Bottoms Up Mat

Hi, I'm Monica Wilson and whenever I need to get inspired, I always think back to my memories of my great-aunt Romana Krisanaska. She really got to inspire us to wake up our bottom. Today's class is called Bottoms Up. She would often say Ariba or something to inspire us to really lift up our bottom. So we're gonna be really working our legs, our backside, but more from where the legs start.

So as an athlete, I've always lifted my leg from more just right here, and it doesn't go very far. But as a dancer, I'm told we lift all the way from the hip, and so we're gonna be lifting our legs a lot, getting those bottoms up today. So come join me. You can grab a magic circle if you have one, and we're gonna start at this edge of the mat. So we'll start with our wrap in our thighs where it's an advanced mat, and we're gonna have our hands right in front of us at shoulder height.

Powerhouses in and up. We're gonna cross one leg in front of the other and lower yourself down, thinking about your feet pushing into the earth so you can really feel that seat right there and lower yourself down. I'm gonna stretch out to the full length of the mat, rolling out, having my magic circle close by. Extend those legs nice and long. Reach your arms long and just stretch like four horses are pulling one limb in each direction, just really stretching out of your center.

Very opposite of what we're gonna do in this class today. And then draw everything back in. Let's go ahead and lift those arms up to the ceiling. Press 'em down by your side. Use your abdominals to bring in your knees and feet flat on the mat.

And let's grab your circle and place it between your ankles. Drawing the knees in, we're gonna put the circle between your ankles. Place the feet down on the mat, one hand over the other behind your head. We're gonna start off with the hand really getting into position nicely. So we're gonna draw the lower belly into your lower back and round up as you exhale looking at your abdominals, then you're gonna lightly press a circle with your ankles, draw the knees over your hip bones, reach your arms long, maybe even give yourself a little extra stretch long.

And start here feeling the inner thighs, feeling the outside of your hips, feeling the powerhouse pulling in and up. Inhale two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. In with the air. Last one with bent knees exhaling.

On the next exhale, we're gonna use those legs in with the ear and we're gonna use the wrap. And we're gonna squeeze the inner thighs as we press. Keep it here for 30. Exhale, really feeling your lower belly. Pull in and up in with the ear.

Two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four, five. One more count with the legs here. And exhale, two, three, that's 50. We're gonna lengthen the legs down to almost toes at eye level.

Feeling the back of the thighs now. Feeling the seat. Three more, scooping in your belly in with the air. Two, three, four, five. Excellent. Two, three, four.

One more. Don't forget those outer thighs. See lower belly and bend the knees in and rest your neck. We're gonna go ahead and sit up for a second and we're gonna do the roll up. But start up as the roll back. We're doing this because I want you to really understand how to use your bottom to stay in front of you and to stabilize while you're doing the roll up.

Your lower body doesn't move, but it sure does work. So we're gonna press the inner thighs and grow really tall like I'm a marionette being pulled up and then relax. Find the hip muscles, press with the inner thighs, draw the belly in and up and grow really tall. Now with that nice tall spine, we're going to round the back. I want you to even think about horseback.

It's an advanced exercise. You're gonna lift up and lengthen. It's not a tuck, it's using all the parts of your bottom gluteus, maximus, medias and minimus. We're gonna use those to lengthen that way. As your waistband stretches your lower back to the mat.

Keep your hands where they are as you stretch, just the waistband. Take a breath and then curl forward. Good. Do it again. Press with those inner thighs, lift in the hips like you're doing horseback and draw the lower belly. Take a breath and exhaling.

Now we'll go down a few more vertebrae to the back of the ribs. So press, we're stabilizing those hips lengthening, really waking up the bottom down to the back of the ribs. Take a breath and exhale forward, one vertebrae at a time. One more like that and we'll move on. Press in and up with the belly.

Exhaling down to the back of the ribs. Take a breath and exhaling forward. Beautiful. Now we're gonna go all the way down to your head. Press, lift up and lengthen.

Lower body is going that way. Really important when we get to the full stretch out the neck and head. Inhale, lift the heads, press and keep your bottom in front of you. Keep your bottom in front of you. Lift up and over it.

One more, press with those inner thighs, lifting up off the seat, lengthen it in front of you as you roll down your six pack and stretch out your neck and head. Lift up your head. Use your upper set of your six pack your middle, set your lower as you keep your bottom in front of you. And we're gonna keep your bottom in front of you. Take the circle in your hands, slide the legs straight.

Notice my bottom is still lightly in front of me. Super important. Don't push it behind you. Don't go for this stretch on this exercise. Lift up almost into horseback and then keep stretching your upper body forward.

Reach, reach, reach. All right, here we go. Moment of truth. Look at where your heels are on your mat and you're gonna try to keep 'em there. They're gonna slide a little bit, but don't let 'em slide six inches, eight inches because you're gonna keep lengthening and work in your bottom in front of you.

