Ground to Grow

Hi, welcome to class two of "Pilates Bliss on the Mat." My name is Regina, and in this class we explore the pushes and pulls of our practice while remaining aware of our two-way stretch. Remember, you are creative, resourceful, and whole. And by using resources like the mat and this magic circle will deepen your practice and find growth in grounding. And once again, if an exercise doesn't work for you, please skip it and honor your body. Now, take your magic circle and let's get to it.

We're gonna start standing. I'm gonna have you hold onto one end of the circle. Place it down on the floor carefully with control. Now use your stomach muscles, pull the belly in and lift one leg up and place it gently on top of the circle. Place both hands behind your head, or if you really up for the balance, reach your arms overhead.

See this two-way stretch here? I hope you can. Now you're gonna push down into the circle gently from your stomach and then lift. So we're grounding down. I'm gonna place my hands behind my head.

Again, we're grounding down into the circle to find the two-way stretch, right? So you'll be able to tell if you're pressing too much into the circle and overusing your legs because the circle's gonna go out from underneath you. So you wanna find the control from your center. And remember, Pilates is a whole body workout. And I'm not gonna turn too much to the camera right now because I might lose my balance.

But I want you to stay with me and pull the belly in. Now you've got your hands behind your head. I want you to push the back of your head into your hands to find your back, right? So use your resources. Remember, this class is about using what we have to connect to our center and connect to our body.

Now round forward with control. And you're gonna switch legs. So hold on, take balance and breathe, pull the belly in. And working on your balance is immediately getting your core nice and strong. So you switch size hands behind your head or reaching up overhead.

Now find your two-way stretch. So this leg I'm gonna show you with my arms overhead, finding that double leg stretch, that ultimate Pilates exercise here. I hope you can see it. I can feel it reaching. And I'm also grounding down obviously in the standing leg.

And I'm rooting down in my legs like a tree. And when I do that, I get longer in my spine and I can get even more lift. Let's do three more. Releasing any tension that you don't need and then finding that centeredness and strength. Reach down and then now come back up with control.

Hold onto your circle and just come to the mat, any way works for you with control, I'm gonna have you lie down on your back. And some of these you've probably seen before, but it's always good to get a reminder. We're gonna do our 100 with the circle. So I'm gonna keep my knees bent here, hands on top of the shins, lift the head and the shoulders up, finding my two-way stretch as I reach the legs out and away and bring my arms down by the sides. And I'm gonna start with my pumps in through the nose, and then out through the nose.

You keep counting on your own while I talk you through finding the grounding here. Obviously the circle's gonna help me find my inner thighs, but I also want you to think about your seat, your pelvic floor, right? 'Cause your legs are connected to your core. This is a whole body workout, so find your body. I also want you to feel what's going on behind you.

Press your back down into the mat, that mid back, that lower back down into the mat. And feel how when you press down, you really engage your abdominals and you find a strong center breathing in and exhaling. How about a few more for me? 'Cause I love it, right? (laughs) Last one and all right, release. Now I'm gonna have you come up to sit.

If you're at home and you don't have a dowel, you can use your circle to find your back. So I like to do it this way where my hands are through the circle and I have a slight bend of my elbows and I'm pulling against the circle. And of course if we do have a mat and you've got your feet under the straps, that really helps you ground down in your legs. And we're gonna do our roll up. So arms overhead, stay connected, find the two-way stretch, lift the head in the shoulders and come up one bone at a time.

Stomach is pulling in. Pull against the circle to find the the upper back. Push down into your legs, lift ahead on the shoulders up, and stretch. Remember I mentioned there's always a push and pull in Pilates, right? Which is why I love it so much.

It's such a thorough practice. There's no stone left unturned in our bodies. Let's do a couple more, lifting up, inhaling, exhaling, and stretching. And we roll down. Last one here, and breathing.

And then now I want you to stay down on your back, release your legs from the straps and hold onto your dowel. So now I'm talking to the folks with the dowel, you're reaching your arms in. So bring your legs overhead. Now I want you to use the dowels on the side of your mat. Push into the dowels to find your back.

And you flex your feet and you roll down and you bring your legs together and lift them up overhead. For me, the flex in the foot helps me deepen the stretch in your back. So I hope you find that. And one more this way. Open out, push.

Now use your mat. Can you feel your spine going down one bone at a time as well. Let's go the other way, open out and up and close. Push into the dowels to flex your feet and pull the waist in. We'll do two more.

