Teaching an Advanced Student

Hi, thank you for joining us. I am here today with my friend Renata, who has come all the way from Poland to have a class at Pilates Anytime. So we're very excited to work together today. And thank you for taking class with us in advance. Are you ready?

So ready. Okay. So you're gonna face me. I just want you to feel your weight on your feet, let your arms hang down to your sides. And then we'll take an inhale and we'll take the arms out, like collecting energy.

Collecting energy, lift your chest, and then big, open, outward reach, and allow the arms to just soften as they come down. And then you can start to do a roll down. And I'll just move around. You, you do as you do. So your head will go down.

Your body will roll down. So I'm just looking now. And we take an inhale and we exhale and let the pelvis rotate under, stacking the spine above the pelvis. And as you stand and lift your head, we'll do it again. So reaching around and up, and reaching out.

And if you're nervous, you can let go off the nervous. (both laughs) Easiest heading, though. Yeah. I always get nervous, too. It's not wrong.

It's common. And head goes down. And roll down. And I've done this a lot of times. So we're nervous together.

It's no big deal. Good. And lifting, beautiful. Stacking the spine and lifting the head. And just one more.

Take the arms around. Gather your energy. We're gonna have a great session and reach around. I like to do that with you because it feels good. And now one more time, one more roll down letting the knees soften as you take your body forwards.

And lifting, and coming all the way to up. Beautiful. Nice. Okay, so what you're gonna do is you're gonna sit down on the reformer with your feet on the headrest, knees bent. And just make enough space behind you so you can roll back.

Maybe that's too much. Scoot back. Yeah. Okay, so you're gonna take a hold of the straps. I like to hold right above the buckles.

Okay. And then I'm just going to continue to move myself around so I can see all the time. And we take an inhale and I want you to start rounding down. So feeling the collarbones wide, feeling the shoulder blades wide on your back, going down, going down, going down right there. Inhale and exhale.

Come back up. When your shoulders come over your pelvis, I want you to sit back up tall, and inhale and squeezing the knees together as you roll down. And inhale and lifting back up. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, nice So you managed that pelvic rotation a little bit better that time. That was wonderful to see lift up tall.

We all have a little bit of rotation, and go down, I do. I imagine everyone does. I like to think that no one is perfect like me. I don't know. Have you ever met anyone perfect?

Not moving, never, and left. So this is gonna be the last one that's the same. And then we're gonna make a change. Coming up, bringing the body up over the pelvis, and lifting nice and easy in the spine and go down. This is where it gets a little bit more challenging.

Good. Do a little bit of rotation this way, there. Now come tiny forward, and back, and tiny forward, and back. We'll just do five. And tiny forwards.

You okay? Yeah. And back, and tiny forwards, and back. Think of using your left obliques a little bit. Tiny forwards.

It's just you are a little bit stronger on that side, I think. Do you wanna come up before we do rotation? Yes. Come up. (both laughs) Good, nice. Beautifully done.

And then lifting the body tall and taking the body back down. So we'll do the same thing but with rotation. So it's kind of like chest lift with rotation shape. And then we'll do that same little movement. So you'll take your rotation. Gorgeous.

Now come up that side and back. We'll do five, then come in the middle and up. Nice. Pulling in just behind the belly button. Three and back, and two, and back, and one, and down, and center, and up. Nice work.

Keeping those arms nice and along, sit all the way up to tall. Only one more side to go, roll down. Super. Take rotation towards me. This hip is lifting.

Yep, so no lateral flexion, just rotation. Now tiny. Interesting, you're shorter on that side, but it seems like it's more difficult and shorter. Push your knee into my hand, this knee, and down. And keep pressure here with me.

That's it. And down. And two and down. And one and down. And center and up. Thank you for not rushing.

(both laughs) Okay, that's it. You're gonna take those. I'll take those. And we're gonna turn you onto your back and set up the springs for footwork. So I'll do this spring.

We're gonna use three reds and one blue. You can decide, oh, we just used one spring for that warmup series, by the way. If you wanna easier time of it, a red is better. If you want harder, blue is better. It's a secret what we used.

