Reformer Jump 1

Hello, everybody. Once again, here at Pilates Anytime inside, so happy to be here. Zesty Flow, and we are using the jump board today. So hopefully you have your jump board up and ready to go. And I'm set for footwork springs, so I've got three reds and a blue on.

We're going to use the jump board to warm up our legs first and then go into jumping. So let's get moving. Have your feet right underneath you and be just a little bit in front of your reformer, not much. Literally, if I press back into my heels, my calves are touching the reformer but then when I bring myself more straight up right, my calves are no longer touching the reformer. Take your arms up with an inhale, opening through the heart through the front body.

Take your arms down, roll down one vertebrae at a time, check-in. So here, feel free to bend your knees a little bit, especially if you feel that your legs get stuck on the reformer. Now, if it feels like it's going to push you forward then walk forward a little with your feet. Relax your head, neck and shoulders, don't shape this, inhale. Use an exhale to stack your spine one vertebrae at a time.

So I'm using the connection of my legs on the reformer to feel a little bit more support. Exhale to peel down, one vertebra at a time. I'm actually pushing into the reformer with the backs of my legs to create still a little bit more rounding of my low back. Relax your shoulders, your neck, your head, don't shape it. Inhale here, exhale, push into the reformer a little bit to create just a little bit of support to maybe flex the spine a little bit more.

For me that helps me open up my low back. One more, please, exhale, peel forward. Feel free to keep just a hint of external rotation with the arms. Now, if you'd like, if your hands are touching the floor, bend your knees or hands on your legs, bend your knees and lengthen. And again, bend and straighten.

One more time bend the knees and keep bending until you can sit on your reformer. Bring your knees and feet together, push your knees together, round your back relaxing your head. And then stack your spine one vertebrae at a time, so we're sitting. Yeah, inhale, exhale, curl forward, let the arms kind of graze the outsides of your legs until you can stretch, perhaps give yourself a hug. And then stack your spine, adding on this time sitting nice and tall, clasp the fingers together.

Press the head into the hands and twist Inhale center, exhale, twist. Adding a little more zest here, exhale two, inhale, exhale two. So it's a little pulse there, right? Make sure and take your eyes with you, make sure and stay open through your heart. We'll do that just one more time each side, please.

And I'm really enjoying the view as I do this. Come back to center, take your arms down, roll down again one vertebrae at a time. Allow yourself to fold over the legs, stretching the low back, stretching the neck, separate your feet a little bit. Shift into your feet, stretch your legs to straight. Roll yourself up, standing tall, take the arms up, Take one arm down, looking over the shoulder, maybe even holding onto the leg and opening through the side body, change.

Take the other arm down, reaching up with the up arm down and open through the heart as you look. And one more time on each side, making sure you're breathing. And here we go, last one. Rolling down one more time here my friends, sit on your reformer, stack your spine, scooch forward a little, let's heat up the abs just a bit. So I'm just a little bit forward on the reformer, I'm gonna round through my low back, float my feet up and set up for my single legs stretch.

One leg in, one leg out, change. So changing the legs at a pace that suits you, focusing on your own breath and focusing on staying lifted. Keeping your low back grounded, we'll do one more on each side please. Bring your two legs in, take a short pause, criss cross hands behind the head and we twist. With an energy twist, and twist.

Feel free to slow it down if that's better for you, or just a little bit of an energetic twist, twist. Make sure you're breathing please. Two more, one, and last one. Hug your knees in, and gently rock and roll, and you'll come up to a seat. So we're all set up for footwork on the reformer with the jump board.

Go ahead and lie yourself down, and make sure you spend the time settling in feeling comfortable on the reformer, feeling like you're centered. Place your feet on the jump board and press out to straight. So spend a few moments here getting organized, opening across the front to the hip crease, lengthening through the crown of the head and feeling quite comfortable here. Now I am gonna have you take your feet closer to the top of your jump board, so your heels can stay down. Bend your knees only as far as you can with your heels down and press out.

Now I'm gonna take my feet just a little bit higher up so that I can bend all the way in, 'cause I do want to come into the stopper. So bending in and pressing out. Use the breath today that suits you, remembering that an exhale does help to connect many of us to our abdominals, so if you need help connecting to your abdominals you may choose to exhale specifically when we're jumping. Good, let's just do one more here keeping the legs straight, grow taller through your spine, feel supported through your core. Take your feet down so they're directly underneath you and spend a couple moments feeling that openness across the hip crease.