So here we go. Press and length. Remember where those legs start. I said that they're gonna lift up. They lift all the way from the hips.

Keep your bottom in front of you, keep them in front of you. Nice work and stretch back, and arms lift, head lifts, keeping your bottom in front of you. We're gonna curl up. Zip up those inner thighs, lifting up and over. Taking the upper body forward, not the bottom behind you.

Lifting up one more time. Stretching. We'll do two more. Bottom stays in front. Reaching up and back. I turn my circle slightly for a better stretch so I can go down to the floor, arms up head and zip up those legs.

Press 'em down into the mat, find that and lifting up and stretch and rolling back. I'm gonna keep lengthening my lower back using all of my glute muscles and stretching back. One more time. Arms lift for getting ready for the rollover, head and exhaling. Pressing my back and my legs down as much as I can.

Lifting up and over. Hopefully you didn't slide too much. Stretching over. We're getting ready for the roll over. We're gonna lengthen those legs, zipping, scoop keeping your bottom in front of you and reaching back.

Let's go ahead and lift those legs from your hips and put the circle between your ankles. All right. And we're gonna press your arms firmly down and try to touch the ball of the foot to the floor. I'm not super flexible, so if you can do that, awesome. And I'm gonna keep that in my head.

That image trying to. We're gonna press with the inner thighs and lift all the hips. Here we go. Bottoms up and press and scrolling down. On the way over we're gonna squeeze the circle and squeeze and bottoms up, and flex.

Relax the circle on the way down, and squeeze bottoms up and relax. And coming down. Now for the reverse, making it a little more advanced though, let's lower down as low as we can keep the back flat and then bottoms up. Squeeze a circle now on the way down. All the way down.

All the way down, all the way down. How low can you go? Flex and relax it. Bottoms up, squeeze and down. Squeezing. Squeezing.

Last one, how low can you go with the belly in? Bottoms up. Squeeze and down, down, down. Good job. Grab your circle, bend the knees. Now we're gonna take the circle and we're gonna use it to stretch for single leg circle.

So we're gonna bend the right knee in. Put the right ball of the foot here 'cause I want your leg to lift really high to your nose, like your whole hip, your whole leg. Again not lifting from just that hip flexor. We're gonna have the leg lightly turned out. Cross it to your left shoulder.

This is your goal every time you cross getting it all the way up to here. Bring it center. And now I want you to hold this right leg while you do three heel slides with the left. So that means you're gonna slide the left heel out onto the mat and then bend it. Few things should happen when you heel slide as it goes out, your leg should start to rotate using the wrap of Pilates.

So outer thigh and your seat and your squeezing the back of your leg down and draw it in one more time understanding that. So we're gonna lengthen the heel away wrap, but then also the belly pulls in and scoops up attaching to the back of the rib. Let's leave it there as it anchors down the center of your body, and we're gonna put the circle down, holding it right here. Press your arms one time. I want you to reach your right leg, really up.

Reach it down the middle of your body, lot of energy reaching across the room and from your hip, pull it all the way up to your nose. Let's go. Cross, reach around and up. Cross, reach around and up. Left leg is heel sliding away, pressing hard. You can also flex it if you want.

Two a round up, one more. Anchoring your waist reverse. Take that hip all the way up to your left shoulder. Reaching around scooping it in, three and reaching out. One more back of the legs.

Also working on your way down, hugging that knee stretch two three. We're gonna rest that right foot down. Grab your circle again to see if we can do the same with the left, we're gonna bend the left knee in, stretch the ball of the foot slightly, turn out the leg and stretch it up to your nose. Really warming up that leg even though you did a bit. And roll over, cross it over to your right shoulder.

Two, three, we're gonna bring it back center in three heel slides with the right, the heel goes out and we draw it back in. As we stretch it out, we're gonna try to engage the outer thigh and the seat, all those wrap muscles, the back of the leg, pressing it down to the mat, destabilize and down. One more time remembering we also scoop and that's all of that lifts the leg up. All right, we're gonna place the circle down, and one time, instead of this leg diving into our body, reach it up to the ceiling, touch the ceiling, reach it across the room. That's how you're gonna reach out and lift it up from your bottom.

And let's go cross around pause, cross around pause. Back of the leg is on the mat. Trying to stay down to stabilize. One more in this direction, reverse. Open around the hip comes up.

Open around lifting up. Open around, three open. I'm not using my hip flexor, but using everything to lift. Hug the knee and nice job. I hope you felt that we're gonna straighten the legs.

Both heels are sliding away. This is one of the most common times to lose your powerhouse. So both are reaching away as we lift our head. And we're gonna roll up, pushing our heels away so that we can lift up for rolling like a ball. Lift up your bottom, don't drag it, lift it.

