Reformer Connections

Hi there, I'm so excited to be back. My name is Leah stewards and I am going to be giving a reformer session today with the lovely Christie and Meredith. So come on in ladies. And um, this class is going to be all about connection. So, uh, connecting with our bodies, connecting movement to movement. So just trying to create a nice sense of flow and connection throughout this session here. So we're going to start in a standing position and do a little bit of a standing warmup and Meredith hears using the foot bar, which you're more than welcome to use or you could have your long box on the reformer as well. Like Kristi will show you just somewhere that you can place your hands.

So we're going to start with the roll down. So feet right underneath you, toes pointing straight forward arms just hanging by the sides. Everything nice and tall. Nice big breath into prepare and with your Xcel, Chin to chest as you start to roll down the spine, hollowing up into the abdomen. Good. Keeping a little bit of weight forward toward the balls of the feet. Lengthening the back of the legs. Take your breath in and with your Xcel drawing up into the center, pulling the pelvis underneath you. Good.

Restacking the vertebrae up and energy out through the crown of the head. Nice. Take your breath in and XL rolling down cause you're starting to feel that sense of articulating through your spine, but still keeping that control, that hollowing lifting up. Take your breath in and with your Xcel, draw the abdominals in and up. Good. Keeping the way even on the feet. Good. Now continuing here, I want you to lift your arms up towards the ceiling.

You're going to die the head down. Take your arms down, you're going to bend your knees and slide your arms out on top of your box or on your foot bar. So I want you to go into an extended spine, so reach your hips out. Perfect. So try to get as much as you can parallel to the floor. Good. And we're going to take the breath in. From here, you're going to do a poster. Your tilt with the exhale, draw the hips underneath you and pull the chunk in deflection. Good. Pulling back slightly with your hands. Inhale, articulate the spine back to the flat position.

Reaching out energies through the crown of the head and through the tailbone and the sits bones. Good. Take your breath in. XL belly button up toward the spine. Good. We lacks the glutes here. As you do this, engage in the abdominals in the pelvic floor and breathe in. Articulate, reaching. You can even go a little deeper into the bend of the knees to get that hinge at the hip. Nice. Take your breath in and with the XL curling up. Good. Pulling back slightly with your arms. The energy, the knees are reaching forward as you hollow. Deeper in. Beautiful and inhale, extend, reach. Think. Why do the Scapula long through the spine?

Let's do two more here and with an Xcel. Draw the abdominals in good feeling really grounded through your feet. Even spread out the toes a little bit. Take your breath in as you extend out. Good. Feel both sides of the back extending long spinal extensors. Good. And one more time and exhale. Good. Now from here, you're going to continue to roll the pelvis up underneath you.

Let go of your arms, roll the spine up and lift the arms up at the same time out to the side. From guys to the side. There you go. Up and over the head and dive down. Back into that position. So you're diving like you're diving into a pool. Extend your back. Good Xcel come into the pelvic curls. So roll the pelvis underneath you. Good. Release the arms.

Let them come down to your sides. Out to the side. Reach up, extend your chest up toward the ceiling and soon the chest and dive down. Beautiful. And reaching out. Since spoons are wide in this position, good. Excellent. Draw the abdominals in. Good. So we're flowing through the spine, connecting the arms to the spinal movement here. Reaching up and dived down. Good. Bend the knees. Get a little bit more grounded. Yes. And XL. Hell of a curl.

This is our last one. Beautiful and arms. That good dive last time. Reaching down. Good. And I want you to find that extended position. Good. Now from here, you're going to release your right arm and bring it back up to the right hip and rotate and look at the hand as you circle it around and bring it back down to the bar, to the box left-hand going down, circle up and over reaching and bring it back. Let's do that again. Right arm. So you're going to feel the spiral, the rotation in your spine, the stretch to the shoulder, good and left arm. Bring it back, twisting, feeling that spiral. Beautiful. And notice where you feel the stretch. You feel the stretch in the waist. You feel the stretch in the shoulder, the shoulder beyond this moving of the soldier, the arm that's down on the bar of the box, left arm and reach and make a conscious effort to keep your pelvis square and steady. And again, right on just feeling the rotation through the spine. Beautiful.

One more time with the left and reach. Inhale. Good. And with the XL it's hut the pelvis and start to roll. That good arms will come out to the side, but this time they're going to interlease fingers behind the head. Perfect. So we're going to go over for a side bend to the right with an inhale. Ground that left foot down as much as you can.

Get an XL draw up nice and up and over to the left. Perfect. Grounding the right foot down, good and up. So again, connecting that spine to the pelvis here, although it's moving independently of the pelvis, there's that deep connection going on. As the spine moves, the pelvis is being held nice and steady over good and at Nice. One more time. Needs way overreach. Good and exhale and last my eyes count myself. I just want to move with you guys.

Good over perfect and good holding here. Take the arms up, good and out to the side. We're going to do a standing spine twist. So let's go to the right with two little twists XL, one to inhale, center to the left and one to good. Again, we're feeling that spiral upward of the spine as the pelvis remains nice and steady. So equal weight on both feet. Good feeling like you're going to get a little further with each rotation.

With each repetition, rotate, rotate. Really Nice, nice and steady through the pelvis. Movement through the waist. Good to the left and XL app up. Good. One more set. And every time you post you're going to draw the abdominals in. A little bit flat or a little bit tighter. Last time. Rotate. Rotate. Good to the center holding here. Bring the arms up. Good.

Nice. Now what I want you to do is open the arms. You're going to bring your right leg up and you're going to curve and bend your bottom you. So they both come up here. Good. Take it down and bring it up. Good XL scrub down and bring the left leg up and bend the right and curve. Good. And connecting the arms up. Good. Open out to the side and it's the scoop of the arms, the scoop of the legs and the scoop of the torso. Good. And bring it down.

