. Some of you can go pretty far back. Go for it.

I'm gonna try to work that posterior tilt. And one more repetition, everybody. Hold, hold, and come up. Okay, let's do one more rolling exercise and then we'll find yourself up to standing. I want you to wrap your hands around your ankles, lift your feet and put the bottoms of your feet together.

Take a moment. Get the bottoms of the feet to touch. Now, lift the feet a little bit as you pull your navel away from your heels. Aim your big toes up to the ceiling and then overhead. Come back up and open close three times.

Aim the big toes up and overhead. That little seal puppy. (Amy exhaling deeply) You could certainly clap overhead. I'm keeping it like this. Take four more.

Roll evenly on both sides of your spine. Roll evenly on both sides of your spine. You've got two more. A nice continuous circle. Okay, if you're ready, let's come on up.

I'm gonna come to the back of the mat, of course take advantage of that sunshine. Okay guys, let's do some front support stuff. So take your arms up to the sky. Now, remember, rib cage shouldn't just shove out. You've done all that wonderful work.

Keep that lifted. Start to roll down. Start to roll down. Get that roll down. Now, let's walk about halfway out onto your hands.

So you've got some weight on your hands and some weight on your feet. Let's just check that you've got even weight and continue walking out into your front support position. Now, I want you to lower your knees. Three pushups, two pushups, last pushup. Lift those knees and walk yourself back, okay?

Same thing, you've got even weight on those feet, roll up. Reach your arms with you. I'm gonna do it again. Same exact thing. Rolling yourself down, lifting here.

You've got even weight on those feet, right? And walking out. Now, what I want you to do is pause for a minute, just check, yup, you've got even weight, and then continue walking out. Two pushups. You can certainly do full plank position if you want to.

Walking back, rolling yourself up. (Amy exhaling softly) You know the rest, one with one right? Rolling down. (Amy exhaling softly) We don't have to stop halfway. Walk all the way.

One pushup. Tuck your toes. And now walk halfway back. I want you to stand in parallel with your feet and hands on the mat. Now hold for a minute, okay.

Let's just do a little Elephant Walk. Elephant Walk right now. I don't want you to bend your knees. Pick up one foot and the opposite arm, take a little step. Pick up the other leg opposite arm and a little step.

This is not easy. (Amy laughing) Yup, one more. I don't want you to bend your knees, lift. Now walk backward. Lift, and Lift.

It's a really interesting exercise in coordination, it's awareness of where you are in space. Let's go one more round, and strength. Lift without bending the knees. Walk backward. One, two, oops! Three, four, five and six.

You got to roll yourself all the way up. Okay guys, we finished. We did it. Take a couple deep breaths together. (Amy breathing heavily) It's so good to be back here.

The sun is nice and bright. I'm nice and bright inside here. Thank you for taking class with me. I'll see you really soon, bye.