Magic Circle Connections

Hey everybody, welcome to class. I'm glad you're here, you showed up, that's the hardest part sometimes. Let's get started. We are using the magic circle today. Gonna run through some pretty straightforward mat, might throw in a few Reformer modifications in there as well.

So let's go ahead and well, let's start with that roll down that I always like to do. Turn whichever way you want, but ground your feet into the floor. They're parallel, you're just feeling your body over yourself, you're over the floor, connected to the ground. Take a little lean forward, a lean back and just see where maybe tension is. Maybe you need to let go of something.

Maybe you're a little wobbly. Just notice it, that's all really we need to do right now. From that point, we just take an inhale, exhale let everything go further. You're balanced in the middle at this point. Inhale again and exhale.

This time take your arms with you. Reach way up, fill up, decide what you're going to do with the hour or really about 45 minutes, exhale. Let's go again, inhale. (Kristi inhales deeply) And exhale, next time we exhale we'll do that actual roll down. Here it comes, inhale and exhale.

Start letting your head draw your upper back forward. Draw your middle back forward, we're not leaning back, we're just heading towards the floor. From here with I bend my knees, significantly taking the curve of the spine, exhale, straighten them. Inhale bend, exhale straighten them just one more time. Inhale bend, exhale straighten, hold it there.

If you need to bend your knees, you may. We're going back up, inhale and exhale, draw your body right back over itself. And here we go, take a seat on your mat. I'm going to start right away with the ring between the knees. So, it may force your knees a little bit further apart than normal, that's gonna have to be okay.

If it gets too uncomfortable, you can always remove the ring. So from here, sit as tall as you can. For this very first one, I'm going to push my feet away from me a little bit, holding on to my knees, sitting really tall, right up on those sits bones. Not so much that I'm arching my back though. In fact, there's a subtle sense of a curve there, subtle.

From here we're just going to lightly squeeze the ring and try to connect to our abdominals or front of the body. Exhale one, again, two, three and maybe keep going, with each small contraction imagine getting taller. (Kristi exhales heavily) Not too much trying just yet. And that'll be enough, hold a light squeeze. You may need to scoot your hips forward or your feet back, we are rolling down, to do some pelvic curls with this ring.

Draw your feet in or where it feels comfortable. Adjust the ring whenever you need to and off we go. Inhale, exhale, start to squeeze the ring, peel the hips up, up, up, up, you're reaching the knees over the feet and then looking for that long luscious line of your body, where it feels like a nice stretch already. Inhale hold and from the top of your back roll down. Just sort of imprinting the bones back into the mat.

You can lighten up on the ring at the bottom. In fact, stay here, let's do those three squeezes down here. Exhale squeeze for one. See if you can connect to the middle. There's three hold, inhale, exhale.

Go ahead and peel up, bone by bone. All the way. All the way. That ring's a little tighter up there, isn't it? Let's squeeze here three times. One, two, connecting to the hamstrings, three hold, inhale and place yourself back down.

Roll yourself back down further than where you started. You're all the way there, lighten up on the ring. Squeeze three times down here just light, it's just, oh, there I am. Three, inhale, exhale roll up. (Kristi exhaling heavily) Ooh. They're getting wobbly already on me.

Inhale and here's those three squeezes. One, there's two, three, inhale, exhale down. (Kristi exhaling heavily) Let's do two more like that. (Kristi inhaling deeply) And one, two, three, hold. Take the big inhale, subtle rolling up.

See when you get up here at the top, when you do the squeezes, how little can you do to connect to the middle of your body? Here's the three, there's two, one, hold. Check your shoulders, you're not building tension right now, are you? All the way down. Last one coming up, here's three, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze hold, inhale and scoop deep into the belly, all the way up.

Stand on your feet a little bit more. Maybe encourage more of a pelvic tuck or curl and three, two, one, roll yourself down. And you can lighten up on the ring for a second. Bring your arms straight up over your shoulders, I go palms together and just reach to the ceiling, fingertips to the ceiling, wrap those shoulders around you and let them drop. Do it again, just kind of loosening up there a little bit and feeling the difference, when your collarbones are straight, that's when they're down and last one, keep them down.