And we're gonna scoop in and up to hold onto your ankles. We're gonna lift your bottom up over your ears. Here we go, in with the air, exhale, balance. Two, three. Scoop in for the lift. See if you can keep your heels close to your seat.

Inhale. Exhale. In with the air. Exhale. One more lifting your bottom.

Lift, lift and rest your feet down. Let's go for the series of five. We're gonna lift our bottom back. And I want you to remember heels slide. So what does that mean?

We're gonna roll down our back, lower back, but I want you to go all the way down to remember a heel slide. So what I'm bringing the feet a little bit more in. So you just learned what a heel slide is. I'm gonna take my left leg out first. Left leg heel slides, right?

outer thigh glute scooping in. But as soon as you get that leg as long as you can. Here's the key. I'm trying to get the back of my leg down to the mat as I straighten the leg. And then when I can't straighten anything any longer, I actually like to imagine that there's a stick of dynamite right up my foot, and I'm trying to slide it all the way off the mat.

I can't push it far enough off the mat. That's how much length I'm gonna get. When you can't push it off the mat anymore, the leg floats up to a 45, and then you'll draw it in for single leg stretch. So on the right leg you're gonna slide that stick of dynamite off the mat until you can't lengthen anymore. So then it has to float up to 45 and draw it in.

It's a little bit like bicycle. The double leg stretch is gonna look very similar. So let's start with the right leg into your chest. Right hand on your ankle, left hand on your knee. Draw the belly in and up to come up.

And we're gonna start again with that left leg. Here we go. Sliding that dynamite away and then pulling it up. Right leg slides and then up, left leg. A little sticky on the mat, but that's okay.

Get that seat working, warm it up. That's it. Stretch it out as close to your seat and then lengthen as close to your seat. And then reach and then close to your seat. And then reach and close to your seat and then reach.

Good job. Now the double version, same thing. Let's keep your arms forward for the first two. Down, slide them both out. How long can you get? Lift them and draw 'em in.

Stretch down, slide 'em out. Scooping in the belly, squeeze. And then let's add the arms down. Long hold, pull 'em in. Three more.

Down back of the thighs and seat. Pull 'em in one more. Then we'll use our legs for the single straight leg. Here we go. We're gonna do a little double pulse. The left hamstring and glute goes double pulse and switch.

The top leg also does stretch. Stretch again. Back of the thigh and seat, back of the thigh and seat. You're gonna need that for crisscross back of the thigh and seat. Back of the thigh and seat. Back of the thigh and seat. Last one.

Now let's let 'em fly like I talked about in the beginning. You lift from your bottom bottoms up. Lift, lift, lift, lift. Last set and both legs up. Let's put on our miniskirts here in with the air lift up.

Imagine you have a miniskirt reach it across the room. Pull it up, reach it across, pull it up, reach it across. Pull it up. Two more. Get the bottom working and up last time in your mini skirt. Here we go up, hold, bend the right knee, but use the left hamstring and glute to squeeze down to lift, lift, lift and switch.

Right out of thigh and back of the leg. Squeezes down to lift. Often we have to use the back of the leg to come up higher, higher, higher. One more. Here we go. Back of the thigh.

Higher, higher, higher. Hug the knees into your chest. We get a little stretch sitting on up kind of, we're gonna stretch our back but I want you again to think of horseback. Don't let your bottom just melt into the couch, into your car seat. We're going to levitate.

So grab your circle. We're gonna put it arms distance from you with the pads right on top. Right hand on top, left hand. Pull your toes back if you can. Draw the belly in.

And now let's activate that bottom and lift up and levitate like I could slide a whole card underneath your bottom and then release it. We're gonna pull the belly in. Grow tall, press down the circle as you lift. Press down the circle as you lift and release. Switch hands for two with this one.

So always aligning your back of course, but we're talking bottom. Let's lift off, lift off, lift off and release. One more. Let's levitate and float here. Lifting off, lifting off, lifting off. Can't grow any taller.

Love it. Let's do two with the circle in front of us and we're gonna levitate and keep levitating as you stretch forward, forward, forward. Relax a circle and roll up off your bottom, up off your bottom, up off your bottom. Give it a little break. One more. We won't squeeze it on the way down.

Let's squeeze it on the way up. Lift up off your bottom. Relax. Circle as you stretch forward, forward, forward. Now squeeze it and levitate. Squeeze up off the bottom, bottoms up.

And now we're gonna lift those legs right up from the hips and put the circle between your ankles. So think of those hips. Let's lift them all the way up. Put the circle and hold onto those angles. Now I want you to think of those seat bones and they're not really supposed to be pointing in front of you so much.

Let's use your belly and see if we can get up on 'em, up on 'em, up on 'em. See if you can do that every time try to get your balance. Let's go walking back and up, and up on 'em, up on 'em, up on 'em and in with the ear bottoms up, exhale. Up on 'em, up on 'em, up on 'em. And rock back and exhaling up and lifting onto your seat bones.