Keep your neck long. Push into the dowels to find that resistance. Last one here. And feel your spine rolling on the mat. Now keep the right leg up in the air and push the left leg down into the ground or your mat.

Now I want you to start the movement by pushing down into the bottom leg, down and around and up. I hope you can feel how that connects you to your whole body here, right? Because we don't ever wanna just isolate one body part in contrology, which is the practice of Pilates that I like to promote. We wanna engage the whole body. Okay, now let's go the other way.

Push down into the standing leg and then to make that circle, push down into the leg to draw the circle. We've got three more here, down and around and up. And two, last one. Push the other leg down to lift the other leg up again to connect to your body, down and around. My pushing into the dowels is helping me find the two-way stretch.

And that two-way stretch is helping me connect to my center. Yeah, we'll do one more here and let's go the other way. It's five repetitions each leg. And two more. Last one, release your dowels.

Now roll up one bone at a time and reach for your legs rolling like a ball. Bring your heels together. I want you to keep your heels tight together and you're gonna feel your spine rolling on the mat. So use that feedback roll and come up, okay? It's called rolling like a ball 'cause you're rolling on your spine.

And I often like to say it's really better than using a foam roller to roll your back out because you're not just stretching, you're strengthening your abs, you're strengthening your core here. So this is why I love Pilates, it's so efficient. You get a lot of bank for your buck in your practice, okay? And then where's the push and pull With my legs, I'm pushing my knees into my elbows. I'm squeezing my arms into the legs to connect to my whole body.

Okay, I'm gonna do two more here, and we'll do one more and then you're gonna lower your legs down. Now roll down on your back for your single leg stretch, right knee goes in, left leg goes out. Pull your knees in one at a time. There's a deliberate pull here to get the stretch in the leg, okay? But it also helps you connect to your upper back.

So of course we use our own body as feedback, right? Whether you're a teacher or you're a practitioner at home, it's always good to learn about your body without looking at yourself in the mirror, right? We wanna learn about what's going on at the side of us, what's going on behind us without always looking and checking, right? But of course that's what teachers are for to give you feedback, that second eye. But you know, you can't always call a teacher up at like, I don't know, oh, 11 o'clock at night if you wanna get a little practice in, okay?

So learn about your body. Let's do two more each way 'cause we did about 10. Now rest here. Now hold on to your circle. Of course you've seen this, of course this gonna connect us to our lower body.

Lift the head in the chest up for your double leg stretch, hands on top of the shins, reaching the arms and the legs up and away from one another. Bend your knees and place your hands on top of the shins. Again, reaching, find your two-way stretch, find your lower core with the circle. Two more, reach and back. One more, and then rest here.

Circle goes in between the hands, you're squeezing into the circle, bending the knees, lifting the head into the chest, up to the ceiling and squeezing into the circle. Stretch your legs up in the air. Now I want you to try to kick the circle with one leg and then switch. The other leg is just going to 45 degrees. 'Cause I don't want you to get into your hip flexes, I just want you to use your abdominal muscles, your stomach muscles, your center.

Now if you want a little bit more to challenge yourself, get the circle further away from your center and then get the leg to the circle. Let's do two more each leg. Last one, and then rest. Take your circle now, place it in between the ankles again. Place your hands behind your head.

Lift the head and the shoulders up and stretch your legs up in the air. Now what I want you to do, folks, is feel the sacrum and keep it down on the mat as you lift the legs up. The hands are behind your head pressing into your head and your head is pressing into your hands to keep find your back. But now you also have your sacrum, this bone that's in between the hip bones to feel that connection into your lower body. One more, again, knowing what's behind us, feeling what's going on.

Now, we're gonna use a circle to find that lift in the crisscross. One knee is gonna go to one pad, the opposite elbow is gonna go to the other. Now you can taste this one leg down on the mat or stretch it out to 45 degrees. Lift to press into the circle, and oh my goodness, all you need is three more from here. And then another.

So subtle but so effective. Now opposite knee, opposite elbow, hands behind the head. Again, this leg is down or it's stretched out and rotate. But it's more of a lift, it's a lift to rotate. Let's just do two more 'cause that's all you need.

And then release. Come up to sit. I kept the circle in my hand 'cause we're gonna use it again, right? Now, the circle's gonna go about arms length in front of you. The hands are together, we're gonna do two versions.

This is what I like to do on the one to chair, there's a one to chair class that you can check out where we do some of this work here. So pretend you have a one to chair. The hands are in front of you, lifting the spine tall. Take a deep breath all the way down into your seat, your pelvic floor. Now what I want you to do is press down into the circle to find your back.