Again, we're gonna bend the knees, keep the heels down, allow the heels to lift to stretch a little bit through the feet and the Achilles tendon. Press the heels down to press out, just a couple more like that like sort of stretching a little through the back of the ankle if you will, or the foot for some of us. And just one more like that. And then now we're going to lift the heels up a little bit or to a high position when your legs are straight, keep the heels like that as you come in, press out and in. So think of really pressing through all five metatarsals of both feet as you go in, and make sure you're finding a breath that suits you, feeling those inner thighs at the top, pressing into the feet each time you go in.

Check in with your jaw and your neck and make sure it's void of tension. Next one, keep your legs straight please, lower your feet flat. We're gonna make a little turned out position so those of you that come from a dance background, we're in a ballet first position. Those of us pure Pilates, we're just in a V position here. Heels are together, bend in the knees but stop when the heels want to lift and press out.

Repeat, think about what we've been working on in finding the deep rotators in the previous classes and see if you can really feel that beautiful hip rotation as you generate the force to push out. So it's not the knees that are propelling the movement. Adding on, we bend a little deeper, allow the heels to lift only as much as they need to, push through the heels to straighten. Repeat, keep those rotators on and push through the heels to straighten. Check in with your core, make sure it's engaged.

Check in with your neck and shoulders, make sure they're soft. Last one, keep your legs straight. Move your feet out to a wide position and you want to feel again that beautiful rotation sensation. So those beautiful rotators opening the front of the hip, bend the knees, keep the heels down for me. So bend only as far as you can keep the heels down, and press out.

And again, bend and press out. Now, if you would like a little more range of motion, just take your feet up on your jump board a tiny bit and you'll find that you might actually be able to, with ease, come all the way into the stopper. Although that's not absolutely necessary for me, it's really about feeling the grounding through the feet, that's what I you to focus on. One more time here, go ahead and keep your legs straight, flex your ankles, rotate to neutral, flatten the feet, bend the knees. Repeat, so we're gonna flex the ankles, go to external rotation, flatten, bend.

So we'll keep doing that a few times, flexing, flattening, pressing out. And if it suits your body, you can actually go into just a little bit of internal rotation, turning the knees and toes in, bending and then turning out and bending. So you're rocking onto the heels, feeling those beautiful rotators working supporting your hips for you. And just one more time here, I'm in internal rotation so I'll press out, I'll find neutral. And then I want you to take your feet underneath you again.

Take one leg, I'm gonna start with my right leg and fish down until my right leg is resting on the reformer quite comfortably, and the heel is sort of driving down and under. So it's hard to get calf stretches here but this is a really nice hip opener. So by really pushing down with my right leg, I'm getting a lovely hip opener across the the hip flexor really. And then go ahead and change, so just take the other leg down and see if you can feel the hamstring is resting on the reformer bed. And you're just focusing on this opposition of opening across the front of the hip and really stretching across that hip crease is probably a better way to say it.

And then bring your two feet on the jump board, gently come all the way in. Let's roll to our sides and change things up a little bit. So I'd like you to be on a red and a blue spring, a one and a half springs. Some of you, if you don't have the blue spring, it might be two reds. This is the spring we're going to use for jumping them.

So I've turned around and I'm going to work my abdominals a little bit. I've got a little bit of space behind me in the edge of the reformer. Not too much space, so maybe about a hand and then hook your hands inside the straps and allow your fingers too, so that the straps are around your wrists and your hands are just gently holding the straps. Sit up nice and tall. The spring is a little bit heavy but I want you to use the spring for resistance.

So curl your pelvis underneath you and really resist this or pull back against the spring to go down as far as it suits you, and then round and roll up, inhale. Exhale, peeling down, articulating through the back at that low back to ground down, and round and roll up. Now, if you end up going back so far that you feel your head resting against the jump board, that's okay. You might just use it to create a little bit more grounding through your low back, or next time you just won't go back as far. This time, we're gonna hold the back position.

I'm gonna bring my knees in, adjust my feet in a little more, and then I'm going to exhale, lift a little, inhale down. That's my tricky spot, this sort of middle range, not the high, not the low. So the spring gives you a little bit more resistance to work against. Good, let's go ahead and find that starting chest lift position, rotate to one side and lift. Come back to center, go the other way and lift, lower down, back to center.