Lift, lift three more bottoms up, exhaling up and up and up. Two more. Rolling back bottoms lift and lift up, up, up. And one more will go into corks. You're rolling back bottoms up and lift, lift, lift. Press your circle.

Roll away from those strong legs. Bend the knees for a moment and give yourself a tiny break. Make sure you're centered on the mat. And we're gonna go into corkscrew, the full corkscrew with the twist bottoms up. Knees, bend, legs lift.

All right, here we go. We're gonna go over and lift. And we're gonna twist the right hip away as we reach low around and bottoms up. And twist the left hip away as you reach long, low and bottoms up and twist the right hip away as you reach, scoop it in, lift, twist the left hip around. Scoop around.

One more set. Reaching to the right, around, lift. Don't lose steam. Left around, reaching around, bottoms up. Last one and control down.

Let's sit up for the saw. Right on up. We're gonna put our circle to our side. Okay, same thing as the spine stretch forward, don't blend in to the floor. Get your bottoms up. All right, reach those arms.

I'm gonna see all the muscles in your arms. Press down to grow taller, rotate your spine and exhale, being aware that our left seat bone is still down. Don't roll over. In with the air. Up press down to grow taller.

In with the air twist. Empty the lungs. That right seat bones still down. Exhale, exhale, exhale, in with the air. Lots energy in those heels.

Rotate both heels are pushing away from that long's leg. From that seat, from that heel slide. In with the air and rotate. It is a breathing exercise though, so exhale, exhale, exhale. In with the air.

One more set. Rotating and exhaling. Exhaling. Exhale. Shaving out that baby toe, in with air. Both heels are pushing away.

Push levitate last rotation and exhaling, scooping and squeezing the air outta your lungs. Coming up and finishing strong. Zip your inner thighs together. Super important for the transition. We're gonna go into neck roll.

So we're gonna turn over and lie down. Okay. Here all the legwork on your bottom, on your tummy. I want you to imagine there is a zipper starting right above your knees zipping up to your bottom. And we're gonna try to keep those inner thighs zipped up. In many of the exercises they're gonna separate.

It's okay, but just keep that energy, keep that mindset that you're trying to squeeze a midline, very important. Neck roll. Very nice. Hands can be under your shoulders or a little further out. Zip up and pinch the bottom. And we're gonna use the belly to lengthen our spine as we come up.

And we're gonna in with the air just circling around and look forward and reverse that circle. Still trying to activate the seat and come down. Keep trying to pinch those legs together. Keep trying to squeeze them. Oh, very good work.

Again, lengthening, pulling them out behind me. At some point your legs are gonna naturally separate, but keep that energy. Look to the left this time. Circle the head right. Almost forgot myself I'm working it to the right around, to your left. Good.

We're gonna do swan dive later. Coming down here we go. Single leg kick. I want you to lift up onto your elbows, pushing the forearms into the mat. Knuckles together.

Okay, super important here. Yes, the zip up. But also we're gonna want light under your knee at least. If you can get light under your thighs. So zip 'em up, lift them up.

And I want you to pretend you're touching your toe to your head. Two kicks. One, two, switch. Two. I'm kicking my head. I'm lifting my thigh.

I'm zipping my legs up two and right. To keep 'em squeezing together. Keep lifting the knee, keep lifting the thigh. The other leg lifts and reaches. One more set right two left two.

We're gonna place the right facial cheek on the mat and do the triple kick. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna be a little creative. We're gonna do our traditional triple leg kick or double leg kick with three kicks going to your bottom. We'll do one set of each and then we're gonna change it into grasshopper, like from the reformer, from the ladder barrel.

So try to stay with me on that. We'll come down and then we'll go into swan dive. All right, so when I'm on my right cheek, I won't be saying all the muscles too much, but I'll talk you through all every time I'm on my left cheek. Ready? Here we go.

We're gonna put down our right cheek for double leg kick. Using your belly let's really zip up those legs as you go. Now, switching cheeks, bend those elbows high. Lift and kick your head. One, thighs up.

Two, zip up those legs. Three. That was your second set. So now it's grasshopper. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Switch. It's a lift. It's a squeeze in.

It's a lift. And it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Hands here. Draw the belly in and up. Zip up the legs for swan dive. Here we go. Bottoms up, arms, bottoms up, arms, bottoms up, arms. One more. And good job, let's round our back and sit on our heels.

Now when you sit on your heels, don't just let everything out. Let's go ahead and tuck under your toes. Let's go ahead and reach back and try to use your belly to stretch forward. This is a good prep for our crab in a minute. So stretching forward, really trying to keep a good scoop.