Keep your spine tall and then lift the circle up, and again, press down to find your back. So if you don't have a one to chair at home and you've got a magic circle, this is a really good way to do that exercise with your circle, okay? Find your back, get your posture, right? Grounding down into the legs. You like my root chakra color for your legs here and my leggings, right?

If you follow yoga, you know what I'm talking about. The red is the color of their root chakra. So we're rooting down into the legs. And now what I want you to do is round your spine and then you get to push the circle down from your upper back and then coming up. So that first version was helping you find your back.

And now that you found your back, you can round forward lifting the chest nice and tall. Let's just do one more here, okay? And exhaling and pressing. Great, now we're gonna place the circle to the side. We're getting ready for our open leg rocker.

I want you to take your hands on your ankles this time, bending your knees one at a time. Now you're gonna stretch one leg out, hold onto that ankle and then stretch the other leg out, holding onto the ankle. Now keep holding onto the ankles to connect to your whole body as you roll. And you're using the mat as feedback and roll. And you try to keep holding on, whoops, lost it, but I'm gonna get it back.

Yes, okay, so you hold on and now you know it's real, right? And I roll back. Deepening in the stomach and holding on to your ankles. We're just gonna do two more. Last one I'm gonna challenge you, hold it, now, can you bring your legs together?

Try just three here. Two, keep those inner thighs squeezing. Last one, hold it, bend your knees, come to the mat. Now I'm gonna lie down for corks-screw, reaching overhead for the dowels, I want you to push into the dowels. You're gonna raise the legs up.

Now circle to the right, keeping your hips down, pressing into the dowels, circle to the left. Keep your hips down, pushing into the dowels to find your back, let's do one more flat with your hips down, down and around. And then now let's try to do a little bit of a roll. Stretch your legs away, lift the legs over, and just get your hips right over. And then now use the mat as feedback as you roll down to one side and you come around and then you come back up.

Legs are parallel, press into the dowels, use the mat to feel the left side, that was my left side. And then come up, go the other way. Well, let's do one where each way, rolling down and around. Last one, and down and around. Now stay centered, press into the dowels as you lower down.

Now come up to sit and separate your feet as wide as your moon box says. Opening up the legs, stretching your arms overhead, grounding down into your seat, twist and stretch. Stomach in and up, come up, come center, twist, grounding down and rooting down into your legs as you reach and stretch, I want you to feel the stretch from your whole body and your sides and your back. So keep anchoring your pelvis down, your tailbone down, and your legs down. One more each way.

Big twist, big reach, big stretch. And bring your arms down. Now we're gonna take the circle and then we're gonna lie down on our stomach. Stretch your arms or stretch the circle as long as your arms, hands are on top of the circle, just like we did when we did our spine stretch forward. Okay, you're coming down on your belly, you're finding your two-way stretch, reaching your fingers in your toes away.

Now, pull the stomach in, lift the head in the chest up, and look forward. I want you to look maybe like about a couple feet away from you. Keep your head in line with the rest of the body and then lower down with control. Okay, stomach in and up. So again, this is so helpful to have a circle like this.

If you don't have a dulls at home and helps you find your back and you come down, remember you live from your center first and you use the circle to connect to your back, up, reaching long, long, long, stretch your legs, try to keep those legs together and then come down with control. Now we're gonna do a version of hamstring curls of what we do on the reformer with the circle. So you're gonna take one end of the circle and place it right between your cheek where the cheek and the thigh meet. And then the other end of the circle is gonna be on the heel. Come down on your forehead.

I'm just gonna stay looking at you here because sometimes if you need to hold onto the circle, you're welcome to keep your hands here. Some people have a little bit of, they need a little bit more support. So you hold onto the circle this way. Or if you're feeling pretty groovy about it, let go of the circle. Place your forehead on top of your hands and squeeze, okay?

So find your hamstrings and squeeze in. This is a really good way to find the hamstrings and the work when you're doing your single leg kick, which is what we're gonna be doing next, but I want you to connect to your hamstrings. So let's switch sides, okay? Again, noticing what's going on in the back of your body without looking at it, okay? So make sure it's all set.

Make sure you take the other hand on top so you're even, and you squeeze pulling the belly in, isolating the hamstrings. It may not look like much, but I'm telling you it's working and it feels good. Okay, so we did about 10 each leg. Now this is gonna help for our single leg kick. So come onto your forearms, you're pressing down into the mat, pressing down so much that your chest can go forward.