So it's like a little U shape basically, let's keep doing that, breathing and moving my friends. Trying to work toward feeling of stretch, not just work, so stretching back body. One more time, make sure you're breathing, come back to center, round and roll yourself all the way up, put your straps away. So for jumping, I like to have my head rest up, you're welcome to put yours up. I do put it up on the high position.

So go ahead and lie back down, and let's settle in for a little bit of jumping here. Start with your feet where they feel really quite comfortable in the middle of the platform. Spend a few moments, making sure you've got a nice grounded upper back and a lot of support from your abdominals, and just bend the knees once and straighten. And bend the knees, keeping the heels down, straighten, lift the heels. So if you're new to jumping, you may practice this a few times before you lift off.

If jumping is quite comfortable for you, go ahead and give it a go right away. So I'm jumping and I'm landing. Each time I land, I want to think about keeping those heels grounded and then pushing through the heels to jump out. Also be mindful of your core. Staying grounded if you will, through the middle of the back trying to keep the abdominals engaged.

Let's shift to a single leg, so I'm on my right leg. It doesn't matter which one you're on. I do find that single leg jumping is almost a little bit easier to manage, especially when we feel like holding the core can be a challenge when you have your two legs out, so one leg at a time is nice. And then change the legs here. So also what I like about single legs is it shows my imbalances.

I find it's difficult for me to stick the landing on one foot a little bit more than on the other. So do a handful more on this other leg, and then we'll bring ourselves back to a double leg jump. Just see if you can find that beautiful flow, double leg jump, turning out, turning to parallel, turning out, turning to parallel. So you'll turn in the air, and I want you to really think about those hip rotators. Find your breath.

One more time keep the turnout, now try to get those feet to land in a close V position. Don't obsess about needing the heels to stay together but try to be in a small V, landing each time with the heels down, rolling through the foot. And then open a little bit to a wide V, narrow V, wide V, both legs participating equally. Hold the wide V, parallel land, turnout. So we're gonna land in parallel then we land in turnout.

So again, using those rotators to make the change each time. One more time, come to neutral or center position, jumping if you're still comfortable here, we changed to a prance. Changing, changing each time, changing and changing. Remember, we're having fun, focus on your breath. You may find you need to breathe for each jump, you may find you breathe differently, that's okay.

One more time each side please, press out, land. Gently, roll to your side. Actually, we're gonna stay on our backs, we're not gonna roll to our sides. I would like you to put your head rest down though because we are going to move into short spine. So retrieve your straps, put your two feet in your straps and let's do some frogs, we use the breath.

Here, put some emphasis on keeping those ankles flexed, inhaling, and exhaling out. Now, if you feel that your heart rate is elevated a little bit, really try to use this opportunity to calm your breath. And one more time, two straight legs, point the feet, come up a bit and move into circles. Down first, and then around to the top position, enjoying that nice release through your hips and carving out, carving away or ironing out any hitches you might have in your hips. I find that the circles really helped me to wake up, get the cobwebs off in the morning if you will.

Reverse your circles here, come around to that bottom position heels together, inhale up through center and exhale around. If you're able to practice inhaling through your nose and maybe even out through your nose, hold your legs in the lower position and do a few openings, inhaling, wide, exhaling, pulling together. As you go wide, flex the ankles a bit, don't lose your straps. Point the feet as you pull in. One more time, opening wide and together now.

One leg will do a frog, the other leg opens to the side. The leg that's long initiates the work to pull back. Reverse, so other side, change sides. So the other leg goes out to the side, the long leg is the one where you're emphasizing the work. So keep going with that alternating, long leg, breathing and moving, long leg.

And one more time here please, long leg. And I kind of lied because I'm gonna have you do it one more time and then hold for a stretch please. So I've got my left leg out to the side, my right leg is in a frog position. I'm going to reach around, hold onto both straps but focus on the straight leg strap and really flex my ankle back and pull a little bit. And then I'm gonna bend the knee and straighten, flexing the ankle, getting a little bit of a release through the ankle there, bend the knee and straighten.

And one more time, we're gonna bend and straighten. So come in, press out to a frog position first. I'm sorry, come in to a frog, press out and then let's reverse sides. So you have one leg straight, one leg bent. Reach around and hold onto the straight leg one primarily and really pull back on that strap to create a little bit of a stretch in your inner thigh and also through your ankle.