All right, let's turn around and we're gonna do neck pull. So same concept as our roll up, but we're gonna use this handy dandy circle, placing it right on the inside of our arches. And we're gonna put our hands behind our head. One over the other. Getting this one here.

Okay, taking a big breath. Go ahead and exhale to start levitating off your seat. Inner thigh squeeze that circle and let's hinge back as our bottom stays in front of us, it's working to stabilize. We're lengthening our spine. Rolling down.

Come on up all the way to kiss your knees. Exhale. Inhale. Roll up, levitate off that bottom, inner thigh squeeze. Lengthen it away, push it away, push it away. Roll the rest down, up again.

You don't wanna stay down there and fall asleep, as soon as you're down, your back up. And take your bottom forward, forward. Imagine you can go forward as you lengthen back in and roll down. Two more. Exhaling all the way to kiss your knees, using your seat to lift, not your quads. And slide those heels away.

Slide 'em away. Heels slide, heels slide. Rolling down one more. Exhaling forward. Inhale rolling up and lifting, stretching, lifting, long.

And we're ready for jackknife. Bend the knees in. We're gonna use a circle again. Imagining it's the tower, it's gonna help us to lift our bottoms up into jackknife. This one you're gonna stay with the legs at 90 degrees.

Press the arms firmly into the mat, zip up those inner thighs and here we go. Bottoms up. Bottoms up. And really bottoms up. Keep 'em up as you go down. Keep 'em up. Keep 'em up.

Don't go down and over. Bottoms over, bottoms up, up, up Monica. There we go. And keep it up. Keep it up. Keep it up.

One more time and over. Bottoms up. And now I want you to do this. I want you to put your hands right here. Now we're going to reach the legs, bending, keep using your hips. Maybe even figure out a way to get rid of the circle.

But we're just gonna transition down to here. Let's go ahead and take the circle away. Normally we would do our hip circles here, not hip circles, shoulder bridge. And I just have my hands slightly under my hips. You could have 'em fully.

I want you to heal slide the right leg away. Woo. Kick it up, flex it down. Two, flex it down. This guy's working up. Flex and retard it.

Next heels slide the left way. Really important, getting in the right position. And here we go. Bottoms up, flex down. Bottoms up, flex down.

One more, don't forget the right bottoms up, and heels slide back in and melt down your back. Bottom finally gets to go down. Shake out your hands if you need to roll up. And we're gonna do spine twist. So arms straight out to the side.

Guess what? Heels, slide those heels away. They don't shift as you take a breath. And exhale, rotate. Two, three, in with your grow tall and rotate tall, taller, taller and center.

And rotating. Don't lean back. Three, don't let your heel shift. Up. But most important, have fun lifting up off your bottom. And one more set. Lift up off that bottom.

Waking it up. No longer sitting in a chair. One more time. Up off your seat, lifting your waist up. Awesome. Great job. Okay, and we're ready for our sidekicks. Here we go. Let's turn onto our left side.

And first, align yourself up completely on the back edge of your mat. If your neck's okay, have your head resting on your left hand. Better yet, we're gonna end up putting it back here. But first of all, get your body nice and long on the back edge. And guess what heel slide those heels away.

Now it's an advanced mat, so take your right foot in front of your left and then slide your left foot in front, that is the proper alignment for our advanced mat. We're gonna do the first five with your hand down and then we'll do the next five with your hands back. Upper body is stable, lift the right leg, rotate it, reach it long. Try to reach across the room wherever you're at. This is obvious.

We're gonna take one slow, we're gonna double pause. But on the way back when it goes in alignment with your mat, that is bare minimum. Keeping this here, don't roll and lie down on your chest. How far can you take the leg back to an arabesque and back, and back, and squeeze and squeeze, okay? So take it as far back as you can holding your balance squeeze, squeeze.

Not taking it into your lower back of course. To tempo four hand down here the next five but there. So it's one, two, back, back. One, two, back, back. Two more. One, two.

Squeeze. Squeeze. Reaching across the room, hand behind our head. Once like neck, pull with your hands and really gets the waist working, get that back of the thigh and see three more. Squeezing and two reaching across the room. One more bottoms up, right and squeeze.

All right, place that hand back down. And we're gonna do up and down, here we go. Kick it up and going down. Outer thigh, inner thigh. You're welcome to add a flex as you go down either way, but squeeze.

We've got just one more and we're gonna do our circles. You're engaging the wrap and we're gonna circle one, two, three. Put a little spunk. One more reverse circling the upper thigh. Two, three, four, five.

Now bend that knee and grab the ankle. Slide the left leg as long as you can and lift it, one. Lift it higher two. Lift it higher. And now big circles.

One, you can reach the foot long. Two. Bigger reaching for the ceiling. Reaching around, one more and reverse sweep. Sweeping the floor, sweeping the ceiling. Three more. Circle two and one.