From there, reach the arms way out to the side, not quite to the floor though. Reach them further so you almost get that neural stretch across the arm and maybe the chest and bring them back up, exhale. You can squeeze the ring a little more there. Inhale, reach it wide, almost to the floor, almost. Stretch out those pecs right now and exhale up.

One more time. (Kristi inhaling deeply) And up. This time when we go down, we're going to reach first and then set them on the ground. So your arms are fully on the ground. Bring your knees in closer and up. And we're going to the window to the front.

We inhale to rotate, that opposite hip lifts. Squeeze three, here they come again. One, two, three, hold and back to center. Other side, inhaling over, just kind of hold that inhale, squeeze, two, three, exhale, draw back to center. Again, you don't have to use the ring.

We're just adding to our regular exercise, trying to add some assistance. (Kristi exhaling heavily) More connection, to the back. Squeeze one, belly, belly and center. One more each way please. (Kristi breathing deeply) Center, last one, over and squeeze, two, three.

Come back to center, set your feet down comfortably, but relatively close, glide those hands behind your head. Lace the fingers together. From here, think of your hands as a pillow as much as you can and then allow the elbows to float off the mat. Inhale, we're doing a chest lift. Exhale, a mild squeeze on the ring, it helps actually.

Curl your head, neck and shoulders up, looking through that ring. Inhale, head is still kinda resting back in the hands. Exhale come down and again, just loosening up here. Exhale curl, up, up, up, up, up. Inhale and exhale down. And again.

(Kristi breathing deeply) Hold it. And down. Let's see if we can stretch ourselves out a little more. So we go up again. (Kristi exhales heavily) Reach the arms forward, grab the back of your legs, squeeze a little bit more on the ring, pull yourself higher. Now keep that height, take the arms up, put them right back behind your head, it's a pillow and down.

We'll just do one more of those. Curl it up. (Kristi exhales heavily) Reach for your legs, feel more of a stretch. It's not really high, it's more curl. Inhale, the arms go up, put them back, stay here, go to the front, to the window.

Inhale, to the back. Knees and ring are not going side to side. You're keeping them still. (Kristi exhales heavily) And (Kristi exhales heavily) Think of almost lifting higher as you go through the middle. I'm basically just aiming my shoulder toward my hip.

(Kristi exhales heavily) One more each way. (Kristi exhales heavily) Here it comes. (Kristi exhales heavily) Back to the center and let your body rest. Bring your knees in, take your little stretch. Hoo hoo hoo.

And the ring comes out, the legs stretch out nice and long. So far so good? All right, you know where the shoulders are to start. We're doing a roll up right here. So you look forward, curl yourself up and stay in this nice lifted curl.

So your shoulders are over your hips. The ring right now is just more for spacing, honestly. And take it back down, down, down. You could go all the way back with the reach. Inhale, look through that ring, follow the ring.

Exhale, come up, reaching forward. Take a moment here, reach really forward. Then pull those front hip bones back and drop those shoulders a little bit. Hold that sense of control and take it back down. And reach, we'll go ever so slightly faster.

Inhale, start the exhale. (Kristi exhales heavily) Reaching. Inhale, start rolling back. Deepen your exhale as you go down, deepen your contraction. And inhale. (Kristi exhales heavily) Stretch it.

It's like you're making this beautiful shape of yourself. (Kristi exhales heavily) And again, inner thighs glued together as if you had a bunch of tiny magic circles in between the thighs. (Kristi exhales heavily) Take it back. Just one more. (Kristi exhales heavily) Stretch it, then just sit up tall, place the ring between your knees again. I'm sorry, your ankles.

What was I thinking? And roll yourself back. Knees come with you, so they're up in the air. All right. Take a moment, hug your knees in, let's do just a little bit of rocking here. Hold onto the knees, little rocking.

Yup. Okay. Hang down at the bottom here, we're gonna do the hundred. So arms just straight up for now. Exhale, just leave your knees for now. Curl up (Kristi exhales heavily) and we'll go inhale, two, three, four, five, squeeze two, three, four, five.

Inhale two, three, four, five, squeeze two, three, four, five. Inhale, now stretch it out two, three, four, five bend and out, I'm squeezing pretty much on the exhale a little more, in. And out. And in. And keep it out there and inhale two, three, four, five, exhale, make it figures. And in. And squeeze.

Two more in. And out. And in. And out. Woo hoo, bend the knees. Head goes down, shake it out. Whatever you need to do.