Bend the knee, and straighten. Again, bend and straighten. One more time. Good, we'll bring the two legs in, stretch the back for a moment and then press out to straight. We're moving into short spine, so if you didn't lower your headrest before please make sure that you do.

And I always need to move away from the shoulder rest a little bit or I'll get stuck there. So bend the knees one time, press out to straight, the feet are pointed, we folded the hips. We press down through the arms and we roll ourselves up onto our shoulder blades. We bend the knees big, we roll down with control, flexing the ankles as you pull the legs through, press out to straight point. Repeat, folding at the hip, stretching the back, rolling up, bend the knees, rolling down, flex the ankles, pull through and press out.

One more time please, folding at the hips, you do you here though, if you need to modify, you can do the modified short spine. Find your breath. Gently bend your knees in, take one foot out, take the other foot out. Take a breath, flat on your back and then press to straight with your two legs up against the jump board. So another round of jumping here, we're gonna go right to it parallel, position, bend and press.

Ooh, let's put the head rest back up if you haven't done so already, it does make it a little easier to keep the connection to the core. And press, and press, and press. Try to really feel the landing, land, press. Beautiful, work your breath my friends, let's do a few more double legs parallel. And then shift to one leg, so I'm on one leg right now.

Now I want you to play with landing and turnout, landing and parallel, landing and turnout, landing and parallel. A few more like that. Good, my legs are definitely speaking to me a little bit, it feels great. Parallel, land, change legs. Do a few just nice and comfortable, and parallel focusing on your landing.

And then I'm gonna turnout and rotate to parallel. And please notice if your two legs feel different. I know my left leg is slightly more challenging. So doing these little changes amplifies that challenge for me. One more time please.

Back to neutral, and then changing and parallel changing. So just alternating, a couple more there. And then go to parallel jump, turnout, hold the turnout, small V turnout. Focus on your core and your breath, and then go to a wide V hold. Hold that wide V and keep jumping.

Now let's play with internal, external rotation here. So landing in neutral if that's better for you then landing in turnout, landing in a little internal rotation and a little turnout. If that works for your body, if it doesn't, just stay in neutral. For me, it feels really powerful on my legs. A couple more there.

Find your breath, and then hold parallel. Bring your legs closer together and let's finish it up with some prances or some changes change. Making sure you're sticking the landing each time that you're checking in with your abs, staying connected. One more on each side please. Gently, press your legs to straight, come all the way in and let's come on up.

Wow, I'm nice and zesty, hope you are as well. And for a little bit of arm work, we will be on one spring. So we'll come up to our kneeling position here, and you'll reach up and hold the ropes above the buckles. I want you to spend a few moments getting organized for your kneeling, really feeling abdominals and hamstring supporting the position really take the moments to get here. Exhale, pull those arms back, inhale, forward.

Exhale, pull those straight elbows back, straight arms really, but try to keep the elbow straight please. Remember to change your days whenever you'd like looking up, find your breath, make sure that the lookup provokes upper thoracic extension, not a low back breaking if you will, or opening. I don't want you to bend at your low back, that's a better way to put it. Last one here, good. Let's go ahead and sit on the fe....

You're gonna kneel with your feet, your butt on your feet. I got having a hard time saying that today. Okay, here we go, I'm kneeling. And then I'm going to reach in, and I'm gonna hold the straps. I'm gonna curl my pelvis and lean back a little bit like a low rider position, getting a nice little stretch in my quadriceps and then I'm gonna sit up.

So just practice that a couple of times, I'm curling the pelvis back or curling the pelvis underneath me to create a little flection. Nice stretch through my quads, it feels good. One more please. Turn the palms to face up, and we do bicep curls. So think abdominals first, bicep second.

See if you can really keep that beautiful little bit of flection. Just two more here. Make sure both biceps are in fact working equally. Good, and then just kneel sitting upright. So no more leaning back, hook your hands in that hook where you've got the straps around your wrists, and then you're holding with your fingers lightly and we'll do a low row pull pullback.

Opening through the heart. Good, and opening and looking. So use your eyes and really look all the way behind you if you're able to, and really feel that the movement begins with your upper back, not necessarily with your arms. Yes, one more each side, please. Wonderful, let's put the straps away.