Keep your inner thighs together. And then just let's do three each side. Oh yeah, there's my hamstring, that's where they are right there. So it's really a pull of the heels into the seat, okay? It's not so much, it's called a kick, but it's really a pull.

All right, now we're gonna take the circle again and find our double leg kick. So hands are gonna go pressing into the pads. Let the elbows open out a little bit. And now you're gonna pull both heels into the seat three times. You press your legs down into the floor, you slide your hands back, then you lift the head in the chest.

I want you to squeeze into the circle to find your back and your triceps. You're gonna turn your head the other direction. Get that circle as higher back as possible. And then push your feet down. Slide your hands back to lift the head in the chest, and then turn the other way.

Kick three feet down, slide your hands back to lift the head in the chest. And last one on this side, feet down, slide your hands back, lift the head in the chest, place the circle to the side, come up on your knees. So you're gonna take the circle now in between the thighs, we've gotta use a lot of our resources, our props right now. So if you have both a circle and the dowel, hold onto the dowel to find your back. The circle's gonna go in between the thighs.

I want you to lean back, keep squeezing to the circle to find your inner thighs. And then take the arms overhead, and again squeezing and then pushing into the feet. And guess what? When you push into the feet and your legs, you find your glutes. Okay, we'll do two more, okay?

Pushing into the feet, pulling your inner thighs together, pulling your hands apart in the dowel to find the your back, and then you release. Good stuff, all right, now let's come and do our neck pole. So I'm gonna show you two versions. The first version again with your mat, place your ankles underneath the strap. Hands go behind your head, you roll down, and then you open up your chest.

You find your two-way stretch, you roll up and you post forward. Pressing the back of your head into your hands and you roll down. We're gonna do one more of that up and over. Lift and you roll down on your back. Now let's finish this one.

Come to sit. Now, if you don't have a strap at home, you can use a circle. It's a little gonna be a little more challenging 'cause you don't have anything grounding you, but you're gonna use your legs to ground. Place this the feet through the circle and pull against a circle. Find your seat here.

Hands go behind your head and you roll down. And you come up, okay? And you roll down. And if that's not available to you quite yet, you can place your hands to your legs and roll up and over. Come to sit.

Hands go back behind your head. Last one up, up. And then release your circle. Now, we're gonna do a high scissors prep. So I'm gonna have you lie down on your back.

You're gonna take both legs up. Pretend you're gonna do your rollover. But what I want you to do now is get your hips over your shoulders and get your shoulder blades together. Place your hands on your hips from the back. Now, one leg goes up, just stretch and the other leg goes down.

The other goes up to stretch, and it goes down. So you're pushing your hands into your hips and you're pushing your upper back into the mat to find a two-way stretch. Now you're welcome to do one leg at a time, or if it's available to you, push both legs up in the air and stretch and stretch and stretch. Find a two-way stretch. Push down into your upper back, push your hands into your hips, and then bring your legs down, and then a roll down one bone at a time.

Stay here on your back, but just bend your knees, feet hip distance apart. Push down into your feet to live your hips and your waist syndromes up. Now I want you to keep your hands underneath you, your shoulders underneath. And push your hands into your hips. So again, pushes and pulls.

Finding the back of our body. From here, slide the right leg forward, keep your hips even lift the leg up, flex it like you did in your roll over, and go down. And we're gonna just do two more that way, okay? With control, calm from your belly, calm from your center. Push down into that standing leg to lift the other leg up and switch.

Right foot pushes down, left leg, lifts up, flex, and come down, push down into that bottom leg. This is my right leg, and left leg reaches. One more time, pushing down to that standing leg to lift the other leg up. Lower it, lower the foot. Release your hips, roll down one bone at a time.

Come up to sit. Now I'm gonna have you hold onto the circle now to find your back in your spine twists. So hold onto the circle. Pull against the circle, find your upper back, lifting the chest, nice and tall. Deep breath, inhale, exhale, twist.

Come center, twist to the other side. Center, twist, and center left. One more each way. And then release. Jacknife time, come down on your back.

Let's be a little bit more dynamic with a Jacknife this time, okay? So since you found your two-way stretch, let's go for it. Take the legs overhead, push down to lift. And you roll down one bone at a time. Let's do two more, overhead, push to lift, reach and stretch and lower.