We're going into the rollover. Stretch those legs up. Adjust your ring if needed. And it goes like this, inhale. Start the exhale, lift, curl it, reach it over.

Keep some space in your body. Inhale. Exhale. Squeeze as you come on down and by squeeze it's again, it's kinda light. You can lower the legs a little bit, inhale bring them back to 90, little squeeze to help you up and over. Maybe flex the feet here.

Inhale, exhale and you can drop the legs a little as you come down, get a little extra stretch there. Point, inhale to 90, exhale up over. Flex close and down. Stretch, reaching your spine further on the mat than you started. Let's do two more. Up and over.

What are your arms doing right now? Check it out. Are your wrists flat? Can you make them so? If not, it's okay, but work on it. Flex your feet, lower them.

And down we come. Last one. Inhale 90, exhale up and over. Try to look straight up, not at your abs, flex, lower, down we come. Woo hoo, you can take the ring out. Hug your knees to your chest.

And now let's place the ring behind our head. Not our neck, that's a key thing. So right where that occipital ridge is, right where it sort of drops down. That's about where you're gonna want it. I'm going to do a little bit of legs in straps without the straps.

So let this ring be your pillow. Elbows are up just like they were before in the chest lift. You don't have to squeeze much. If anything, you're gonna pull up and let your head drop back. Here we go. Curl your head, neck and shoulders up.

Turn your feet out, like a frog, flex them. And off we go, we press out one, pull it in, press out two, pull it in, three. We'll do six, four, five, reaching here, six, hold it, point the toes, bring them up, straight legs, keep them that way. Circle down, out and up. Two. (Kristi exhales heavily) Exhale three, four, five.

Check your tension, six, stop. Reverse it, take it up, out and around. Reversing two, three, keeping your back still, four. Hm hm. La la. And then from there, take the legs straight up, remove the ring, just keep it above your chest.

Turn the legs out and separate your legs wide. You can squeeze the ring, you don't have to. Flex and bring them straight back up. Point, reach long wide, flex bring it up. Three. Four.

Can you be longer? You could bring your head up if you wanted to. I think that was six, but I'm gonna do another one anyway. Ha ha. Bend your knees in and place the ring, nah, don't place the ring. Just hold onto your knees and rock and roll again.

Rock and roll. Rock and roll. Sit yourself up. Voila. For the moment, just set the ring nearby. Turn yourself around or come up to your knees. We're gonna stretch out those hip flexors after all that.

I'm placing my right foot forward, kind of far forward. And then I'm about to head into a hip flexor stretch. So just make sure you're not right on top of the knee. Kneecap. Start yourself out with success. You're gonna take a bit of a posterior tuck.

It's not gonna look tucked at the end, but some of us will already feel a stretch right now. I do. You want more, you keep that, just shift your body forward. Allowing not just the stretch of the hip but maybe even a stretch of the abdominals. Who knows, right? And breathe. Enjoy.

Ooh. Ever get those pops and cracks just for sitting here? Feels good. Ah. And then let's just switch feet. Switch legs. Other leg forward. Not right on the kneecap 'cause we know we're gonna shift forward still more. Body is towards that posterior tuck.

Theoretically, relatively square hips. And we inch our way, slide our away, glide our way, into a nice stretch. When you feel like you've gone as far as you want to, see what you can offer yourself by adding in an arch. Yeah. Definitely not just releasing into your back, right? You got to hang onto that, that body is towards the posterior tuck.

Whew. Keep right on. And come back out of that. Come back to your seated position. And we are heading into open leg rocker. Shall we do it with a ring?

Yeah. Might as well. Open leg rocker, so you can just take yourself, you're sitting tall, you've rolled back ever so slightly to where you can float your legs. Place the ring, or you could skip the ring, hold on behind, extend your legs. Oh boy, here we go. Roll it back.

Exhale, roll it up and hold. You'll figure it out. It's a little different, right? You'll figure it out, it might be wobbly. It might all of a sudden feel heavy and pull you forward.

But basically we're trying to stay where we start, with the mild exception of straightening out that upper back at the top. That almost puts the brakes on for you, doesn't it? Back and up. Woo. Back. And up. Giving you one more, enjoy it.