And my friends, we have one more powerful round of jumping, so add that blue spring back on so we're on a red and a blue one more time. Lie back down, the headrest is still up, hopefully yours is. And we'll go through those same pieces we've been working on. Straight legs, right underneath your body or a little above, settle into your core here, bend and press. Again, find your breath.

Find the land, find your ability to push away from that landing position. Let's go ahead and go into a single leg. Add the turnout, turn in, find your flow. Turning out, landing, turning in or to neutral landing, one more time. Change legs, do a few in parallel.

Find your breath and then add that turnout. Land, parallel, land. Turnout, land, parallel, land. One more time. Turnout now, for me at least and then parallel.

Do a few changes here, just kind of getting back to it and then when you're ready, move into parallel double leg jump, and then a little turnout. So it's a little turnout , here land open, land narrow, land open, land narrow. So feel the hip rotators, really helping you manage this each time you land. So feel that rotation and land with it, good. Now keep yourself in the wide position, neutral to turnout, or a slight internal rotation if that suits your body.

Listen to your body, breathing. One more time wide, bring your legs together jumping in parallel, finish it off with some changes or prancing. Change, change. Now on this final jump pass here, see if you can get a little more power, a little more height, but still land gracefully. Let's do a handful more on each side, check in with your core, make sure it's engaged, find your breath.

One more on each side please. Gently take your two legs straight, come in and come back up. So let's do those arms again, but this time I challenge you to try to keep the spring as is so it's a bit more challenging. Bring your feet, oh, I'm sorry, your knees up against the shoulder rest again. If you need to lighten the spring, go for it.

You also can hold on to in a different place for chest expansion if needed. I'm going to go to the tapes above the buckles, and I'm gonna stand tall here. Lengthen through the low back, feel that lifting up through your whole body to straight elbows we go back, strong and powerful. Keep your gaze slightly up. Try to feel that you're nice and open through the heart the whole time, breathing and moving.

Slower pace if it needs to be for you, quicker pace if you feel ready to go today. One more time please, gently rest that. Bring the carriage to rest and then scooch back until your toes are just hanging off the edge again. Holding the straps with your hands, curl through your back, find that beautiful stretch through the front of your legs. Turn your palms up, bicep curls here.

Pretty zesty but this is a really nice challenge for the biceps. It's the main reason I like working with the heavier spring here, so I can challenge my biceps. Check in with your two biceps and make sure that they're both working, that you're challenging both of them through the entire range of motion. Let's do two more, and one more. Sitting tall, you're going to put your wrist now on the straps on your wrist.

Sitting tall, we revisit that rotation low row. And pulling back wide open. Remember, we're enjoying this, you can create a little bit of an energy with your pole or you can keep it slow and calculated, it's really up to you. Let's do one more on each side. I am feeling warm and wonderful, and gently rest that.

Beautiful, so now one red spring. Lighter spring, okay. We're gonna do a little sideline work, please make sure your headrest is up, okay. We're going to set ourselves so that the elbow is on the headrest. Okay, because it's up, I won't slip and slide.

And then I've just got my hand resting on the other side of the shoulder rest, that feels really nice for me. I want to create a little bit of lateral flection but I want to be supported. So I'm opening, stretching, but I'm lifting up as well. My top leg, it happens to be my left leg is on the bar. It's not a bar, it's a jump board, isn't it?

You can put your hand down to support. Just bend the knee a little bit and lengthen, and feel this position supported by your abdominals. Then you can add a little bit of a jump if you'd like. Now, if the jumping doesn't suit you, just practice bending and straightening. Now, if you'd like to add on with support from your core, we send the leg and the arm long.

So you're in an Arab bask, those of you that have a dance background. So the leg goes back, the arm reaches forward, there's a hint of rotation. Changing the gaze, landing, changing the gaze, landing. Two more please. And, I got turned around.

It happens, right? We're gonna come all the way into this stopper, roll to the other side, please and set up on the other side. So again, my elbow is resting right up against that elevated headrest. My right, start actually with your legs, just stacked and then kind of use your belly muscles but stretch your low spine, your underside a little bit, so you're looking for a little bit of lateral flection. Top leg goes onto the jump board, hold for a moment.

