Playful, Overball Mat

Guess the time it is. Girl time. Okay. We are using the over balls today, more or less as an assist and a way to feel the tactile sensations that our bodies can make and feel stronger by the end. So I'm just gonna stay standing here, find the middle of your mat. And the the over ball we're using, it's not completely full.

It's it's got a little give to it. It just helps us to hang on to it and other things as well. So let's just stand on our feet parallel, kinda rock yourself forward and back. Feel tall, decide how you want this half hour to go and take an inhale and just exhale. Allow yourself to round forward. Your arms are heavy as if the ball were heavy.

They stay on your back. You round over to the ground. Feel free to bend the knees. In fact, I'm going to just bit, then inhale to straighten them and exhale to roll yourself up again. Like, you're not straining, but she the ball has its imaginary weight just so you can oppose against it, and you're tall again. One more like that. Inhale.

And exhale trying to free yourself of maybe gathered tension that has nothing to do with working out. Let it go as best you can. Inhale. Bend, if you'd like, straighten and roll up. Once your collar bones get wide at the top, your arms up. Almost like you're pushing through the air. We start to create our own resistance. And now just bend the elbows wide drawing that ball right into your solar plexus finding the broadness of your upper back. And gently push it forward.

By that, I don't mean squeeze the ball so much. They're a little small to overly squeeze. But it's this idea that you're drawing the elbows wide and back and then press it forward. From there, just raise the arms up again somewhat like the air is thicker than it is. We're gonna exhale round forward.

Just diving forward. As if your head was somehow connected to that ball. We inhale exhale roll up peeling the spine. I just have the arms straight. Just have the arms straight.

And then I draw them into a bent elbow position. Push it forward. Raze it up, push through the air, and dive forward rounding the spine again. Trying not to shift too far back. Down, down, down, and then inhale exhale to roll up.

Draw the elbows up so the balls end ends up right in front of the zipper. What's that? Zip like a zipper. Like a zipper. Press forward. Take the arms up.

Let's change this a little bit. Take the ball into your right hand. Leave the left hand up, and the right hand just comes down by your side and actually press it into the leg as you roll it down. Or do you wanna exhale there or inhale there? I don't care. I think I want to x-ray. Just breathe. There you go. Inhale.

Lift up. You can bring the ball right back up and other side. Exhale. Make it long and press it down. Press it down. Reaching over. Not much of a rotation for the moment.

Come back up. Inhale the ball into both hands overhead, exhale round down again, like a roll down, down, down, down, Take the inhale at the bottom. Sometimes they even like to push on the ball a little to to oppose the abs. So they draw up a little bit. Right? That starts the roll all the way up. Get those collar bones wide eventually.

Bend the elbows. And press the ball forward. Raise the ball up. We'll take it in the left hand first. Leave the right arm up.

Press it down. Reach it over. It's tall to go up and over. Nothing too stressful. Just trying to feel All the parts come back up. Reach the ball into the other hand to switch sides.

Find the leg. Over. You go. Come back up, reach it overhead, rounded forward. Roll down. Rolling down.

Rolling it, warming up our spine for all we're gonna do in the exhale. Roll up the straight leg straight arms as you approach the top, you can start to drag the ball up your body, and then find that external rotation of the shoulders progress it forward. Reach it up, we'll add on one last thing here. Take the right the ball in the right arm down to the side of your legs. Same thing. Let's just inhale over this time or whenever. And now exhale, do a little rotation so you can actually wrap that ball around your back of your leg, getting an upper body rotation, come back to the side, lift up, and take the ball over head switch sides.

I'm lowering it down. I slide it. I'm inhaling, but whatever. Just breathe. Make it feel good. Rotate. That means your upper body. Your the ball goes behind your leg a little bit.

Just keeping that sensation or connection. Come back to the side. Lift yourself up, bring the ball up, email, x over just gonna roll down. All the way. Inhale and exhale to stand up.