Try to relax into it. (Kristi exhales heavily) Okay, just bend your knees, you can take out the ring. We'll go into a spine stretch, starting it with the ring on it's end. So you got hands side by side, on the handle. Sit tall, on the inhale, gently press down on the ring so that you can feel the opposition of the spine, go up.

Exhale, curl forward. As you press on the ring. It's okay to let the ring kinda tilt forward, but you might just have to move it out a little. And then come back up. Inhale, little press, exhale.

(Kristi exhales heavily) Stretch, stretch, stretch. Now put it down and give yourself that same sense as if the ring was there. Inhale tall, feet are flexed, exhale, go forward. You'll be able to go further now. Further, further and then just inhale back up.

Think of expelling all your air, folding into yourself as you stretch forward, squeezing out the air, then it's easy to just pop back up. Let's go. (Kristi exhales heavily) And up. One more time. Sort of. (Kristi exhales heavily) You know that means somethings similar, but different.

Just rotate your arms so they're rotated. They're facing each other and we are going down again, but this time, we're going to extend the spine on that diagonal, with the arms right alongside the ears, reaching into it, then exhale round forward and come back up, let's do it again. Inhale. And exhale round it forward. Round it forward. Go, go, go hold back at the pelvis.

Then here's the beauty, start at the tailbone, through the low back, through the middle back, lean in on that diagonal, watch the ribs, don't thrust them for you flexible folks. Exhale we round and come back up. We'll do two more like that. Exhale. (Kristi exhales heavily) So we go from this really kind of intense flexion, into this long back extension. If your arms are up by your ears, you should be able to look underneath your arms rather than over, exhale round and come back up.

Last one, again, sort of. Go forward. I like to press down on the backs of my legs here into the ground, it helps me. Opposition, stay up here, thumbs are pointed backward toward the ceiling and just pull the upper arms back 10, nine, eight, lean into it. Seven, six, flexed feet.

Four, three, two, one, hold it, reach it. And round forward, you can just hang out down there. Ooh, I hope you feel your upper back like I do. And roll up, we'll just leave the ring out of this next one. The saw. Everybody's favorite.

Again, I think of the air. Get it out. So, with the arms out to the side, towards the front, we inhale we rotate first, today going for a little more extension than flexion. Exhale, reach out, so the back is sort of flat. Reach that back arm, sit back up and center.

Inhale, rotate. Exhale, reach. I do turn the hand, but it's up to you. I kind of think of pushing something heavy on my hand up there to help get that air out. Here we go. Inhale and exhale. Sit up tall and rotate center.

Almost mechanical sometimes, when we do it this way. (Kristi exhales heavily) Up and center. Rotate and reach. And up and center. Rotate, reach. It's feeling good so I am doing two more. One, sometimes that's what you have to do it.

Feels good. Let's do more of that. Not just 'cause it's easy, 'cause it's not. Right, there we go. Let's keep it here, hands go back, ring just out of your way a bit and you can keep your feet wide, it's fine. I'm just getting a little stretch through the chest and shoulders.

Fingers face your hips, if you can. If not, they can go sideways. We draw into the hamstrings, we lift our bodies up. Ha. And then hinge back down, you can raise the arms. Place them again, up we go.

Yeah. Down and lift. Hands back. Lift up. No need to drop your head behind you. Last one. Dare I say that? Who knows? Okay.

From here, take your ring in your hands, close your feet, flex them. Squeezing the ring right next to you, all we're doing is exhaling to squeeze the ring out in front as you grow taller. Relax and bring it in. Squeeze to grow taller. Relax and bring it in, one more.

Squeeze to grow taller. Now you can stay here, squeeze it and we're just going to rotate to the front with two exhales, spine twist. (Kristi exhales heavily) Center. Other way. (Kristi exhales heavily) You're pumping the air out. Watch the shoulders, collarbones are still wide.

You're not squeezing this ring so hard. You're not going for chest, only. (Kristi exhales heavily) Now then, remember how we went out front? Let's do a few like that. You squeeze it as hard as you want to, but it's not a big deal.

To the front. (Kristi exhales heavily) Center. (Kristi exhales heavily) Try not to let the arms get ahead of your chest. One more time. And to prove it, take your arms up. You can bend them if you want, but if you do, make it like a halo, otherwise they're up and four more, twist, twist. I'm not squeezing them from up here, just too hard.