You won't know. Okay, ready? All right. Do you like to have your headrest up? Are you happy with it down?

I'm happy with it. Okay, wonderful. Want you to tip your pelvis this way a little bit. Now I want you to stand into that foot bar and push the carriage out and in, and feel there's initiation from the back of the leg and also from the abdominals. Out and in.

Bring the right knee in a little and out and back. Working the springs in both directions. Out and in. Very nicely done. Let's do two more.

Out and in. And last time, out. Just keeping a little bit of extra weight in your brain on that left leg, and in, perfect. Move on to your toes please. And we'll continue from there.

Taking the carriage back. Standing on this side. And in, and out, and back. And out and back. Nice work, and out.

I'm looking very hard for things to correct. I'm not finding many things to correct. So we're doing a great job. Keep that right knee in. So what you could think about maybe is using the right knee almost to inform the anchoring on the left side of your pelvis.

Go. Nice. Yeah, that helps you. So that's good for you to think about when you're doing your footwork on your own, which we all do. Out and in.

We'll do two more. This is center. And back. And one more. Very nice, very nice.

It's extra fun to work with students who integrate corrections so brilliantly. Here we go. We go out and in. Beautiful, and squeezing the legs together and bend. And squeezing the legs together, zipping up through the center of the body.

You're doing such a beautiful job. And bend, and four, and pull the carriage in, and three, and pull the carriage in. And keeping the ribs soft, so it's not like a grabby thing that you wanna find. Sometimes if you just let your chest soften, it will soften the ribs. And that might make your shoulders maybe not be perfectly aligned, but that's okay with me.

One more time. Please come back in. Go back into parallel. Let the right knee inform the orientation of the pelvis. Push out, and take the feet under.

And up, and all the way under full dorsiflexion, and up, and under, and up. Let's do three more. We're not doing full repetitions of 10 today. One, because I can't count to 10. And, two, because I wanna save time so we're not just doing footwork in your session.

Last time, please. Push up and go into prancing when knee bends, both feet lift and bend. So as we alternate from side to side, everything stays nice and center in the middle. Beautiful, we'll do three more on each side. One, and one.

Keep that left pelvis anchored. Two, thank you. And two, and one, and pause there. Give you a little stretch because I'm nice. And change sides.

Do a little stretch and come back in. So we're gonna do some single leg work. And I'm gonna remove one of the springs. Is three reds okay for you for single legs? So we have three red springs.

We're gonna go on the heel and take the other leg up into a tabletop position, just there. And then without lateral flexion on the right side of the spine, please press out and in five times, and bend, feeling the back of that leg initiate, two. Nice work, and bend. And three, and bend. Beautiful position.

And four. Nice work, and bend. And last time, and bend. Okay, let's change to the other side. A little bit to the right from there.

That's perfect. And we go out, and back, and two, and in, and three. Nice work, and back. And four, keep this knee still right above the pelvis. It's wanting to drift a little forward.

And five, and in. And let's go back to the first leg on the toes please. Nice, your spine is perfect. And go out, and in. And out, and in.

As you begin to press, press back through the pelvis and then go. That's nice. And in. And two more times. And one more time, and back.

And then let's change legs. Take it a little bit there. Yep, good. And then keeping this knee right over the hip, and go out, and in, and out. Push into my hand a little.

Like push back on me. Now stay with me. And bend, push on me. That's it. Keep pressure on my hand.

I'll move with you. That's right. And back, so don't change. Don't change that pressure. I'm not moving my hand.

That's good, two. And bend. And one, nice to give your students something that they can focus on so that they can find their correction, and then the foot goes down. Okay, pause right where you are. We're going to do some hundred prep.

Did you panic when you heard the name hundred? A little bit? Yeah. Would you like to have a red or a red and a blue? I can do both.

Okay, we're gonna give her a red and a blue. And then we'll take the straps. Oh, they're not even. Sorry, I should have checked that. Let me just have them.