Your other hand is just resting on the frame at first, not the frame, but the carriage please. And you can press, and press. Now, if it doesn't feel good to you to jump here, you can just bend and straighten And press. Now you can add an extension of the arm and an Arab task of the leg, which means the leg goes back and in, back and in. So I'm thinking about turning my leg out as I go back and then landing in neutral alignment.

I can't say that I'm always good at that, especially as I'm talking about it. One more time please, and there we go. But remember my friends, this Pilates stuff, it's a practice, so continue to practice. We'll keep that same red spring and we'll come to a kneeling position once again, but this time facing the jump board with your knees a fair bit off. So I almost have my knees, not touching the jump board but close to the jump board in the low area.

Now we take the hands on the upper corners. I have this real wide board, so it's really nice 'cause you have a lot of options. You can still be on your upper corners if you don't have a wide board. Bend the elbows in as far as you can, just pay attention to where your head in your faces and press out. I'm endeavoring to have a neutral spine or a flat ish back here.

Now, if you feel comfortable in this position, try bringing your hands a little bit more supportive right on the corners and we're going to press out, and we're gonna land, press and land. So we're jumping with the arms. Now, if the jumping with the arms doesn't sound like a good idea to you, that's fine, just press out and in. But it's a nice little challenge for the upper body. Just make sure your head is in a position where you can see the bar, two more.

And then hold here for a moment, two straight arms. Walk your hands in, so they're pretty narrow or shoulder width, slightly narrower than shoulder width. Allow your elbows to bend down in the direction of touching the jump board if you're able to, and then press out. I'm a little too narrow, so you're gonna try to touch the jump board with your elbows and then you're gonna press out, and again. So that's a good tricep exercise, really working on elbow flexibility.

One more time please. Gently come on in here. Beautiful, let's just come to standing for just a quick moment. Shake those legs out, I've been on my knees for a little while and I'm gonna take my arms up stretching just a little bit here. Go back to that very first thing we did where one arm goes down, one arm goes up, stretching the side body, and changing sides.

And two arms up, roll yourself down just like we did at the very beginning of class. Have a seat, and we're going to move into the mermaid. So I'm gonna keep this spring the same for the mermaid, still one red spring. If you find that you need to lighten the spring, you certainly can. Do spend a couple moments pressing into your, thinking about your front leg here before we get into it, and use your hands to kind of press that leg down.

And squirm around a little bit to see if you can feel any sticky spots that you can loosen up. De fuzz if you will, get the cobwebs off the hips. And then let's settle ourselves with the arm on the jump board, the other arm just resting. Try to sit equally on both sides of your pelvis, inhale to reach away. Now I do have my hand, is wrapped around for stability here and for comfort.

Hold this reach position for a moment, be mindful of your shoulder. Bend your elbow, try to touch the elbow to the jump board and press out. Yes, three times there. Very difficult for me at least, and press out. Stay here, rotate around, hook with your other hand and enjoy a beautiful little mermaid stretch.

So I'm hooking the hand that reached and I'm leaning into that straight arm to get more stretched through my back body. I want you to be curious about this position and let it be what you need it to be. Good, and then we unwind and we gently come on in. And we'll simply swivel to the other side. So spend a few moments setting up and enjoying this position please, enjoying what's happening in one or both legs.

For me I put a little more emphasis on my front leg and I'm swirling around, loosening up my hip for a moment. And then place your hand, straight out from your shoulder and sit for a couple moments, feel the shoulder. Reach into lateral flection, hold for a moment. Bend the elbow, try to touch the elbow to the jump board and press out. So really working on elbow bend here, pressing it in and out.

One more time. Hold, straight arm, rotate around with the other arm, give a hook with the fingers, lean into that arm, enjoy that stretch. Breathing in, and breathing out. Unwind, gently come on in and let's move into some back extension. We now need our boxes.

We'll take the box, and we'll put it on, long box please. So a little bit of wrist stretching and some creative stuff happening here. So you're going to climb up on your box and it's a little tricky because of where the jump board is but you want to try to find your placement, and then use your hands and press out. So I still have a red spring, you certainly could change the spring if you wanted to. See if you can place your hands, so that they are flat.

It's like you're in a handstand here, it's a nice way to practice being on your hands really. Hover your legs a little bit, hollow your belly and supporting and allow your shoulders to elevate and then soften into place. So I don't want you to pull them down, I just want you to lift them and let the spring bring them back where they need to be. So it's an elevation of the shoulders pushing away and then a settling, right? And then take your hands just a little wider and then try bending the elbows, elbows go straight down and press out.