Bring it up and open and scope. Contract from the center. Yes. And we give now play with it. We're gonna do one more set. Tried to get a little bit deeper into your plea or into the bend of that standing leg. And really curved tuck. The tailbone engineer's you. Yes. Has seen the balance here and up.

One more time and an exhale. Perfect. And bring the arms down and hold good. And one more. Roll down. Breathe in. And exhale. Chin to chest. Good. All the way down. Good. Inhale and with the XL, sweep and roll.

That good. So a little bit of a standing warmup and we're going to go right into our footwork here today. Beautiful. Nice. So I want you to do your footwork on whatever spring you feel comfortable with. I'm going to put the girls here just a little bit heavier. Nice. Good. So go ahead and lie on your back. You want your head rest to come up to? Yeah.

Okay. So we're going to play with some arm patterning as we do our footwork today. So we're going to start with the arms and the shoulders going just to a flection and extension. Flexion and extension. So theater, nice and flexed. Good. He's just there. Perfect. So let's take a nice big breath in and prepare. And with the Xcel, press out in the arms.

Just float up right above the shoulders. Good. And inhale, bring it in. Now sometimes when we do foot work, we a lot of energy down through the arms. So this is Kinda kind of take away the temptation to do that as we move the arms. And I want you to feel that you're holding that torso and that pelvis from inside. So it's a soft squeeze. It's not a bearing down or uh, a heavy contractions, but it's just a gradual drawing in narrowing of the pelvis.

Threading in of the belly button. Exhale. Good. Let's do two more here and I want you to imagine that you're pressing from the hips. So you're making this about the hip extension and then controlling the hip flection in hip extension. Good. And controlling the hip flection and good. Let's go to the toes this time we're gonna do a shoulder abduction and adduction. So palm spacing in. Good. Taking your breath in.

Prepare and Xcel reaching out and in. He'll squeeze the arms tight as you drawn. Good. Exhale. So what I'm looking for is the idea of being long through your torso. Good. Nice. So arms are reaching out, connecting that arm movement to the leg movement to the torso and the pelvic stability. Pressing good. So keeping those hills nice and steady from those hits. Beautiful.

And draw it. And let's do two more here. So feeling that wide expansion of the arms, not tucking the pelvis, keeping it neutral, good and Jada. And let's go to the Small v from here. Bring the right arm up and keep the left arm down. Good. So as you attend out, you're going to switch the arms, taking your breath in and exhale, they switch one and drawed him.

So now that we're getting the coordination of the arms to match the body, or excuse me, the leg movements, I want you to start to think what's going on with the pelvis as you bring the carriage in and out. So as you take the carriage out, I want you to feel that narrowing, that contracting of the pelvic floor, the trans or sub dominance. As you bring the carriage in, I want you to feel it widening and lengthening, not quite releasing, but opening. Good. And two more press. Nicely done. Last one. Press good. Now go ahead and switch your arm. So your left arm is up and go to the wide be on the heels so your arms might have to go a little bit wider just to miss your knees. Yeah. So in the wide v positions, this is, we're gonna feel the most, um, width through your pelvis.

And I want both of you guys to think a little bit more about heavy femur into the hip joint as you pull the carriage in on the East centric phase in. So you're going to go, just switch the arms nice and simple. So take your breath in and exhale, press and fill that femur drop into the hip joint. There you go. Perfect. And press good. We'll just keep this side a little bit down. Last nice m press good.

So let that breath narrow all the way down into the pelvis. Fill that full body connection there. Coordination is right on. It's slicking. Good, nice and press good. So we have really nice wide pelvis here, a beautiful hinge at the hip. You should just be able to fold around. Fingertips seep into that hip joint.

Good. Let's go to more. I know my reps aren't perfect, but they're good enough. And last one, I went to the hold out here. Nice. So the right arm is up in the air. Go ahead and bring the left arm up to match it. Nice. Now you're going to hold it here, draw the legs, and draw the carriage in, and you're gonna go to the toe position and the wide good. Now this one's a little bit more complex. As you press out, you're going to circle the arms around as you draw the carriage and they'll come back up. So you're gonna make a full circle with those arms, taking your breath in and exhale, reach out to the side and inhale.

They come in and out. And so reach. Now notice what happens with your body as you start to, your brain goes to, oh my gosh. Coordination, danger, danger, danger, freak out. Freak out. Maybe you maybe start to lose your pelvic position, your torso stability. You have that down. That is ingrained in you. So now you want to just keep that but be able to move your arms freely.

So again, connecting through the body, adding a little bit more complexity. Good. So nice and even pressing from those hips out. Beautiful. Nice. Keep that wide pelvis as you draw the kerogen. Let's do one more good and hold the carriage out. Sorry ladies. Good. And take the arms out to the side here. Nice. Good.

Now just give me a little more length. Relax your glutes. There it is. Good. That's it. Now from here, lower your heels under the bar with an inhale. We're gonna do the calf raises wide and external rotation and press up, lower the heels to wrap those toes. Good. And press. Yeah. If you need to wiggle down a little bit, you can press now. Once it fill that spiral in your hip, that external rotation, keep that draw up. Good.

And take it down and up to more and down. Nice and strong. Don't squeeze your glutes, keep the internal stabilization and hold it. Perfect. Now you're going to do prancing. Bend your right knee and take your right arm up. Yes. Uh Huh. And switch and so it's coming across the chest.

Uh Huh. Little bit of a brain teaser. Good. Now as you're getting this ready to do quite a bit, you're still on that heavy spring. As the coordination starts to sink in. Now I want you to think about what's happening with the pelvis. No lateral shift of your pelvis. Good. Just feeling that hinge at the hip, that bend of the knees. Keep going. You're looking good, so keep that calm in the glutes. Feel that stabilization coming from deep within. Yes.