All right. Okay, good. All right, so we're gonna set the arms just over the shoulders. Once you're there, you're gonna lift your feet up. Beautiful.

We're gonna lift the chest, press down through the arms, reaching out towards the foot bar. Active, active with that reach. Keep reaching forward as you lift your arms up. And as they come over your shoulders, your head comes down. We'll do three.

And up three, you say. Yes, three. And lift. Keep the height, keep the height. Push towards me, and down.

One more like that, and then we're gonna make it a little fancier. Keep the arms a little closer together. One more, lift up. Beautiful. Lift the arms and down.

Okay, so the next thing we're gonna do is you're gonna lift up into that same shape and pause. Stretch your legs towards the ocean and bend your knees back in. Push your arms, five, and reach out. And four, pull in. You can go faster if you want.

(both laughs) And reach out. You can go slow, too. Three, think of as the knees are coming in, the arms are reaching more, more, more, more, more, and two. And out and in, one. Lift your arms.

Take your head down. One more thing. You up for it? Up for it. Up for anything.

Such a good student. Here we go. Lift up. Beautiful, keep the arms hugging and tight towards the body. Stretch your legs towards forward and take both legs up.

Pull in and reach away. You decide how low, it's up to you. And lift up. Good, and back. Lift the left arm a tiny bit, this arm.

And go, up. Sorry, I'm making her hold for a long time. Two more only. Up, and up. When you get to the top, you bend your knees, you lift your arms, you bring your head down and rest.

Very nice. Okay, put your feet down on the bar. We're setting up for hip work. So you can push out. Yeah, push out and step in.

All right, so we've got the heels touching together. We've got a nice neutral pelvis. We've got a good organization of the pelvis. Here we go into some frogs. So you're going to go out and back.

Feel that you're standing in the strap from the backs of your thighs as you reach, and in. We'll do five. Nice. Three. That's okay. And do you feel happy?

Very happy. Okay, good. She says she's shaking but she feels happy. (laughs) And (indistinct). So let's take the legs out. Let the feet come into a pointed position, and then go down, and out and up and touch together in the center, which is there.

And press down, and out, and up. Gorgeous, and down, and out, and up, and touch. Two more times like that. Down, and out, and up, and touch. And one more only.

Down. Good work. We go open, press from the backs of the legs as you bring your legs down, touch them together, drop the back of the right pelvis a little, and, ah-huh, and come up. And open, and down together to touch. Nice work.

And up. And three. I'm very pleased. (laughs) And two. Nice. And one.

So at the bottom, we'll start going out into some openings. So I want you to drop that right hip back again. That's perfect. Now reach out. Don't drop down.

So you go out and back in. So I'm gonna make a straight line with my hands for you. I don't want you to push down on me. Oh. (Renata laughs) Like you're floating above my hands and together.

So what it feels like in this exercise, if you're going straight out, it almost feels like a happy face shape. You feel how it kind of comes up as you go out and in. Nice work. I'm not, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Stay with me, and two.

Right hip down. Nice, and back. She's doing a great job. She's working really hard. One more time out, and together.

Yes, thank you with the pelvis. Very nice. Please bend your knees. We're gonna do the short spine. Okay, so this is a reward.

Press out, point your feet, and begin to fold your body in half. As your legs come over the top of you, you bring the carriage into touch. Keep the carriage on the stopper as you lift up and back, keeping a little bit of pressure up into the straps with the feet. Bend your knees. Roll the spine down.

Keeping the feet over the eyes, allowing the thigh bones to drop down closer and closer to the ribs. She's gonna go to the bottom. I'm gonna give her a stretch here. You're welcome. Flex your feet and take that shape through in a hinge.

Perfection. Push out. We'll do three. And fold in half. Let's do it a little something different.

I'll cue you. You'll be fine. Go. I like to do this. Bend your knees. This time we're not gonna do bassy style, shorten. You're gonna bring your tuck into a ball.

Like bring your feet to your seat. Yep, so get into like a rolling like a ball shape, like that. Now bring your spine down but bring your feet with you. Just different. It feels good.