Good job. Bicycle. Same thing as what we just talked about. Take the leg forward, bend the knee. Here's the moment of truth. Your knees are almost aligned.

Now how far can you stretch the quad back? But more importantly, how much can you work the seat? Take it further. Take it further. Squeeze. Keep it there as you extend now to tempo. Long, bend the knee, taking it back as far as you can.

Then extend one more forward, bend, take it back, back, back, and extend for the reverse. Long as you go back. How far back? How far back? Take it back. Take it back.

Squeeze that bottom and hamstring toe to your head. Knee to knee, knee to chest. Extend all the way across the room as you pedal backwards. Toe to your head. Knee to knee, knee to chest and extend last one all the way across the room.

Reaching across. Reaching across. Toe to your head. Knee to chest and extend legs together. All right, some of my favorites here.

We're going to pull the waist in and we're gonna let those legs float up off the floor and down. Super easy. We're gonna lengthen so much they just reach up and lift. Good. One more and then we'll do our scissors. And we're gonna pull our waist in, lift up. So hips have to be stacked to be balanced.

Take one leg forward. And how far back can you take the other one? Again energy out to the rooms and across as you switch. Little harder taking the bottom leg back and switching. Reaching.

Reaching and switch. We're gonna do one more set after this. And reaching. We'll do a quick Manhattan walk and stretching that back leg back as far as you can. Now hold them out here and a quick Manhattan walk.

Zip up those legs again and walk, walk, walk. Try to keep the upper body still. Four, three, two, one and lower down. Let's roll onto your tummy for our inner thighs. So we're gonna do 20 beats of our inner thighs.

We're gonna take it open as wide as you can on the mat zip together. Open as wide as you can zip together, and then really give it to me to tempo, okay. 20 quick beats. Follow me because I won't be able to be speaking so loud into the microphone. Here we go. On your tummy, hands make a small pillow for your forehead and lift those legs up.

Felt those inner thighs. Great job. We're gonna roll onto your right side now. And you're gonna see how my backside works. Hopefully it's working great. So reach out that right elbow, straight body from head to toe.

Left hand is in front of you. Now we're gonna take that top leg a little bit forward. Slip the bottom leg in and hold. We are always reaching across the room. We'll take one slow lifting the left leg, reaching it long.

It's gonna double pulse and we're gonna reach it and not okay to just be going in alignment with your body. We're gonna use the back of the fine seat to take it back and back. And how far into that arabesque as can you go? Let's go. Nine more. Forward and back and bottoms up, and lengthen and bottoms up.

And one more then hands back. Bottoms up and lengthen and forward. It's like neck pull remember and forward. And how far back and three and how far back, and two and back and one more. Keeping it at hip level at all time.

The hand returns and will kick up and you can flex down if you want. Or up and inner thigh, and up. I love lifting my belly in and up as I go down, up and stretch up the crown of your head. One more. Up and squeeze and five little circles. One, two, a little spit, little jazz.

Four, five, reverse. Really put some energy into it. Three, two and one. Now bend that knee for your inner thigh circles. We're gonna first lift.

Lift a little higher, lift a little higher, and now relax the foot as we circle. Big circle, sweeping down, sweeping forward, sweeping up and down. One more in this direction and let's reverse. Try to keep pushing your head into your hand working the whole body. Two lift as high as you can.

One more, getting that little leg up. Great job. Okay. Both legs long and my favorite oh, bicycle. Let's not skip that. So reach the leg long and we're gonna kick it forward.

Bend the knee to your chest. Again, here's the moment of truth. The knee lines up with the thigh and body, but how far back, back, back, back can you take it, and then extend from there without rolling onto your chest. All right, two in this direction forward. Bend the knee, take the knee back.

Your belly's lifting your chest so it doesn't roll down. Hamstring and glute working. One more, forward. Bend the knee. Keep the knee at hip level the whole time.

And extend legs together for the reverse. Romani used to say, don't look like a dog on a fire hydrant lifting up your knees. So hopefully I don't. You're gonna reach all the way back. Hard to do that as you pull your toe to your head here.

Knee to knee, knee to chest. One more. Keeping the thigh level. Working the back of the thigh and seat. Toe to the head. Knee to knee, knee to chest and extend.

All right. Now my favorite. The leg lifts drawing the belly in. Zip up your legs like a mermaid tail. And they just levitate and down. Two more. Zipping up and lift, two, three and down.

One more time. Pulling in. And so long they lift and we're gonna do our scissors. Front leg goes forward. Your hips have to be stacked for really good balance. Reaching across the room to go back.

Reaching across as the bottom leg goes forward, reaching across as the bottom leg goes back. Reaching across as the bottom leg goes forward for the last time. How's this leg working? And one more time with that bottom leg back. And now hold the legs up for your quick walk.

Walk, walk. It's a quick Manhattan walk. Three, two, one. And hold. Lower down. Great job. Let's lie on our back.