Roll back up. And Meredith, why don't you take us from here? Okay. So we're gonna sit down. And what we're gonna do to start is to bring the ball towards the base of spine, but a little bit back. So I have, like, a base about a hands with the way and then just lean on it.

So let's do legs together here. Arms reaching forwards. And then what I want us to it's a little slippery. Yeah. So what we're gonna do is just continue to reach the arms forwards and press into the ball with your spine. So we're rotating the pelvis under or tucking the pelvis and then release that.

And rotate the pelvis. It doesn't look like much, but you should feel something in around your mid and we really feel a lot. And we'll just do one more now. Hold that maintain that posterior tilt or the rounded spine, open the right arm out to the side, look back at it. Follow it with your eyes to increase your rotation, reaching the opposite arm forward, and then come back.

Maintaining the shape of the pelvis, the left arm goes. So we're in a rounded spine here, and we're certainly not resting on the ball. Just using the ball to support the shape that we're making in our body. Here we go. Right arm goes out and back. Come back through.

Left arm goes out and back, knees are pressing together feet are anchored into the ground. Come back through. Let's do one more to each direction. Open. Keeping the lower body still as we maximize that rotation in the upper spine and center. And over and center.

Roll off the ball. And then reorganize it. So it's more you might have to scooch on the mat a little bit. Reorganize it so it's more kind of mid rib area. We're about to take some thoracic extensions, so wherever feels good to you there. So hands are gonna come behind the head.

We're gonna orient the pelvis in a neutral position. And then from there, take the upper body back. And then did I say that out loud and then take the upper body just up So the shoulders come into alignment with the pelvis. So pretty straight. Maybe the head's a little bit above the shoulders.

And then back in here, And lift as we exhale, we'll do 5. And India, working our way down and working our way up. So if you know if you've ever done Pilates before, what you'll hopefully keep in mind is that there's not really a wasted moment. So there's a controlled extension on the way back. And certainly a contraction on the way up.

Hold at the top. Now we're gonna take the body into flexion from both sides of the spine. So as you curl your chest to press the ribs into the ball, tuck the pelvis and flat in your spine and then just return to straight. You're welcome. Bring the chest towards the thighs, the low back towards the ground should feel pretty intense, and then release.

And we'll do that 3 more times. So ribs press back head. I like to pull my head up slightly. Prevents me from pushing it forward and neutral. Let's just do 2 more the same. Curl, low back presses. So we're not in neutral anymore.

We're certainly around from both directions. And last time. We go up. Press the lower back flat. Return to center. Resist the urge to rest on the ball as you go into extension. Come back into that straight line.

Hold there. Take a rotation. Feel the feet on the ground. Can you feel as you come from centers on the other side, if there's any shifting on the feet. They should stay fairly still and symmetrical, and we go back five times. Okay. And we lift up 5 seals like a lot, doesn't it? A little bit.

And take your rotation. Steady everywhere else and center. Remember, I'm just constantly reminding myself not to push my head forward. And center three more times and back. And then we have a very special surprise. And lift up I imagine you might be able to guess what it is. Yes.

Rotate. Find center. Rotate. We have 2 more to go. As we're taking that rotation, an interesting idea to play with is is it possible to rotate your torso without rolling the ball too much. Now it's not to say that you won't get heavier on one side of the ball, and then the other side of the ball, but we wanna try and hold that ball as still as we can.

Chrissy's not talking because it feels hard. Got it. One more. Because you can see my school list. Stop. And rotate and center. I'm relaxed and roti and center one more time to the back.

We're just gonna let herself have a stretch here. So I said, don't relax before. Now I'm saying relax and enjoy and now collect yourself, come back to the straight line. Take rotation towards, let's say, the left. Now just like we did before, we're gonna press the chest forward and tuck the tail so you're in a flexion position and release.

5. Flexion of the whole spine. And release. I might get a cramp inflection and release Don't pull the head forward. Lift the head up for.

And, really, would you like to have a break before we go to the other side? I'm gonna speak for the people. I'm gonna thank you for speaking to this person, company center, and control release. And then rest and then collect, come back to the top, rotate the opposite direction, keeping the knees centered, Christy, and rotate trusted. Totally. And just forward low back flat.