And then go out. And then we'll do one more, but the way you know, or the way that you, the way, the back seat way. The back seat way. The back seat way. And we go up and back, and bends.

Pushing to the straps. So your hamstrings stay connected. And go down, just as you know, just as you know. Very beautiful. Take a stretch down there at the bottom.

And then we bring the legs through. And good. Okay, so let's take the left foot out, put it on the bar, take the right foot out, put it on the bar, and come in. You can roll to your side and help yourself up. Okay, so we're gonna do a variation of the standing lunge.

Okay, so stand up. We want one spring for that one, red. And you're gonna put both of your hands on the foot bar and your right knee on the carriage. Yep, yep, yep, yep, you know. So from here what we're gonna do is we're gonna take the pelvis forward, making a little change to maybe what you're used to.

It's a little variation. So bring this hip up. Okay, so I want you to hold yourself there. Nice and low in that hip flexor stretch. And I want you to straighten your back knee.

Yep, lift the knee off the carriage, one. As you bend your knee, think of pressing the pelvis into rotation, perfect. And straighten out, two. And feel that pelvis. Good and straighten out, one.

Now hold here. And you're gonna straighten your front leg. I'm just looking for alignment. We hold, lift your chin a little, and breathe, and breathe. Bend your front knee.

Bend your back knee. Come all the way up. Pause right there. Take your right arm off the foot bar up towards your right ear. I'm trying to stay close so I stay in the camera.

Go over to the left. This is a long flight sitting in the car for hours exercise. It's called jet lag. Come up. (both laughs) Put your hand down.

And come all the way in and change sides please. Doesn't that feel good? Renata has a very similar body to mine. I just know from looking at like the tightness patterns in her body. Go ahead, change sides.

So I'm choosing exercises, all of the exercises that feel really good to me, because I imagine they probably feel really good to her too. So bring this knee over a little, perfect. And then we're gonna go down into that hip flexor stretch, eyes looking for dolphins. That's right. (laughs) And then take the back leg straight. Good, and bend.

Lift the left pelvis towards the ribs. That's it. And go, and bend. Here's our last one, go. And did we do it the knee down?

I think we did. And then here's where we take our hamstring stretch. So go up with the knee, take that leg straight. Stay right there. Push against my thigh with your pelvis.

There we go. Now straighten out this part of your spine and lift your chin. And now bend your front knee. Come back into your hip flexor stretch. This is where we take that side bend.

So the left arm comes up and the body goes to the right. Very beautiful, come back to the bar, and come in. I would like to do the elephant now. Was one spring good for you? Yes.

Great, so come up into the elephant shape position. Okay. So getting the feet right up against the shoulder blocks. Bring this one out a little, perfect. Okay, and then we find that nice, long spine.

So I want you to hold here. Lift your head into my hand. Not your body, just your face. Yeah, so look up at the bar a little. Perfect.

Now see if you can stick your butt out a little more. Yeah, did you see the change in her spine? That was amazing. Now keep that spine and move your legs towards back. And then use your abdominals to bring your legs underneath you, and take your legs back.

Think of lengthening right underneath my fingers, almost like you're arching more here. Yeah, and out. And in. Nice work. Last two. I'm just looking for rotation.

One more time please, out. And then we're gonna do the down stretch. So you can come down onto your knees, feet up against the shoulder blocks. You happy with that spring? Yep, she comes up, comes into the downstretch position.

I want you to feel your hamstrings working. Feel that you're thinking about posteriorly rotating your pelvis a little bit. And now hold those two muscular energies. Sorry, I'm talking too slow. Go out.

(both laughs) And come in up and back. Good, and go out. It feels nice as you come in to push back against the carriage with your legs. I am happy. And go out.

And glide the shoulder blades down the back. Yes, good. Two more times, out. Mm, nice, you went a little further that time. Got brave, got a little braver.

One more. (laughs) And back in. Very wonderful. That's enough. You can turn around. We're gonna do kneeling arms. So you just turn around.