Let's do about four more sets. I know I told you it's a lot. Good. And now sorts of massage the feet into the bar. Good and the arms is flowing back and forth. This is the last one. Good. Both legs out, arms open out to the tee. Take your breath in and then we'll close them as you draw the carriage and gorgeous. We're going to drop it down. I have the spring or a full spring, whatever you feel more comfortable with your right heels going to go onto the bar. Good. And your left leg is going to just reach up to tabletop position.

Good. Nice. Okay, so here we go. Your right arm is going to go up. Are you ready? And exactly right as you press out. Okay. You're going to circle that arm around. The other arms are going to come up and then you're going to switch in the center. Does that make sense? I know, I'm sorry. Helicopter of the arms. Exactly. Christie. Got It. So we have a name for it.

Helicopter of the arms. So the arms are going to go out to the side. So [inaudible] got out and then they're going to switch in front of you here. Yes, you got it. So out to the side as you press the carriage out and bring it in. Nice. So we're working the body, we're working the brain, getting the cognition going.

Good. So keep your breath, let your breath and guides in here as you're connecting this arm movement to the leg movement. Perfect. You got it. So let that deep breath guide you. Beautiful. Feel the weight of the pelvis. Stay down. Love it. Let's do two more. You got it. That looks great. Last one. Nice. And bring it in. Let's go ahead and switch now at home, if the circle, some manifestation of a helicopter is going to be just fine.

So let's start with the left arm up. Good. So remember the left arm will go out to the side as the right arm comes out to the side as you press the carriage out and extend that left leg. So breathing in and exhale, press and bring it around. And then so remember all of those same rules apply the pelvic stability, the extension from the hip extensors from the hamstrings of that left leg. Don't let those fly out the window. You've established that foundation.

Keep it intact as you add this coordination of the arms. Good. And you'll start to feel maybe one side is a little more coordinated than the other, which is totally fine and common. Good. But just keeping that flow through the body. That's nice. And I like that the ankles are staying, you know, not stiff, but they're not moving freely. There's some sense of control there. Nice. Let's do one more and take it out.

Love it and in beautiful ladies. Good rest. We're just going to do a single hill. We're going to move on from here. We're going to go into some variations of the um, abdominals with legs and straps. Okay, so let's come on up and we'll take our foot bar down. There we go. And you can choose to do this on one spring or one and a half.

I'm going to let you decide what you want. Check out your partner. Good. And we'll go ahead and put our head rest down. So we're going to start with just our basic version Bassey version of the exercise. So feed on the head rest. Go ahead and take your straps and loop them over your legs just to where they're over the knees on top of your thighs. Okay. So I'd like you to sit with your hands behind your thighs up here.

Good. And extend that back. Go ahead. Taking your breath in here to prepare with your XL, narrow the abdominal wall in and start to roll down until your lumbar spine kisses the mat. Perfect. Once you, this is reflection, this is where you are going to stay throughout the duration of the exercise. So bring one leg up to tabletop and then the other and squeezes likes together. Now this is what we call an isometric hold of the abdominal. So draw your knees in just a tiny bit more and I want you to feel that you're reaching your sits bones toward the end of the reformer and really feel that same thing I talked about in foot work, that deep hinge happening at the head.

Now I don't mind Meredith will show you here if you even come a little bit past that 90 degree angle cause I'd like to get that deeper flection and that little bit of um, imprinting of the lumbar spine onto the mat. So that's fine. Go ahead and take your hands behind your head. We're going to go for five here. Inhale, take the legs out just as far as you can. Keep stability. Xcel, float them in. Hinge at the hip, hinge at the hip, gorgeous. Inhale. Now notice here there's no movement of the trunk and draw it in. Good. Three more XL. Pull it in.

Yes, there should be no poster. Your tilted the pelvis. It should just be a pure hip flection as you draw and last when ladies breathe in and Xcel reach around with an inhale. Now here's this a nice challenge without touching your feet to the mat. You're going to XL, roll at, let the spring kind of lift you there it is. Perfect. Holds like a, like a, like a rolling like a ball position. Good, so you can stay in a posterior tilt. Perfect. Take your breath in.

Squeeze those legs. Let Your Arms Act as resistance here and roll back down to the mat. Yes, go ahead and guide those knees in as you get lower down. Perfect. I love it. I just want the elbows in just a little bit. That's perfect. Nice. We're going to add rotation here, so fingers go interlaced behind the head.

Good. Narrow down to your pubic bone with the abdominals with that pelvic floor. Inhale, take the out. We're going to go to the right first. Exhale, twist the spine. Now let's hold here. Drop the electorate down as you're twisting toward the right. Good. I'm just going to square off your knees. That's it. Inhale, keep your height as you come through the center and Xcel rotate over to the other side. Love it, love it.

Good and inhale and Xcel twist. Keep that left hip anchored. Little bit more rotation. There it is. Good and inhale and exhale. Now feel the length of that lower back reaching. Yes. One more set. Inhale, nice and deep and controlled. We don't have to do a million. Good. Inhale and twist. Twist.

There it is a little more with the knees drawing in just a tiny bit more. Holds your legs there. Come back to the center, grabbed the back of the thighs. Inhale, exhale, roll up. Good. Hold the position. Yes. Now not everybody can do this. Next little transition exercise.

Do what you can is a quasi rolling like a ball. So you're going to just initiate by going into a deeper posterior tilt. It doesn't have the momentum of rolling like a ball, but you're going to roll just to the lumbar spine with an inhale and Xcel. Keep that position as you come up. Yes. So that nucleus of the belly is sitting nice and tight and roll back.

I am so excited. I don't know why. Just really happy that they're doing homework and all that good and come up nice. One more time, ladies. You look great and roll. Good and app. Get there. Take the feet down and pull yourself into extension of the spine. Good. I want you to take the right loop off of our strap, rather off, and go ahead and set it on the holder. Good.