It's just a variation. Oh, are we resting on the ball when we go back? Are we still in it. Last 2. I don't think we have a 2. This is the very end.

Well, one more, and then we'll be finished. Here it is. Go return. Come center. I lied 1 more center body flexion from both sides. And then reach all the way back and take a stretch.

Let that ball let you, extend through your upper spine. Okay. Time for bridging. Yeah. Great. Here's what we're gonna do.

Cur yourself right back up, press into the ball so you can go forward. Reach your arms forward. Grab on. I'm just gonna roll this up. All the way hugging the knees, kinda just getting tall for a second. Take the ball out, put it between your knees, You could I'm gonna separate my knees, you know, accordingly. Okay.

So they line up, but this hits bones, and we'll just roll down. You can hold on or not hold on. I am Doing a little bit of both. Draw the feet in. So the ball now is it's not right at the knees, but it's pretty close. And you're squeezing the negative space.

Let's inhale on the exhale just like before, you're gonna roll through the pelvis to reach your legs up, up, up looking for the long line feet flat. You can stand on both your feet and your arms. I recommend it, inhale, and just exhale right down the center. Just finding what is so for you today. Okay. Going up again, inhale. Start the exhale. And the squeeze on the ball is is, you know, sort of necessary, but not intense. I don't think.

When you get to the top, take a glance down your body and look for that straight line on the the front of the hips as best you can. You might have to lower your ribs a little and tuck your pelvis more to make that happen. Now we're gonna lift the right hip up a little bit. And as we exhale, we roll down the left side of the spine, sort of off center, so to speak. Yeah.

And then level it out and go ahead and go to the other side. So now the left tip is gonna start to roll you up. So you're coming up on that side. Which is oddly strange. I mean, you're coming up on the the right side of the spine and back to center. From here, switch it lift left hip a little higher, roll down the right side of your spine, really finding all those ribs all the good stuff when you get near those hips, start to level it out through middle, and the right hip will start to lift you up and roll. Left that left side, deep in the curve.

End up almost really tilted, but the shoulders are level back to center. Reverse again. So the right hip bone lifts up. We've melt our way down. We place our way down. All the way.

Level out in the center. Let the left hip Lyft. And really right there is that's where you almost have to really think about retucking or re articulating the spine. Come back to center and reverse it last time. Lift up with the left.

Go down on the right. Down, down, down, level yourself off. My my knees are wobbling kind of more than I want them to, but But I'm still feeling the this differences in the sides. And that's sort of the point for me right now. Back to the center.

Hang out in the center when you get there. Inhale and exhale right down the center. Cool. Bring the knees in. Pick them up, hug them. And pick your head, neck, and shoulders up.

I'm gonna do one more little thing here. And just a little rocking for 3. Keep us shaped. 2, we'll set up on the 30. Here it is. And up. And then just one more little back support.

So the the ball will be in front of you. These aren't that big, so this is not gonna be that easy, but I wanna just open hips a little bit differently and use the arms. So both legs are on the ball right around the ankle or Achilles, hands if you can face him towards your feet or you can turn him sideways, but lift yourself into straight arms as best you can and just hang up into a back support. Lifting up and hinge and come on down. Just do 5.

And lift. For those of you who hyper extend your knees, this is a really nice opportunity to not do that. And somehow the ball helps for me. I am one of those people. Here's 3.

And and lift last 2. Find the back of your legs. Find the back of your body, last one up, and definitely go. Okay. So let's take the ball in our hands, bring the legs together, bring the arms up the front of the body flexing the feet and sitting tall. So holding the ball in the right hand Open the right arm out to the side.

Follow with your body. Come back to center change sides. The left hand takes the ball. The right arm reaches reaches reaches reaches the 2 arms are reaching oppositionally and open with the right arm. And then think of pushing, not just with the arm, but with the abdominal.