You can probably pick those up on your own here. Here are the straps. How to pull it here? Aha, on the ropes. Is that good?

We'll see how the tension feels. Okay, so she's gonna come up. All right. And then what I want you to do with your body is bring your shoulders a little forward. So it might feel a little tippy or like you have to hold your balance.

And then pull down into the upper back and take the arms towards back and forwards. And back, lifting your sternum up into my hand. Nice work, and forward. You're doing such a beautiful job. Does it feel good?

Yeah. Good. Arch. Do you wanna try something that I like to do? Yeah. Okay.

So we'll do it on the next two. Here's what happens. Just stay exactly as you are. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

So we're gonna go, start the exercise just as you did. Now, stay there. Push your arms down and lift into thoracic extension. Come out of thoracic extension back to straight. And take your arms forward.

Do you like it? Go back. We'll do three. Left arm closer to the body as you go into the thoracic extension. Back out.

It's like a little chest lift to get there and arms forwards. Last time back. And that left arm likes to go wide. Keep it in tight and lift up, and go back, and reach forward and hang the straps up. Nice work.

Great job. We're gonna change the spring to a blue. And you're gonna turn your body around. Yep, and collect the straps. And then just come a little close.

That's great. You're just a little crooked. Okay, come up all the way. I'm going to get up close to you. And we're gonna go forwards, up, and around.

So we're going into the up circle, scooping up the air, allowing the arms to rotate so the palms face me, and reaching out to the sides of the body. And forward feel the inner thighs squeezing towards one another, and around to the sides. Nice work. Last two. We go forward and open the chest as you reach out. So beautiful.

Last one, go forward, and around. Okay, we're gonna take the reverse. So go out. Nice work. And down. As we take the arms, you keep a little pressure into those hands in the straps so the carriage moves right away, and down.

And, yeah, three's a fine line between not too much and too much. (both laughs) And down, good. Last two. So it's just like a standing in the straps with your hands kind of an idea. Yep, perfect. And down.

When we get to the top of this next one, we're going into triceps. So you go out. Yeah, great. First fingers and thumbs together, making a little Tiara princess crown. And we go straight up.

Look at you. Good work, and bend. I thought I was gonna have to correct and I don't. She goes straight up. Amazing, and bends wide.

Put in here and goes straight up. We're just gonna do five. You're already halfway. Pull in. Okay. Two.

You okay? Yeah, okay. She's amazing. And last time. Okay, so from there, bring your arms around to the sides like you're finishing a circle.

We've got one more exercise to do here. I'm gonna give you a red and a blue. Biceps. Okay, beautiful. So I want you to roll your shoulders in a little bit.

It'll feel a little internally rotated. You're perfect. Now bend your elbows. Now see if you can lift your elbows a little higher for me, but without lifting your shoulder blades. Yep, and now bring the elbows in a little, perfect.

Now keep them still. Out and in. Look out into the ocean for dolphins and reach. Tell me if you see one, and bend. I'm always looking for dolphins.

We don't always get to see. And out. Nice, keep that shape. A little bit of, like, the eyes of the elbows down, aha. Do elbows have eyes?

I think maybe. And two. (giggles) Sorry, I like make very stupid jokes. (both laughs) But, you know, sometimes stupid jokes are fun. One more, eyes up. Her whole body changes.

We're doing one more. And back. And last one. Keep the eyes, look where you're going. Beautiful.

And back. Okay, my friend, go ahead and sit down. Very beautiful, we're gonna do the mermaid. "Yes," she says, "Yes." One spring is perfect for the mermaid. Should I turn?

It's up to you. All right, so let's get that foot right up there. And then the hand is gonna be on the foot bar. Good, I'm gonna get in nice and close here. And what you can do with your pelvis, bring this arm all the way to touch.

So if you think about a little bit of a tuck, it'll get that sitting bone to sit down. Good, eyes up. Take the carriage out, lift the arm. Take your rotation. Just coming around our arm.