Now this time you're going to go down, back into your position here, and you're gonna move the leg that has the strap on it. So like a single leg stretch. You're going to take it out and you're going to draw it, and you're going to move your hand from both hands on one knee, both down to the other knee. We're going to do that about five times and then we're going to take the leg up and we're just going to do some nice gradual scissors of the leg. Now we need to the scissors, you may hit the stopper a little prematurely.

So just kind of gauge where you're going. Okay. So we'll do five and five. So rolling back down. So nice abs series here. Good. Knees up. Good. So remember it's the leg with the strap on it. That's gonna move. So for these ladies, it's the left leg. So hands go on the right knee to take the left leg out. Inhale and exhale, move the left hand back to the left means you draw it in. Good. Inhale.

So what I want you to do is feel that fine balance between keeping the hips square. You're loading one hip flexor here. You may feel a little bit more pull or work on that left side obliques. Good. Let's go again. Inhale and exhale. Drawed in. This looks fantastic. One more time. Inhale and Exxon. Now extend the right leg up toward the ceiling. Good.

And extend the left leg out just as much as you can, but we're gonna put the hands down by your sides like a hundred position. Good. Breathe in. And XL switch. Nice ladies and inhale. So again, isometric hold of the abdominals and pull that in. Beautiful. You can see how nice and flat the abdominals are here working the trans versus deeply getting again, that deep hip flexor work. Good.

Nice. And one more. I love it. Exhale. Good. Bring the legs up and go ahead and bend them in. Grabbed behind the thighs and go ahead and roll yourself back up and switch your straps. Nicely done. Good. How's that feel? Good. How does it feel when you're doing one side versus the other?

You're getting more work on one side of the abdominals. Good. Same side. Opposite side for you. Same side. Good. Perfect. I told them the answers were and I just kidding. That's good. That's really good. Okay, so let's go into it. So we're gonna start with the single leg stretch ish exercise.

Go ahead. So hands on the knees. Nice. Tabletop. Good, perfect. So hands will go on the left knee as you extend your right leg out. So inhaling [inaudible] and excellent. Move the right hand back to the right knee. Good. So again, I'm looking at Christie here and she's just really nice and square. Her pelvis and her shoulders are perfectly matched. Good. But I want the energy of the leg to be reaching out as far as you can.

Like you're trying to touch something in front of you. Draw it back. Yes. One more time and draw that perfect left leg. It sends up to the ceiling, right leg reaches out, arms down by your sides. Nice and tight. Good and XL, you switch. Good. Now this is where fatigue starts again, and not only physical but mental.

So you need to dig a little bit deeper into the stabilization of the pelvis and the torso. Yes, I don't want you to compromise reflection position. I don't want to to compromise that belly coming up. No poster. Your tilt to the pelvis. Just really nice, steady, good work. Connecting one movement right to the next. Let's go one more. It's just relax the shoulders a little bit, Meredith. Good.

And he's come in and roll out. That was gorgeous. And sit yourself up. Go ahead and extend your chest a little bit and give yourselves a hand. That was good. Nice. Okay, let's turn back around and we're going to go into our hip work series. So we're going to play with our extended frog. So one and a half. Yeah, I don't need to tell you that. Okay, then we're going to go on.

You want headrests down? No. Okay. We're gonna do just very short and sweet six circles down, three in parallel, three in external rotation, back to parallel up circles. And then we'll go into our extended frog. Okay. So let's bring the legs up and starting in parallel. So it needs you to be really honest with yourself here as you're doing these hip circles. Because a lot of us, not all of us are so much, um, we're better equipped to work in external rotation. It's just out of habit.

So we don't ever really allow our thighs to go into a pure parallel or neutral position. So I want you to make sure that you almost are feeling like an inward spiral of those size. So we're going to go down circles, which starts with hip extension. So exhale, going down, keeping the legs parallels. You go out to the side and circle around. Good. Exhale down. Straight down. Yes. And it's, imagine it, the thighs are rolling in toward each other. One more time. Straight down.

Good. Now up at the top from the hip joint, spiral into external rotation and Xcel. Go down and feel how I would feel different inside your hip joint. How your pelvis still is different cause your pelvis the wider in the external rotation or more narrow and go down. Love it. Now come back up to the top and rotate into the parallel.

Good and open out to the side. Hip abduction and XL. We do up circles so they come together and bring it up. So the in parallel though, so go out to the side and exhale thing deep in the unit size, way up toward the pelvis. Yes. Open and exhale around. And that nice hinges to come up. No holds here from the hips.

Spiral into external rotation. Like the legs are going to come out of the hip joint. Yes. And then open, beautiful and circle around. You can go even a little bit wider if you want. On the circle. Yeah. Open and exhale around nines. Now should be able to get that sense of hipness association. Good.

And around. Now we're gonna hold here, flexing the feet, spreading out the toes, and you just attach higher. Then in your knees we're going to do two ex vended frogs. Breathe in and exhale. Come toward me. Extended Frog and external rotation. Open out to the side. Good. Bend your knees and drag those heels and widen the pelvis. Widen. Widen. Good.

Xcel pressed toward me out to the side and drag it in. Good. Hold here. Good. Now come into parallel position. Good. Nice. In case I want to play with this little bit, press out toward me here. Open out to the side. Now this is fun. From here, go into external rotation and bend your knees and this part feels really nice here. Close the thighs like a book. Yes. And press out open in parallel. Makes sure you're pure parallel, twisting the hips spiral and feel. How so? Just stop right there.

Feel your sitz bones kinda came down and together almost yes. And Bend and drag those heels in. And then from the five clothes into parallel, knees should slide right under this shots. Two more. Press out. Good. Open wide. Now again, reached those thighs or the legs out of the hip joint. Yes. And drag together. Good. And come and nice. Last one and press open. Good.