Last one, overhead and up. Reach and push and resist. And feel your spine going down one bone at a time on the mat, and release. Come to sit and take your magic circle now. We're gonna use our magic circle to find our outer and inner thighs and all kinds of stuff in the lower body.

So you're gonna place one foot inside the circle, okay? And then you're gonna lay your spine down, lined up with the back edge of your mat. That bottom leg is right at the moon box. Now the top leg is gonna go inside the circle, okay? You're gonna flex your foot.

Now you're gonna lift from here. So really helps you find your seat. Pulling the belly in, we don't need a lot of these, okay? We'll do 10. Find your alignment, find your two-way stretch.

Now hold it here. I want you to trace the inside of the circle five times, stomach in, two, keep reaching and go the other way. Now, if you're a teacher, one thing to help cue you, cue your students to get that two-way stretch and also finding the grass, get the heel to to touch at the bottom, okay? That'll really help the length in the leg. All right, now take the top leg, place it on top of the circle, roll it back.

And then with control, take the bottom leg underneath the circle. Now, lift both legs up. Bring 'em line with the rest of the body. Easy, easy, simple, but not easy, I should say, down and up. It's a simple transition.

But you have to stay present in your practice. And you have to really be aware of your body and your resources. So really developing these mindfulness skills. Okay, squeezing in and up. Let's do two more.

All right, bend the knee and then hold onto the circle. We're gonna turn around, do all that to the other side. Get a back view. Okay, so you're gonna take the circle, place it outside of the bottom foot. You saw me measuring my hip here with my hand, making sure that my hip is there.

I'm using what's behind me, using my own arm to find it, okay? And then this arm goes back in front. Now pull against the circle to find your seat. Keep your back nice and long and feel hopefully, right? You can feel your alignment here.

Okay, reaching, pulling, abs in. Feeling that two-way stretch, let's do three more. Now, hold it, now keep pushing into the bottom leg. Now you're gonna circle, trace the inside of the circle here five times. Remember, brushing the heel over, the top heel's going over the bottom heel.

Let's do one more here and let's reverse it. Reaching through the heel, finding the two-way stretch, pushing down into that bottom leg and pushing the back of your head into your hands to connect to your whole body. Bend the knee, place that ankle right on top of the circle, roll it back. And then we find our inner thighs here. And then bottom leg goes underneath the circle.

And then roll it over. Lift both legs up from the center, find your two-way stretch and pull down, up, stomach in. Find your balance, right? Saw me wobbling a little bit, right? That's really asking me to find my center here, right?

If I'm overusing one body part, that's when we lose control of the circle. Okay, we're gonna do 10 repetitions. Let's do two more here. And then holding onto the circle. All right, we're gonna do teases with a circle.

Just teaser one and two, okay? I'm gonna have you place the circle in between your ankles, like you're about to do open leg rocker. Or place your hands on your ankles, like you're about to do open leg rocker. Lift the legs up, balance on your sacrum, stretch your legs out. Now reach your arms out.

Keep reaching through those legs. Roll down one bone at a time, feel your mat, reach your arms up and roll, arms up. Keep squeezing to the circle, reaching through those legs. One more is all we need. Now hold this here.

Lower lift the legs three times, and two, hold it. And then bend the knees, lower your feet down with control. Swimming, stretch your arms out like you did when we were doing our swan, but now we're gonna be a little bit more dynamic with it. So pull a belly in, reaching your arms long. Lift the head in the chest and the legs up at the same time.

Hold it one arm, opposite leg, place it down, other arm, opposite leg. Down, up, down. Find your upper back, find your glutes. Reach through those legs, reach through those hands. Let's do two more each, up.

Lengthen, up, reach, and rest. Wow, not easy, but we did it. Now I'm gonna have you do something really awesome that's gonna help you with your leg pull. So my teacher showed us this. It's like what we do on the Cadillacs, like a breathing exercise in the Cadillac.

Take the circle, one, it is down, the other heel is going on the circle or your ankle, whatever feels better for you. And you're gonna lay down on your back, grounding down into the bottom leg and grounding down into the circle. You're gonna have to really find that connection here in your center. Pushing down to lift the hips, breathe, hold it, feel all of this working. And then come down, try one more with this heel down.

Lifting up. So I want you to feel the work right here in your center, in your core. Now if it's available, only if it's available, you can hover that other leg and you ground down in your upper back and your abs to lift. Ooh, and then lower. Let's try one more.