So elbows go straight down and press out. Now take your hands a little lower. So here's where you're gonna get a much bigger wrist stretch, right? If you have those hands lower, and when you bend, you're getting a little bit of a shoulder stretch and then a wrist stretch, a deeper wrist stretch. Bend and stretch, and just one more time bend and stretch.

Now we're gonna take those hands high up on the jump board. Keep the elbow straight, let the spring assist you lifting to a beautiful back extension and lower down, so you can lift as high as it feels good. Inhaling to upper back extension and then full extension, slight downward press with the arms, try to keep the elbows straight. Just two more here. One more time please, find your breath.

Good, gently bend your elbows, bring your carriage all the way to rest and slowly climb off of your reformer. So we're going to finish with some lovely stretches. I'm coming around to this side so you can see me better if you need to. You're going to start with your leg in front of you in like a pigeon shape, and your other leg is behind you. So you're using the box as a tool to allow yourself to rest.

So I want to really put my weight on my front leg, at any time I can lift my back leg. So my back leg is just available to me. Place one hand on your foot, the other hand on your knee thigh area and try to swirl around and push the whole leg down, so my thigh and my shin are grounded and then I'm using my back leg and my body to kind of swirl around and find a stretch. Once you find something that needs to be stretched, stay for a few moments, breathe, soften your eyes perhaps. Rock around a little bit, breathing in and breathing out.

Now, bring your body upright a little bit, move your pelvis so it's at the very back edge of your box but that you feel supported. So I'm split now, and let the leg be more open. So it's not straight, but it's open. Same rules, I'm gonna put my hand or my elbow down on my thigh area, my other hand is on my foot and I'm swirling around trying to find some stretch. And now I found my stretch.

This is not about making a perfect shape my friends, this is about sensation. So find what you need, breathe and soften. And then we come up again. Now, those of you that are taller we'll have your foot hanging off and might have to adjust a little bit, but you're going to try to take that leg now straight and rest it on that box, completely rested. My back leg is gonna walk back a little, so I'm in a bit of a split.

And then again, I want to kind of swirl around, use my hands on the box to maybe lean forward, maybe lean to the side. Maybe I'm gonna point and flex my foot. It's up to you. Doesn't need to look pretty, it needs to feel like a good idea. And then we'll bring our bodies upright, keeping the same shape, reach your hands up to the ceiling, push into the back foot and try to lengthen the legs.

So you might walk it back more and then open your heart and bend back just a little. One more time. And slowly we come out of that, and we do the other side. So settle right into that pigeon type shape with your front leg. The other leg is just comfortable.

Then swirl around, stretch, release. You're using your hands to help ground down through the leg. And I really don't want you to manage this stretch, I want you to just feel what feels good to you, maybe by letting your head hang one way or swirling your pelvis, or rocking a little bit you'll find something that needs to be stretched. And then we come up, we slide the body back a little bit so that the leg is now more open. So we're in an open straight ish leg.

Straight ish leg, very funny ways of saying this right now but so here I want you to think of pressing down through your thigh, use your back leg in whatever way you need. And the interesting thing is your legs are very different, you might find that this one you want to go somewhere completely different than you did on the other side. So I'm really going to encourage you to play with what feels good in your body. Breathing in my friends and breathing out. And then change to a straighter leg.

So I've got my leg pretty straight out in front of me, my other foot is sort of walking its way back a little bit. And then I want to, again, swirl around and figure out what kind of hamstring stretch feels good. Maybe I'll pull back on my foot, maybe it'll rotate around and get into the side body a little more. But do explore letting your head relax, letting your shoulders relax, letting things be very different than what we're used to sometimes. Breathing in and breathing out.

And then bring yourself to an upright position, walk your back leg back a little so you're in a nice lunge split type position. Take your arms up and look up, reaching, reaching, reaching forward. One more time, look up reaching and forward. And then gently and very carefully come out of that. And let's just finish standing together here.

Palms are open, heart is open. Close your eyes and breathe in, feel your feet grounded, exhale. Feel light through the crown of the head, breathing in and breathing out. And one more breath opening your eyes if they were closed. And I thank you all so very much for playing, I'll see you next week.