Now fill the sits bones. Kind of wrap closer together. Good and wide. I'm going to see this. There was a little discrepancy in Christie's pelvic alignment when we started the class gone. It looks really, she looks really, she's a little hyped up on the left side. It looks really nice and even so it looks beautiful. Yeah. Good. So let's, um, now we're going to do reverse extended frog. Just the normal version with external rotation. Two sets.

So take the legs out with an exhale. Inhale, hold. Exhale. Close the legs. Yes. And then in dragging him good. And take it out wide. Feel that stretching, that expansion of the pelvis in the inner thighs. Breathe in and then close and tightened. Squeeze, narrowing and fill that pelvic floor connection. Good and drawed in. Good.

Now what I want you to do is go out with the legs. Rotate to parallel. Yes. And close the legs with the next hale. Good. Bend your knees. Then from here, this is nice. Rotate at the hip. Yes. And Open.

Good. And rotate to parallel. Good and squeeze. Get those knees extended. Nice and white. Feel like you're gonna reach your legs around me and hug my waist with your legs. Yes. And Bend your knees. Good. And feel that opening. Perfect. Perfect. Relaxing. Good. And take it out and rotate. Nice.

So hug me with your legs. Reach around, reach around, reach around. Yeah. Good. And Ben's knife. Hinge at the hip. Let's just do one more and rotate outward. Last one. Nice anchored pelvis. Legs took in a straight as you can. Extend those knees. Maximize that knee extension than spy. Roll spiral. Good.

And squeeze deep within the adductors. Feel the pelvic floor connecting through the hole. Torso, pelvis. Good. And bend the knees. Nicely done. That was gorgeous. Good. Let's take the feet out of the straps. We're going to go right into our semicircle.

So I'm going to go down to one spring if that's what you feel comfortable with. Okay. You can certainly do it heavier if you'd like. So hands are going to cup the um, shoulder rest. I would like you to keep your son with your fingers. So the heel of the hand is where the pressure is going to be.

And there's just one way to do this. Just got a wiggle down. Good Small v heels together. Nice. Such a fantastic, fantastic exercise. Now I'd like you to bend your knees and bring them just so they're over the ankles and over the toes. You could come a little bit past the ankles if need be, but I don't want you to go forward of the toes. So again, you're in a small beam.

Try to keep the knees a little bit more narrow so they don't flop open. By keeping them a little bit more narrow, you're going to get a little better stretch through the hip flexors so that, so as through the quads a little bit. So again, this is nice, a long and lengthened, beautiful. Taking your breath in. Nice big expansion of the rib cage. You're going to start actually by relaxing your jaw and your throat as you start to roll down. So relax the dom, the throat. Try to keep the carriage steady as you can.

Look how deep this posterior tilt is, Meredith hazards. It's deep. It's steep until she has no other choice. But to let it open and just roll out. And then pause here for a moment everybody. And I want you to feel how wide the pelvis is here. Do we ever take the time to let our pelvic floor open to let our pelvis open?

We're so concerned always with squeezing and tightening. So this is such a great exercise for this. Just feel this gorgeous opening of the trunk. We don't let ourselves go into this position very often in Palladia. So take a breath in as you press the carriage out, keeping the tailbone dragging on that spring. Now this is the best part here.

You're going to Tuck and roll that. Make it juicy, make it big, exaggerated, yes. And then bend your knees holding that Co contraction, maximizing the extension. Yes, Xcel soften through the jaw, through the throat, through the chest. Hold onto that pelvic tilt until you absolutely have to. Ha let it go. Inhale. Good. And collect everything up with the exhale. Yes. You just see that. That was gorgeous. Good.

And come in and resize these long. Good. And one more time like this roll down. Then we're going to play with single leg. So nice and deep. Let it pour out. Yes. Like there's water pouring out of the pelvis, down through the reformer. Good. And press out.

Good and roll up nice and deep. Finding that connection. Good shoulders or wide good. And bring toward me. Reach. Good. Now from here I want you to bring your right leg up. Yes. And keep it bent in ballet we call this position of front attitude. Exactly. So a little bit of external rotation at the hit.

Now what's going to be the toughest part is to not let that right side of the pelvis dropdown. So a lot of hamstring on the left and a lot of interplay between the right and left obliques to keep that nice and square. So go ahead and roll down from there. All the same rules apply. Rolling down. There it is. There it is. Good. And let it pour right out in the center. Good press with that left leg. Keep that external rotation.

Pause XL, roll up. You got it. You got it, Christie? Good. Yes. Keep the tech, the image of the tech. Good. Little bit higher. Good. And pull it in. Let's do two times on each leg and exhale. Soften through the jaw. When we make things a little bit harder, sometimes we throw those real basic things out the window just because our nerves get up. So just keep those will ground you. Those will keep you calm. Those will keep the integrity of the movement intact. Good. Hips up, hips up.

Perfect. And take that right foot down. Nice. Collect yourself in the center. Bring your left leg up. Yeah. Good. Huh? So nice and strong through your upper back. The senses through the shoulders. Breath in and exhale down. Yes. And Roy should fill your sacrum. If your spring set in the center, your sacrum right in the center spring and go out with an inhale, good and XL, deep pelvic tilt. You should feel that pelvic, um, those two bones of the pelvis, the Iliums, just rotate against that femur.

Good and roll down. Keep those elbows nice and straight. Breathing out. Let the breath out. Let the breath out. Good. And press through the leg. Inhale, this is the last one. Tuck and roll up, up, up, up, up, up. Oh, a little more good. And draw it in. Draw it in.

Draw it in. Nice. Bring the left leg down and hold it. We're not going to take the time to do one more in the center of, I just wants you to hold the center position. Good. And pull yourself up out of it. Nicely done. Good. Nice. Just wiggle. Yeah. Right. Okay. Good. So come on up and we're going to do our kneeling stretch, a kneeling lunge. Let's start with the left knee.