(Kristi exhales heavily) One more. I'd fall out of form, surely. Okay, relax that. We're turning over onto our bellies, for just a little single leg kick and the ring in this case, I'm just putting my elbows at the handles and squeezing a little bit, just to give me that sense of yes, I'm about to work my back body, but also want the sense of the front. Hold the ring or just let your hands be free. We are lifted, our shoulders are down.

We reach the legs so far, they hover and pick a leg, it's inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale. Switching, switching. It's kick, kick, (Kristi exhales heavily) inhale, inhale, (Kristi breathing heavily) Ooh, I forgot to squeeze the ring. Use it. Make yourself feel tall. (Kristi breathing heavily) Last set. (Kristi breathing heavily) Cool. Take the ring behind your back, turn your cheek to one side and for this again, it's not gonna be a huge squeeze of the ring, I'm just taking hold down to the handles, head is down, elbows are down as much as possible.

Draw the belly up, hover the lees, we kick one, two, three, stretch everything. Imagine squeezing the ring, turn the other way. Squeeze, elbows down, one, two, three and stretch. Again, squeeze one, squeeze two, three. Legs stay up the whole time, use them.

(Kristi exhales heavily) Last two. Hm hm hm. Isn't this fun? Stay there, put the tops of the feet down. You don't have to squeeze, but do lift. Lower your chest a little actually and then lift the ring, lift the arms, lift the arms, lift the arms, reach for the heels, lift the arms, up, up and up.

Right. Relax that. Bring the ring in front of you, just sit back, on your heels. Stretching out those arms. (Kristi breathing heavily) Okie-dokie, here we go. Take the ring and place it between your ankles, please.

We're going to go into side lying. Aiming to have the knees face front, rather than one up to the ceiling. So sometimes you have to just take some time to adjust. And then we're off. Lying all the way down.

Don't worry too much about lifting the waist off the mat, but do engage it that side. Engage everything as if you were really trying to get longer, that ought to do it. Front hand is down, knees face forward and all we're doing is pressing down and hold, two, three. Top leg presses down, one, two, three. See, imagine your legs started at your chest, three.

Two, three and four. Two, three (Kristi exhales heavily) Call it at six and do 10 singles here. One, don't fully release it, two, three, four and five, six, out of 10, eight, nine and 10. Okay. Now then, the tricky part, we'll see if we can do it. We roll the ring forward enough, oh boy oh boy.

Slippery up here tonight, tonight, today, whatever. And then see if you can pull that bottom leg out. I don't know if I'm going to make it yet. Pull that bottom leg out and pin that handle down. So your top leg can be free.

Put it inside, ankle at that other handle. Again, your lower leg works a bit here. It's pressing and holding down, as now, the top leg presses up. Hold three, two, one, maintain contact but lighten up, do it again. Two, two, three and three.

Try not to roll that knee up. If anything, slightly down would probably be better. Think that's four, and five. Six. Here comes those 10 singles, enjoy. One, two, three and four, five and six and seven and eight and nine and 10.

Fabulous. Alrighty. We're going to do our best to just turn over and place the ring between our ankles, again. Can we do it? We might have to sit up for this one. I want to see if I can be fancy and then just turn.

Or sit up, put it there. It's not any easier to be honest, but rest your forehead on your hands. Kind of back to where we were a moment ago almost. We draw the belly up. Almost, almost clearing them out, almost.

Bring the heels closer to your bum than you may think they are. I'm looking for 90, but maybe even a little more. Then hover the knees and let's just squeeze the entire inner the seam of the leg together, two, three, four, six, seven and eight, nine and 10. Now, see if you can, again, keep contact with the pubic bone, but lift your knees higher, squeeze and stretch the legs out, you're squeezing hard. Let it come down, relax a little.

Bend, squeeze the ring, lift the knees high, stretch them out, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Relax everything, bring, bend the knees, squeeze them together, lift high, stretch it out. Can we do one more? Sure. Bend, squeeze, lift, stretch. Woo hoo. And release.

Okay, we're gonna go around to the other side. I'm going to sit up and just start over. If you're really fancy, you could just swing with the ring in between, but I'm not feeling that coordinated. Okay, you know the deal, lie down. I guess check your hips are stacked too.