We're gonna get ready for teasers. We always traditionally give ourselves a little hug. That was a lot of legwork. So much legwork that we always shake out our legs. So we lift up and we give 'em a little shake.

Yep. Let 'em completely shake so that they're not holding tension anymore. We're gonna do teaser. One, two, three, and have a little fun walking with our teaser. Okay.

All right. So we're gonna reach your legs forward across the room and hold them with the back of the thighs and seat, remember that always helps us come up, up, up like in crisscross. If the legs float up, you don't really get to come up. So we're gonna reach the legs forward, try and engage the hamstrings and glutes to press down like a one to chair pedal. We're gonna reach the arms back coming up for teaser one, drawing the belly in.

And we're gonna lower the legs to the right level, reaches if we're touching the toes. And now keep the back of the thighs pressing down. Keep them, keep them, two more. In with the air exhaling. Back of the thighs and seat.

Reaching, reaching, reaching. One more into teaser two. Scooping in back of the thighs. Oh, let's use those back of the thighs. Down, up. Bottoms up.

One more. Ah. Teaser three. Reach with the back of the legs. Reach, reach, reach everything up. And arms lift and reaching with the back of the legs.

Long beautiful legs. One more. Okay. Walking. Take the right cheek, take the left. Take the right, take the left. Take the right, take the left.

Let's walk backwards. Take the right, take the left. Two more. Right, left. One more. Right back, left back. Get yourself centered and roll out.

That was some fun work. Hug your knees in. We're getting ready for swimming. Leg pull down and leg pull up, here we go. We're gonna sit up and flip over.

Do a little bit of therapy here with our swimming. So I'm gonna keep my head up so you can hear me. But press all your limbs into the mat reaching really long. I want you to press. I'm gonna lift your right arm and lift your left leg.

Now we're doing this because I want you to push with the left hand down and squeeze. Now my right hip is on down into the mat as my left squeezes up. Place all limbs down. Press with the right arm and left leg as you lift up the opposite limbs. So left arms lifting right outer thigh and glute.

It's easy to squeeze to lift, but how about the bottom one? It's also pressing down, really stabilizing your box. And down. One more set like that. We're gonna press and lift. Lift up out of the water and down.

One more. Press and lift up out of the water and down. Now lift up all your limbs and let's go for a swim. Here we go. Inhale, two, three, four, five. Squeeze in that bottom to lift the legs.

Inhale. Two, three, four, five. Exhale, two, three, four. One more. Inhale, two, four, five. Zip up those thigh too and melt. Okay. Scoop in your belly, round back and flex those heels underneath you.

Grab on and stretch forward as if you're doing crab. The nice part of this is the transition to leg pull down. So we're gonna reach our hands as far away from us as we can flexing the feet. And let's go into a pushup or plank position. All right.

Feel what the back of the legs and the bottom and the tummy are doing. Use the right hamstring and glute rock back and come forward. Establish yourself left hamstring and glute, rock back come forward. They both are working just like in swimming. The bottom leg is also stabilizing.

One more set. Right up and left. Hold. All right. Turning over. Right hand to left.

Cross the right ankle. Really lift. Okay, lift those hips bottom up. Turning all the way around with your bottom up feet forward, fingers point forward. Lift up your seat, three kicks on the right. Actually alternate, sorry, left.

And two, left bottoms up. One more. Flexing on the way down. Last one and ah. And now we're gonna get ready for some kneeling. I love kneeling work because when I stand I tend to really grab with my top of my legs, my quadriceps, but kneeling whew, you have to use the hamstrings and bottom.

So if this is your normal position, if you have healthy knees, this is great, if you don't leave this series out. You're gonna use your hamstrings. I'm gonna pretend that Romana is holding onto my ankles, and I'm gonna get my bottom forward so much that it's like on the front part of my knees. Okay. I always like to put one hand on my lower belly and your knees are hip with a part by the way.

And then the other hand sliding down my back because it's not a tuck, it's a lift and it's a length and of the lower back that allows for all of the bottom muscles to work correctly. Let's start with chest expansion. Your arms are here and we're going to pull the belly in and lift it to our chest as we press our strong arms back. Look to the right, look to the left, look forward and exhale. Again the hips press forward as if you're leaning on the front part of your knees.

Look to the left, look to the right, look forward and release. One more set. Back the thighs. Almost imagine that you are zipping up those inner thighs. Look to the right, stretch the neck to your left.

Look forward. It is called chest expansion dry, but it is a stretch for your neck, so don't just look, stretch the neck over the shoulder. Stretch the neck over the shoulder. Look forward and release. Let's go into thigh stretch.

You can widen the knees as you hinge back. Again, don't allow this to happen. Really squeeze forward. Hold onto your chariot, look down at your tummy, make sure your knees are even. There we go.