Back a foot against the left shoulder rest and the right up on the foot bar. Yeah, there we go. Perfect. Now generally in the Bassey method, we do this stretch twice. I'm going to have them hold it or have you hold it a little bit longer and do it one repetition. K just in the interest of time here. So I want you to think about literally pulling the carriage in as you draw those arms back. So there's an oppositional pull going on here.

You shouldn't just no pelvic thrust here. So I want you to think up and support it. I don't just want you to sit into your ligaments or you know, you understand what I'm saying? So I want this real nice lift here. Wow, that's it. That's good. Now give me a little bit more upper back connection and try to drop that right femur deep into that hip. So there's, there's a real deep crieff there. Good. And that's not it. Take your left arm up now. Good.

Yes, yes. Yeah. Can we try this scene a little bit more? Yeah. Now I want you to think up and over to laterally flex over to the right now that should get your stretch even deeper into your cell as even into your obliques a little bit more depending. Everybody's going to feel it a little bit different. Once you're in the lateral flection, I want you to lift your chest up as if you were going to do a little bit of an extension and see how that changes the dynamic of the stretch. And now wants you to breathe and feel like you're just going to fan out the left rib cage. You're trying to stretch out those intercostals. Get those obliques. Get that diaphragm working good. Yes, yes. And just be calm.

Good, nice, and slowly come out of it. Square yourself off. Good re lift up into the hip flexor stretch. Take a nice big breath in. Now you're going to press from your front leg, your right leg in this case, press out and extend it. Now my recommendation is as you get there, you want to try to stay square, but more often than not, you're going to come out of that squareness. So once you get into your position, I want you to think about pulling the left thigh or Femur back into the hip joint and pulling, excuse me, the right thigh back into hip joint and pulling the left hip forward.

I said that backwards and you should feel, do you feel a little bit more lateral hamstring and you should feel maybe even a little bit wrapped around the hip. Yes, you can even do that. If your knee doesn't get straight, you're still gonna get a good hamstring stretch. The squareness is what really counts is how we align the bones in the pool that that creates on the muscles. Good. So I'm just going to keep playing with your position. There it is. Now drop the heel down underneath the bar just gradually. Yes, and just keep that breath. You feel that? That's beautiful. Married a few.

Got It. Now here, she's really good but I would encourage Meredith here and you as well to just reach the sitz bones back behind you a little bit more and that will increase your stretch. So as she pools the pelvis back, that attachment where the hamstring is just going to lead them even more and then it's just going to accentuate it by thinking that heel underneath. Don't think things like it sucks. Think things like it's great. Yes. Good, good. Now bend the knee and lift the chest up. Come out of it nicely. Breathe. Beautiful and switch. Nice. I know.

Yeah, come out of it slowly. Let the muscle that time to kind of come back. Nice. Good. Perfect. Okay. Okay. Left leg up. So arms are gonna pull forward. Chest is up, but some member we're going to lift up into the stretch. Yes. I would love to see the carriage onto the stopper if possible. Yeah, so that's, we're going to get that, that real deep hinge.

You almost meet me then feel like you're going to really press on your chest and your thigh together on that left side. In this case, the knee. That said good. Once you've established this, take the right arm up because you're holding a little bit of a balance. The energy goes up and over to the left. Nice. Once you get there, lift that chest up a little bit, a little bit of external rotation, the shoulder without a lateral shift to your right. So you want to stay as square as possible. Yeah, you're good.

And then when you breathe here, you're opening. Expanding that right rib cage, letting that breath enter and then leave fully each time feeling how we can manipulate and carry the stretch even deeper with how we breathe and the positioning that we go into this lateral flection. Good. Slowly come out of it. Realign yourself, connecting through the body. Good, Nice Koch and traction between the front and back body. Take your breath in. Now remember you're only pressing with your front leg and a little bit of sticking your booty back. Good. And feel some membrane it. I know you can get straight, but it doesn't have to get straight. What we're looking for is the alignment of the pelvis. So now here, just on your own, Christie, see if you can pull, yeah, you'll feel it when you get that. In this case, the left hip back into the position, and you get that hip square, it will definitely connect in through that lateral aspect of the hamstring.

Good. Once you get that position down, then you need to kind of melts into extension, reach your sits bones out. You can still press down on the bar to get that lack connection. Yes. Yeah, and this is a challenge to do without somebody's hands on you. So if you need to look up at your screen and just watch how I'm tactilely, I'm correcting Meredith and Kristi here in trying to Magine somebody's hands and your pelvis is doing the same thing. That may help, but this stretch is intense, is powerful. You want to feel that intensity. Good and slowly come out of it. Chest comes up, lifting up.

Yes. Nicely done ladies. Very good. Good, good, good. Love it. Okay, we're going to move on to the reverse and these stretch. Okay, so that's okay. Yeah. Take your time. Reverse these stretch. Same screen. No. You know what? I'm going to go down to a blue just because we're going to play with it. I would recommend you guys try a blue, then move up to a red spring.

You're not gonna lose anything by doing it on a blue. Okay, so let's set up for our reverse knee strikes. So knees up against the shoulder rest hands are going to go on the edge of the reformer and thumbs its fingers and bring your hands back. You want to set yourself up this way. I love that. This exercise is you bring your shoulders forward of your wrist. Then from here you're going to come into a posterior tilt and this a little cat stretch, right?

So you're going to take your breath in and I want you to curve the pumice underneath you and start to draw the pelvis further. The knees will come as a result. So go further. I'm going to take you a little bit pass maybe what you normally do. That's what I want. Look at how gorgeous this position is. Nice and strong. Her shoulders are now inhale. Start to take the Wa, excuse me, the body and the legs back, but do not move the shoulders.