So you're pushing the ball through space. Pushing the ball into the air on the way back, pushing the ball into the air from the front of the body as you come forward, open, making a change. Take that ball up, get taller as it comes over the top of you and into your left hand, and then open to the left. Take the ball up. Get taller as the ball travels overhead.

Return it to the right hand and root. Is that nice? Yeah. Very nice. And go up over the top and change hands and open. Really reach that front arm and up over the top. And so let's just do one more.

Does it just feels good? No. I don't. Keeping the sitting bones heavy, anchored up over the top, and change. And the last time? Up over the top, I'm, like, thinking about letting the ball take me into, like, a floating idea. Little late for that, but for the queue.

But next stop. Separate the feet. Bring the arms forward. So just saying left and right because it's easier. We're gonna rotate the body to the right.

The ball will remain in the right hand and we're gonna reach into the saw, putting that right arm down and push that ball away from you as you come out into in down. Into your saw. As you sit up, bring both hands back to the ball, you're in rotation and then center. Nice. Rotate to the other side. The left hand holds the ball.

The back hand has the ball. The other arm reaches for the spine goes down. Use that arm, the back arm to help you. Come up in rotation. Both hands hold the ball and find center and rotate.

And exhale as you reach, pressing the ball away. I love that opposition. If you can keep some weight on the ball, just a little even. Yeah. I can really feel that. Lifting up, finding center, and rotate, and push down on the ball like Christy said, use it to help the rotation in the body, dive down, lift up chain, both hands hold the ball fine center last time and almost forgot what hand holds the ball, but I got it. I figured it out.

Go down. Sit up, take both hands into the ball, the ball into both hands, return to center last time, rotate. And push the ball away as you lean in and lift up. And come to center. Okay. I think it's time for some sites.

Awesome. So turn on to your, I guess, right side. And just place the ball under your ribs. And it's this is one of those cases where it just is informative, I think. You could drop into it and really let go, but who would do that? You're gonna lift away from it and stay connected as well. So your elbow is right out underneath your shoulder.

Your hand is straight. Reach the top leg to straight, the lower leg can be around 90, and just lift that top leg. So when you lift the leg, you didn't drop into the ball, and it'll remind you if you do. Here go kick forward. It's kick, kick, sweep it back.

And for now, we're just not gonna roll the ball as much as we can help it. And 33 and back. Here's 4. Back. It's hard not to roll the ball. It's very hard not to roll the ball.

In fact, I am rolling it a little, but I get to think about it. And sometimes I really want to, to be honest. Mhmm. In fact, sometimes that's a good thing. But right now, let's keep it here one more time. And hold it to the back from really push it back.

And from there, just lift and lift. And, again, the upper body isn't changing, or at least it's trying not to. Is this 4? 5. Thank you. 6 and 7 still behind you. Here's 8 out of the 10.

That we'll do next time. Shoot. Now take the top arm and actually roll the ball a little bit so you can turn into it without collapsing on the shoulder reaching a leg back. Enjoy the stretch. Kinda look out in front of you a little. And then come on back.

You can just bend the knee in. Let's just cross it over to sit up for a little bit of a stretch. You can use the ball or not, but I'm gonna taken front is for a little extra assist cushion even. Try to drop the hip down. Do the best you can on that.

Hugs the ball into you to into it, and you can even rotate roll the ball a little bit so you can feel that hip. Oh, I could just hang out here, but let's go ahead and go to the other side. Left rib cage on, stabilize the shoulder, lower knee is bent about 90 degrees for the super stable version of the side kick. You reach the top leg out, and we flex as the foot goes forward, kick, kick, sweep it back. If you can get as far as you can on the first one, maybe you'll get another millimeter or so out of it, but do your best. 3 or 4.

For now. For now. Thank you. I can count 1. I don't have to talk. It's my superpower. That's not your only one. See, now Marty lost 7?

It you know, so I popped. So that's the problem. Let's say here we go. I I believe you. 9, and 10. And just, like, keep yourself supported. Right?