Beautiful. Coming around the arm, and coming back in. Nice. Let the arm come all the way down. So the arm floats as you go.

Bring your pelvis with you on this side. Go around, and back around, and back in. Nice. Thank you for the hand. Last one. Go out. And go around.

And when you get there, pause. I'm gonna give her a little stretch. I'm gonna take my arm underneath her ribs and I'm gonna give her a little twist. And then she comes back around, and then she comes in. And then we're gonna let this arm come down.

You can hold. Yep, this arm goes up. We do a little side bend in this direction. Beautiful. Come all the way up and change sides please.

So beautiful. Okay, okay. We got a whole different body on the second side, always. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about like everybody on earth.

And drop that hip and take this arm to here. Come, see if you can bring the shoulders over the pelvis a little more. That's what I want. Now go out. Gorgeous.

Come around. She's beautiful. She comes back around, and she comes back, and is leading with the sitting bone. Tuck under a little. There it is.

Go out. Come around, bringing the arm bone back into the shoulder joint. Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect. Go back out and come back in. Nice.

One more out. That's better. Yeah, oh, this is where the stretch happens. Here we go. Can you hear my knees cracking every time I get up?

(both laughs) I'm an old lady who makes cracking noises. Go around again. Maybe not so old, but definitely cracky. And back in. Good, this arm comes down.

You can hold as you wish. This arm comes up. And we just take that side bend over. Nice. Okay.

Go ahead and stand up for me. I'm gonna get the box. I think, have you ever done breast stroke prep without springs before? I might have done. It's my favorite.

So we're gonna do that. One of the reasons I really like it is because it really helps. It's not easier actually. I think you'll feel your muscles more. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna start with that same spring.

So lay on the box. Okay. And I'm not taking the loops then. Nope, no breast strokes. So we're doing the pressing with the arms on the bar.

We speak the same language. Okay. (both laughs) All right, so what we're gonna do is I want your elbows to be right there. And I want you to feel that they're reaching right and left. Now you're gonna look towards the ocean a little bit.

So we are gonna find that little bit of back extension. I'll stay right there. Bring the legs together. And now I want you to stand in your left arm a little more than you think you need to. And you're gonna do downward pulling of the shoulder blades and take the arms forward from there.

The best cue I know to come in is to feel that you're trying to pull the bar apart. Bend your arms and stretch the bar. Beautiful. And then we go out. She's doing beautifully.

We're gonna take the spring away in a second, and pull. For me, I feel like it's a little magical. Nice work. So then she's working her arms here. She's doing beautiful job with her back.

And come in. Okay, just pause for a second. So that movement is the exact same, but the beauty of this, go ahead. The beauty of it is you have to really work from the right muscles. Right, what do you think?

It's like more difficult than I thought. Yeah, it is more difficult. And now come back in, pull that bar. Stretch it, yeah. So it really makes you feel the body in a little bit of a different way.

She goes out, standing into the left arm a little more, good. And comes back in. Nice work. Thank you. I was about to correct you from pushing with your hands, but then you corrected yourself.

I like it. And she comes back in. Stretches the bar. Okay, we're gonna do one more. I lied, though. I'm gonna change it.

So take the arms back towards straight. Now just one, lifting your body up into extension. As far as you wanna go is fine with me. Go back down. Last thing to lower the eyes, but not too much, and then come back in.

Nice. Okay. So I'm gonna put the spring back on so the carriage isn't floating around and you're gonna step off towards me. And turn and face me. And finish the way we started.

And just feeling yourself in your body. And take the arms out. And take the arms up. And take the arms out and down. And let the head come down and roll down through your spine, allowing the arms to just feel heavy, allowing the head to feel heavy.

And inhale, and lifting the spine. And last one. Take the arms around. Any amount of arching that you feel like you wanna do is fine by me. (laughs) And reach out, and come upright, and come forward. Really, really beautiful.

And come back up, standing all the way up tall. And open your arms out to the side and step this way. This way, closer, closer. (both laughs) Thank you. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you for coming and joining us for this class. Thanks.