And we're from the inner thighs and everything. We're gonna hinge back and then let it lift us up. You can go all the way to the mat if you're that flexible. Two more, back of the legs are gonna hand hips propel us forward. One more and then we'll do some arm work.

Scooping it as if we have it already. And good work. Nice hamstring and glutes. Nice stretch in the front of the thighs. Again, get yourself in proper position because when you do arms on the reformer, all your power comes from here and here. So we're gonna lift up and circle forward.

Scoop up to the ceiling is our energy like we're lifting our bottom all the way up to the ceiling. Let's reverse, and up, up, up and open. Two more, hips forward on the front of your knees and open. One more. Open, open, open. And now let's go one in the reverse into shaving.

So here, how's that long line look? Bend the elbows behind your ears, zip up everything as you extend forward, back of the thighs and seat. Zip up everything. One more time. Back of the arms, elbows behind the ears, behind the ears, shaving off the back of your head.

Hips on the front part of your knees, squeezing all the way up and pressing forward. Nice job. Let's go into some rocking. Slide back a little bit and you're gonna lie onto your tummy. Okay, so we're gonna bend your knees and we're gonna do the prep first.

Grabbing the top of your ankles. You're gonna press your hips down without lifting your head. And you're gonna press your hips to press the heels into your bottom three times. Here we go, one, two, three. And then press your legs in your feet into your hands to lift.

I'm just doing it lightly. We'll get more and bigger and bigger each time. Two more, press, press, press. Press your bottom down. Press your feet into your hands.

Lift your belly into your chest. Open those shoulders. One more. And then we'll rock. Press, press, press. Lift, lift, lift and rock.

Bottoms engaged. Yeah, use it to propel you. Use it to move you. One more and then reach out. Round your back and sit on your heels.

Okay, we're gonna do that crab. So reach your hands away. And we're gonna cross our ankles as our knees swoosh through our hands. Now grab your toes and here's the part, just like those kneeling exercises, lift your bottom up over those knees as much as you can. Forward, forward.

Then gently press the head and rock forward as you lift the hips. We're gonna roll back, feed our crab and lift up over our knees. Gentle push and stretch. Roll back. Slice our meat. Lift on up. Over over.

One more set. And rolling back. Feed our crab and lift up. I wanna really get the back of my legs working. Scooping up.

Gentle press one more here. Lifting up, feed and zip up over. Super important to use these muscles as your head goes down, not to plop onto your head. Good. I hope you felt those muscles. All right, we're gonna do boomerang.

So legs long in front. Just to add a little fun here. So we're gonna cross your right ankle. Guess what? Bottoms are gonna go up.

So when we lift our legs, we're gonna lift 'em from our bottom. Hands here. Here we go. Scooping in. Let's see. Can you levitate? And now bottoms up, switch legs.

Roll up to your teaser hands and keep those legs long and light and airy. Hand stretch. Two, three. Sit up tall, levitate and over. Open switch. Rolling up hands stretching forward and around.

Not so much grunting 'cause it really is lovely and light and fluffy. So levitate one more set, over, sharp. Rolling up hands and lengthening reach, reach. One last one to even out. Scoop the belly in from your bottom levitate and over, sharp switch.

Exhale, and hands and forward. Forward and stretch. All right, we've got seal, so bring your bottom a little forward. Just the same way we went down. We're gonna come right back up.

Six seals and stand up balancing here. Clap two, three, roll back bottoms up. Two, three, and forward. Two, three, let's hold that bottom. Two, three and forward.

Two, three, zip up and forward. Three more. And exhale on. Let's breathe. Two more. Inhale. On this last one, let go of your legs, cross and up.

With all of that up power turn around. We're going to do our final exercise as arabesque pushups. Just three pushups. I want you again to be thinking of this nice long line. We're gonna teeter totter down with our arabesque.

So Pilates stance, we'll start with your arms lifting up overhead. Really strong wrap going on in both legs. We're gonna use the right hamstring and glute to reach back into an arabesque. Hold that powerhouse. And we're gonna teeter totter down, lifting your right leg, walk out into your pushup position, keeping that leg up.

And three, and walking back. It's more about the arabesque today than it is about the pushup. And we're gonna really use our belly as we reach through our fingertips to come up. And now the other side. So strong wraps, scooping in, lifting your belly up to your fingertips.

Super important to have energy going in both directions for this exercise. So we're gonna use the left hamstring and bottom to take the leg back and teeter totter down, lifting that leg, walking out into your pushup position. And three times leg stays up and walking back, still thinking about my energy, especially on the way up. Full energy in both directions. Returning the left foot down.

Go ahead and turn your palms out. If your hips went behind you, bring them under. Lift up, exhale, take a big breath as you push down. Exhale as you keep lifting up your bottom, bottom up, and we are all finished. Woo!