Good breathing Xcel. This is a poster till the wheel of the pelvis comes under. Go Nice and deep. Little more, little more. Widening the upper back. Good. And then inhale, take it back. Nice and controlled. Good. Two more. XL, Dryden. Now get those obliques involved. Get a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper, a little bit deeper. Nice and slowly back.

One more time. And XL. So this is nice and wide, Dryden. Dryden. There it is. Good and slowly without moving those shoulders wide. Scapula. Good. We're going to do a different version. Come into your flat back or your neutral position. Good. Now, shoulders again are just barely in front of the wrist.

This time you're going to come in with just your hip hinge. So with your XL, come in with the hip into the, do not tuck the tail underneath. You actually think the exact opposite. Reach the butt away. So keep going. Keep going there. Take a breath in to hold. This is fun with the Xcel. You're going to talk the pelvis and come into a deep curve and job the carriage further underneath you. Yes. Now keep the shoulders steady. Inhale, articulate. The spine back to the flat back. The carriage will move back slightly.

And then the last step is to release at the hip joint. Extend the hips back behind you. So take your breath out as you hinge the hip in with a flat back co contraction. Hold with an inhale. Exhale, nice and juicy and deep. Tuck the tailbone underneath you. Pelvic floor deep abdominals.

Now extend back to the flat, back wide. Shoulders wide, pelvis, long spine and release the legs. Two more. Breathe in and exhale, draw, done. Good. Inhale to pause. This is important. Pause. Then Xcel, collect and draw. The head goes down to look at the pelvis. The scapula opens wide in how?

Articulate back to the flat back. And exhale, release the carriage. Last one. Inhale, prepare and Xcel hinge. Imagine you're hinting right around fingertips. Deepen the hip joint. Inhale, pause XL to Tuck. Going, going, going, nicely done ladies. Good in hell. Articulate a lot of shoulder work here and exhale, release. Nicely done. That was beautiful. Let's call that guy, right? Exactly.

So stay on the blue and maybe one day when you're all grown up, you can do a red spring. Okay. So let's bring the headrests down and let's go to a red spring. We're going to do just a little bit of arm work. Okay. Alright, so go ahead and sit like we're doing arm sitting. So facing on the headrest and the arms. Good.

You're going to take the straps and hold onto them. Making a fist. Nice and strong here. Now again, I put them on a red, but tell me if you want me to lower it at any point. I want your arms slightly down in a little diagonal. Taking your breath in, posterior delts, upper back, Rhomboids and XL. Arms Straight to the side and back. Good. And inhale, draw it forward and exhale. Think why mean yes and bring it back.

Good and XL. Nice. So you're doing kind of a horizontal abduction on a diagonal. Good. And take it forward. Inhale, good and Xcel. Ah, yeah. Good. And forward. Three more and Xcel, ah, and take it forward to more and app strong towards. So make sure you feel that steady coke and traction. Do not lose it up.

Hold it out here please. Good. Now from here, your scapula are like two sliding doors. I want you to close them with the next sale, pinch them together and then open them with an inhale five times XL. Close them together. This is where if you need to lighten your way, you absolutely can. Things that are going to tell you need to lighten your wave. You are compensating by popping your rib cage out, throwing your head forward, arch in your lower back. Good. Two more. And drop in glide. Amen. Good.

And take it down or you're having too little range of motion. You want more range and bring it down and release. Good. That was nice. Come a little bit further forward. We're going to do rowing back too, cause I want to get the bicep work in so we're not going to do the whole rowing series. Just rolling back too. So arms are out in front of you. Good. So the rolling such a beautiful marriage of arm work and spinal work.

Abdominal work. So XL, excuse me, inhaled by sub in. There we go. So 90 degree angle here, XL and Nice, beautiful roll of the pelvis and let your elbows come down to touch your hip bones nice and tight. Squeeze them. Good. Now you're going to keep that stability as we do for bicep curls. Inhale and sell. Drawed in good inhale. Think a little deeper. Scoop. Xcel in. Nice inhale and exhale in.

Good and one more time and excellent. This is the best part of it. We come back to here. We inhale. Keep your scoop as you roll up and then extend up into the seated position. Reach up and bring it forward two more times. Inhale XL that deep crow.

Go back to that reverse knee stretch that we did. Love it. Beautiful. Nice inhale. Extend the elbows XL Bicep curl and just fill those arms. Just gliding down the body the whole time. Nice. Keep it nice and flat here. Xcel drawed in one more time ladies. Good.

Hold it there. Now breathe in. Keep the curve is to start to come up. Then extend from the bottom up. Reach up. Now hold this position, extend those elbows. Yes. And then continue by coming over. Last one. Inhale. Exhale, roll down so you can see how nice and Square Christie is here. You want to watch that? Look at Meredith for the Nice flat abdominal wall. Xcel draw in. Inhale, exhale, drawn.

She's reaching energy out through the legs as she hollows the narrows, the abdominal wall. And continuously. Last one. Good. Inhale, pause, and Xcel scoop and roll. Find it up to the top. Up to the top where holding. Break it a very nice, well done. Good. Awesome. Okay, let's bring our sort of boxes back on. We're gonna do two more exercises here. I want you to load up all of your springs for your sides over lateral flection here. So go ahead and face the camera.

There you go. Okay. So when you set yourself up on your box here, your knee, your bottom leg is bent, and I want you to basically frame, not frame exactly, but stay within the frame of the box. Yeah, good. Now, depending on your heights, you know the boss could be a little further away or a little bit closer. Now that straight leg, I would like you to keep parallel and not go into external rotation if possible. Senior's going to go interlace behind the head and you're basically gonna lean out on your starting diagonal. Nice co-construction or take a little break while I set you up if you want.