So what leg is behind us as best we can, and we lift it up one. And 2, maybe from hip height and up rather than lowering it down. Here's 4, I think. 5. Yep. You were correct. 6. Congratulations.

It happens. Uh-oh. 8, 9. And 10. Alright. Bring it in and across. Hello, Durn. Of course. Roll that ball. Push the leg back.

Enjoy the stretch. That spiral of your entire body just like the planet. Come on back. And sit right on top. Crossing the leg over that was just in the air.

Do your best to sit that hip down. With or without the ball? Okay. I was just gonna say I'll be over here. We all see the best you can. Oh, the ball. Again, it does it somehow gives you I don't know. I'll stick it up. Yeah. Maybe, like, just more room, I think. Yeah. Something. Yeah.

Hit this down. We're tall. And if you feel like you want it, you can add a little bit more rotation into that. Okay. Let's go ahead and move on, miss Rogers. Okay. So put the ball down towards the front edge of the mat.

And rest your chest on the ball. So not so much Kinda more up towards the collar bones than in the center. And just depending on your shape, will depend on where the ball feels comfortable for you, but definitely not so high up towards the neck that it feels like it's gonna choke you. I think that works. An obvious idea. Okay. It's good. So arms just to the outside of the mat.

And basically, the body is just resting on the ball in this moment. Energize your legs and the front of your body. First thing that we're gonna do is glide the shoulder blades towards down. You might feel a little pull with your arms towards backwards. Now as the arms are pulling in that direction, can you feel your sternum lifting up pressing the ball forward. Like, you're trying to roll the ball Mhmm. And then return.

So it's simple. You might not see a lot, but, it is one of those ones where you really will feel a lot if you think about it. So glide the scapula, the shoulder blades, the arms. Roll the ball forwards, lifting the chest. Almost like you're trying to lift just off it, but not quite. Mhmm.

And then down. And then we'll go one more time. Roll the ball forward. Glide the shoulder blades back pull back on the ground and then center. So once the chest is just resting on the ball again, Keep the elbows down, but bring the hands off the floors there in line with your shoulders.

So we've got a diagonal line there. Reach out with your arms. Let the ball support you here. It's not so easy. Reach all the way towards the sides of the thighs with the pinky fingers.

And then as your elbows bend, the elbows drop to the floor, the hands reach on that diagonal towards the shoulders. And then we Return everything down. Little bit of backward glide to set the shoulders in place. Then pick up the hands, reach the arms, circle the arms, reach in and back, bend the arms, elbows down, hands to the shoulders, and return. Let's do one more time. Glide or 2 or 7. I don't know if I can keep track of 7, but probably 2.

Reach up circle around. Maybe you'll lift a little higher off that ball. Bend elbows down hands back to the shoulders. I think we should do one more. Yeah. And then we go backward glide with the shoulder blades first. Hands to the shoulders, reach out, circle around. Can you lift just off the ball? Like, you're trying not to barely touch it. Elbows in, hands up, and all the way down. Let's remove the ball from underneath the body. Rest it down onto the ground.

Press with your forms, round your spine as you start to sit yourself back scooch your knees in towards your elbows and then reach all the way down towards your feet. And then what we'll do here is we'll just start to walk the arms over towards the right side of the body. And just really lean into a stretch in the left side. So I'm like, I'm actually letting my pelvis come off center towards the left there and then start to come back. Hands through center, walk over to the other side, and lean. So the arms are reaching across.

They pull the pelvis just slightly off center of the feet. And come back. I think we should do one more that felt so good to pull the arms over to the right again. Maybe you'll go a little further with your hands, maybe not to just the idea is is that there is opportunity for exploration. Should you be curious and want that sort of thing in your practice? And then come back to center.

Definitely. And then over to the other side. I'm taking my arms a little further this time just a different place it it makes a different stretch, really. And then back in through the center, And then we'll keep the hands on the mat so that as you roll up and just let them lightly drag lightly drag along the mat. So they'll give you a stretch as you come up to sit up So lift the head and the eyes, and we are done.

You too. Thank you.