If your leg is hovering, you're always welcome to keep your ankle, you're heeled down on this. And then come down. It's a great exercise to help you connect to your leg pole, right? 'Cause it's basically what we're feeling is what we would be feeling if we're in a plank position, okay? So switch to the other side.

You saw how I like lifted the circle with both legs. I was using my own resources to do that. Now, the right heel is down, the left heel is down on the mat, lifting your hips up, so the right heel, the right ankles on that circle, finding your center connection. And then come down one more with the left heel down, reaching and stretching, feeling strong in your body. And now, now hover the other leg if it's available to lift up.

So try to keep that evenness, try to keep that strength, that centerness, that balance, and then come down with control. And I like a challenge here, right? That's why I'm giggling and stretch. That's why Pilates is blissful for me 'cause it challenges me to find my inner strength. And when I find it, I get really happy.

I hope you do too. And you come down with control. Now, isn't that amazing? All right, everybody, let's place your circle off to the side and let's do our sidekicks kneeling. So you're coming on your knees, taking one leg out to the side, stretch your arms out, side bend and push your hip forward.

Push this bottom hand down, place the other hand behind your head and push the back of your head into your hands and open up. You're welcome to take this hand and cover your ear if that helps you connect to your back better, okay? So what I want you to do is raise a leg up and lower. So grounding into the knee, grounding into the right hand, placing this other hand behind your head or at your ear to help you connect to your back. And now hold it, can you circle?

Yes, doesn't have to be big to work. Let's reverse it and we don't have to do a lot. Okay, we go for quality here over quantity, and then release the leg down. Come up and switch sides. Other leg goes down, arms are out, side bending hands behind your head.

Okay, lifting up again. You can take this hand, place it to your ear if that's helps you connect to your back, right? Or you can just keep it behind your head. Keep reaching, keep pushing down to lift the leg, push down into the left hand and the left knee to lift the leg and push down into the hand and the knee to help you move, okay? Back up, we're like trees, we wanna ground down to grow out, right?

And then you come back up, and let's do some boomerangs. So let's cross one link over the other, place your hands by your hips, you roll. Feel the mat. Feel the magic circle's work with your inner thighs as you scissor the legs. Pulse, hands down, roll.

Find your inner thighs, find the two-way stretch, over and up. Last one, and pulse. Time for seal. Take your arms through your legs, hold onto your ankles. Lift the feet up off the mat, find your sacrum, open-close the legs three times, now roll onto your upper back, stay there.

Give a clap and come up three times, and roll back. Clap up three times. Roll back, clap up. Last one three times, back, clap, come up, cross your legs, Flip over onto your stomach for rocking, reaching your arms and the legs out, stomach again. Now lift as high as you can.

Now can you bend both knees and feel your upper back and feel your hamstrings. Push your ankles into your hands and then come down with control, right? That's where that back work really helps finding what's going on behind us. Three pulses in. Push your feet into your hands, lift up, come down.

Let's do two more. Three pulses, press and lift up. Last one, push your feet into your hands and lift and come down with control. Last couple things, everybody, flip over onto your back. We're gonna do a little preparation for the balance control.

So, now the arms are by your sides. You're using your own body weight as a resource to push your upper back down into the mat. Now get your shoulder blades underneath you. The legs are over. I want you to take one arm, free it up by pushing down into this upper back, the opposite upper back, and then release.

Press down into the opposite upper back and then reach. And down, press down and reach, hold. Find your ankle like you did with your single straight leg stretch with your open leg rocker. Let's do one more each way. Make sure you're only balancing on your upper back and keep upper back pushing down as you roll your spine down.

All right, last exercise. We're gonna use our magic circle to find the pushup. So, you take the circle, this time it's gonna be in a line with your sternum. Bring it down. Bring one hand on either side of the circle.

You can start on your knees, but you're gonna feel a very unusual support from the circle here. It's actually gonna give you a lot of confidence to straighten your legs if you haven't found that in your prior practice. So let's try it. Stretch one leg up, stretch the other leg up. Now pull your belly in.

Feel how the circle actually helps you. Stay engaged and stay light. Let's do three more. Keep your back long, find your two-way stretch. Remember it's everywhere.

I think we have one more, and then release down. Place your circle off to the side. Just stand up with control, grounding down into your feet. The stand up nice and strong. I'm so happy that you're able to join us in this workout today.

Thank you so much for joining me for class two. I can't wait for you to take class three in "Pilates Bliss on the Mat." We're gonna get your spine align and you're gonna feel even more blissful. Until then, my name is Regina, and I'll catch you next time.