Yeah, so I want you to feel like your pelvis is fixed and anchored and your spine and your waist are gonna move separately of that. Okay, so this reaching out energy stays continuous. It's never going to budge. That slip your left hand behind your head. Good. Inhale, we go over just as far as you feel confident and XL. Glide the rib cage down as you come up. Inhale over. Now every time before you come up, you're going to flatly abdominal wall and glide the rib cage down. Nice ladies. Two more member.

The pelvis is fixed and you're reaching out of the pelvis and glide and come up one more time. Good. And bring it up. Now take the arms out to the T. Good. Inhale, go over. Take the top arm over the head. Now I'm going to let you kind of windmill your arms up and over, and you're going to come into a stretch on the other side. Nice. And go over, find that straight position. Pause through it, then go into lateral flection. Good. Take that top arm up.

Pass through that straight position and take this hand down to the five for me. Yeah, and stretch that way. One more time and reach over. Nice. And again, draw the abdominal wall in first and come all the way over into the side bend. Good. Then I want you to come right back out to the t and hold that t.

Hold that t good. Just two times. Ladies. Inhale, arms come at Xcel. Open back out to the T. Little isometrical. Inhale, arms come up. Exhale, go there. And reward at the end. Elbow down and stretch. Beautiful. Good. So what's important as they're stretching or as you're stretching to, um, when you go into that windmill portion where we come to the lateral flexing, the other side is not a whip. So although the arm initial gates, you still want to get that gliding motion of the rib cage down, accessing the obliques and then just going further over into it.

And this is the ability to control and not get wild with the movement so it doesn't turn into a flopping around. Yeah. Okay. So let's go the other side. So for regular four with the um, windmill action and then to isometric hold with arms, maybe we should start with no lay man. Okay, cool. So remember the bottom knee is bent outlining the edges of the box. The more you fix that pelvis, the more stretch you'll get, but the more challenge you'll get for the lateral flection. Good. Okay. So the bottom hand comes up. Good.

Now keep your upper back nice and intact. Inhale over. A lot of times people will hunch over XL come up into this position. So I want you to think about keeping your upper back extensors activated. Yes. Now glide down, glide the rib cage down. Yes. Not Lift at glide. Let's play with our words here.

Good glide and gorgeous. Yes. One more time. I love it. And up. Good. And take the arms out and windmill that top arm over. Good. Don't rest at the bottom and bring it up and continue to glide and come into the lateral flection on the other side. Good. And take it out. Suspend and then reach further. You're getting longer.

Yes. And come up. Such a good challenge for Meredith here cause she has this nice gorgeous long torso so she gets a lot of extra work here and she's doing beautifully and go over. So notice how her pelvis sees nice and fixed and come up. Yes. Loss of energy through the like this is full body connecting everything together again. Two more ladies. You're almost there over. Engage in the center and come up.

You'll feel a little bit of the hip. Abductors good one more and reach. You got it. You got it. And bringing it up. Yes. All the way over to the other side first. There you go. And then come back out, hold the t and close the arms. Inhale. Exhale, wide and broad in the chest. Good. We don't want to know how hard it is.

Good. We want to just know that you're doing it beautifully and stretch and rests well done. Good work. Nice. Last exercise to bring our class to a finish in for a back extension. So you're gonna keep your foot bar down, turn your boxes so that they're long and we're going to keep it on a blue spring or your lightest spring if you're not on an balanced body equipment. Good. Go ahead and turn and you're going to lie with your head down toward the straps with your chest just over the edge of the box.

So this is a kind of a rendition of a pooling Strotz and I want you to reach forward and grab onto the wood of the frame of the reformer here. And your legs are nice and squeezing tight. Good. And actually we'll start in a straighter position. Yeah, not a down position. Good. Okay. So as you take your breath out, you're going to start to pull your arms back, reaching energy, the head out and up, and draw the carriage forward. Good. Then inhale, I want you to think long as you reach the torso out of the pelvis.

What's so nice about this exercise continue Accella is it hones right into the upper back and into the shoulders, into the [inaudible], into the serratus. Do you guys agree? And it just, it, it really targets that upper back, which tends to be so weak and so many of us. Good. Good. So when Xcel up and an inhale down nice and simple, and when you come up, I want you to think of expanding your collarbones, your clavicles. Yes. Yes. And in an don't forget the legs are tight. The pubic bone is gently sinking down into the box and up.

Good. We're gonna do one more and we're going to hold it a little more parallel. Yeah. And I hold the position. Good. Tight Center. Bring your right leg up and you're going to do quick little scissors. 20 and exhale. Ever breathing new one. Good, good. Just getting the glutes engage, I symmetrical to the shoulders and the upper back. Good and less. Go Five, four, three, two, one and hold it. And then lengthen as you go out.

And I want you to go past the straight line and actually let yourself hang over the edge of the box. Let your legs relax. Good. Kind of Tuck the pelvis deep in. Nice. Kick us, helpful. Deep breath here. A good [inaudible] and when you're ready, go ahead and step off your box and to the side. Good, nice. And just a couple of roll downs to finish. Nice.

So take a moment as you roll down. Inhale to recognize how your body feels. Of course, and I know I always ask this question toward the end of most of my classes, but think of some sort of adjective is some sort of descriptive word that could explain how you feel. Posts, you know, and almost hour long plotty session on your body where you really talked about connecting a lot of work on the isometric abdominals and the hips rolling in and out of external and neutral position. Breath in. Do you think of a word of connection, of togetherness, flow? What word comes to mind? What word will serve you on this day that you're doing this session? How will it leave you at the end of your day or going into your day?

This is why we practice [inaudible] to connect with our body, be aware of our body, and it's our great friend, Rebecca says, to occupy our body. So nice big breath in. Go arm set. Good, and I'm sound. And of course we want to hear Christi and Meredith's words and have it and love it. Good, cohesive, cohesive. Awesome. Nice work guys. Thank you. I was done. You guys are great. That was really good.