Sometimes it's really easy to fall back that way. Off we go, we press hold one, two, three and release. Two, two, three. Start that exhale a split second before you move, it's just a really good rule of thumb to make sure everything stays connected fully, four. And five. Here's six.

And now those 10, right? Little pulses down, two, three, four and five, six, eight, nine, 10. Okay. Reach or roll the ring forward enough hopefully, that you can pull that lower leg out. Bottom leg goes in, oh, she almost made it. Almost made it. All right.

I'm not gonna worry about the handles part, so that the top leg can go through. And off we go, we press up hold, two, three. Slight release, two, get longer in the waist both sides. Three. And four. Five. Six, here comes the 10.

One, two, aim the outer thigh to the ceiling. Four or five. (Kristi exhales heavily) Eight-ish, nine-ish, ten-ish, get that last one if you didn't. Okay. That was that, right? All right, take it out.

Well done. Turn on to your tummy for the moment. Actually just push yourself up, take a little breather there and then we're going into the front support. I'm just going to leave the ring where it is. Hands out a little bit beyond shoulder distance. Step one leg back, flex those toes, curl them under, other leg back, we're nice and strong and we're just gonna lift one leg up for six.

One, way up, two, keep it straight, three, four, come on, five, strong arms, six, switch and one, two, work from the high glute. And take it down. Bend your knees for a moment. We're just going to start to practice the push up, just a little bit, almost there. So this one, the ring is gonna end up mid sternum.

So you kinda have to adjust it for comfort. Shouldn't knock the wind out of you. It's just a nice way to start thinking about how we can get into those push-ups, more easily. Place one hand is down of course and then place the ring, it's gonna be loose at the start. Especially when you go back into that front support position, then try to get your shoulders over your hips.

I didn't mean that, your shoulders over your hands. From here, you bend the elbows straight down, ride the ring down. Oh and then let it help you back up. Whew. It's amazing how much that helps, but really it's almost just so you know where to go. Here's three, we'll do six.

(Kristi exhales heavily) Four, (Kristi exhales heavily) five, keep those shoulders out of your ears. (train horn honking) Six, woo hoo, bend it. (Kristi exhales heavily) I miss the train. I haven't seen the train in a while. All right, it's back extension time.

So, taking your ring, placing it on it's end. This one's could be challenging if you have really tight shoulders. So if you do and you can't place your hands on the ring, I have them just outside the handle. Some of you will be able to do even hand over hand. I'm going to go just outside.

If that doesn't work for you, you can do the same exercise without the ring and your hands wide and you're just gonna lift. Okay? Off we go. For the moment, put your head as low as you can. Not just by hanging it, but lower your chest and everything so you get that maximum shoulder extension. From here. I meant flexion, for those of you who're gonna write it.

Here we go, draw the shoulders down, but you're not pressing on the ring more than you have to. Start to look through it, lift up, peel your spine up, your chest up, however you look at it. When you get as far as you can, you can apply a little more pressure on the ring, to take you higher. Then, lighten up on the ring and lower yourself down. Here we go.

Minimize the use of the ring until you need it. Then take it, the legs are straight and strong. And down. They can be together, I have mine slightly apart. And looking forward, looking forward, make the back muscles do it.

If you just want it more, you can push and lower down. One more time. To get to where you think you can hold it without the ring. And lighten up on the ring, don't drop your body, press down, one, two, straight arms, three, four, body still, five we'll do 10, six, seven yes, eight, nine and 10 and lower yourself all the way down. Woo, you can release the ring.

Help yourself up, round back. Breathing into your back. When you're ready, just roll yourself up and come to a seated position, however it's comfortable for you. I'm going to go cross-legged. You could even kneel, if you can do stand, just anything, but really we just want to take these last few breaths to recognize that we took time for ourselves, that we touched on every aspect of our body basically.

We moved ourselves with the breath and let's do that a little bit more consciously in the class, inhale, filling up. And as you exhale, let go of any tension, the muscles just kind of melt off your bones. There's an idea. And inhale. (Kristi breathing deeply) If you need to shake something out, shake something out, if you felt like you collected tension you didn't mean to. And inhale (Kristi inhales deeply) and out then finally, let's just take the arms up with us, just inhaling, inhaling.

Look up, exhale, letting anything go you want to, so that you can take off and do what else you really want to. Thanks for being here.