Class #1075

Playful Mat Flow

30 min - Class
196 likes

Description

Portia Page joins Pilates Anytime to teach a playful Mat class. She starts with a gentle warm up to work on balance, posture, alignment, and foot articulation. Portia teaches many great exercises including preps to the Teaser and Boomerang. She adds some fun surprises to bring out the animal in you.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Jun 04, 2013
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Hi, my name is Porsche page and with me today I have two lovely models. I have Miss Erica and Ms Lizbeth and we have a great mat routine for you today. A great workout. And we're about to begin. Are you ready ladies? Okay, fantastic. Starting with your heels underneath your hips. Toes pointed to the front. This is what I call the number 11 position with your feet nice and strong through the legs. I'm going to join in.

I'm part of this workout and take a nice deep breath. Arms out to the sides, lift up and as your exhale at the arms float down, and again, one more big breath. Inhale, eyes even look up. Get a little movement through the neck and exhale hands to hips. Knee bend, straighten the legs and come up onto the balls of the feet. Rolling right over the ball of the big toe. Land the heels, bend the knees again. So getting the legs nice and warm. Feeling that balance, posture and alignment and Nice wide open collarbone. Abdominals in tight. Twice more. Lift up.

And one more time. Perfect heals land underneath your hips. Big Breath in. And as you exhale, roll down legs are nice and straight until you need to bend them. Reach for the floor. Take a big inhale here and as you exhale, roll back up again. Nice and slow. Restacking the spine. Let's do that twice more ladies.

Inhale here and a deep exhale. Curl up and over the sternum, belly button, pubic bone, and bend the knees if you need to. Let the neck relax. Inhale at the bottom and begin to rise up. Exhale, restacking the spine, lifting up tall, straight, and realigned. This time we're going to stay down. So as you exhale, roll down, bend the knees. You're actually going to walk out bringing the hands underneath the shoulders, the knees underneath the hips, coming into an all fours position.

And from here we're going to do a few cat cows. So beginning with the cat, or excuse me, a cow. Inhale, lift the tail, lift the chin, arch the back. Exhale, curl the tail, drop the chin, let the head relax. Big. Inhale again. And ladies, I'm going to ask if you'll have a little bit of fun with me and we're going to make animal noises because I think this really lightens the mood a little bit till you're ready. Big Inhale. And we [inaudible]. I had a deep exhale as we, oh good. There we go. Playful Kitty. One more time. Inhale. Ooh, isn't that fun? XL? Yeah. Excellent. Coming to a nice straight flat spine. We're going to move into sternum drops. So this is where you bring the Scapula. Good.

And then separate and a nice deep little carriage there. We're creating and then open up twice more. It's like a suitcase handle right here between the scapula and then pulling up one more time. Excellent. And Nice and wide. Now come to a neutral position from here and we're going to do a little tail wagging. I'm into animals today. So you know, lift up your right foot, leave the knee in, contact with the floor, and we're going to swing the leg to the right, look to the toes and then swing the like the other way and laterally flex his spine. And three more times. Inhaling as you look right, exhaling as you look left and again, inhaling as you look right.

Exhale one more time. This is a great way to lubricate the spine. Get the hamstrings a little warm and come back to center. Lower that foot down, lift the left foot, and we do the same thing. Inhale as you look left, swing, left, look right, swing right three more times. It's also a really nice way to get the arms activated. Scapula set and the spine warm.

One more time ladies. Inhaling to the left and exhaling to the right. Bring the foot back to center. Lower the foot down. We're going to slide our right foot forward, bring it towards the Shin or toward the um, ris and we're facing to the front. So let's move the other way. But here we are.

We're going to do a little side stretches with a big inhale. Sweep the arms up over and around. Look down towards the right hand and then exhale. Sit back down. Look all the way over to the left to the lovely ocean there and a big sweep up. As we look up, look back. Opening up the hip.

Sit Back Down and look off to the left twice more. Breathe in and breathe out. Beautiful. One more time ladies. Excellent. Take a seat. You're going to face each other in to the center. Extend your legs out and flex your feet.

So in this position we are working on articulation of the feet as well as warming the ankles, but we're more importantly working on our posture. So sitting tall and straight with ribs over the pelvis. Lifting up tall and straight with the toes. Flex to the ceiling. We're going to take the toes to the right and to the left and to the right and to the left. And I always like to tell my students, you don't need to look at your toes cause they're not going anywhere. I'll make sure that they stay right on your ankles and right on your feet to lifting up. Talon straight for three and two thighs.

Stay nice and parallel and straight. Not Moving. One more time. So we get that nice warm from the ankles. Now we're going to circle to the right big circle. Inhale, sweep up. Exhale, keeping the thighs steady and strong. Don't let them go around like this. So everything stays steady.

One more time to the right cause we'll do four in each direction and now to the left. Big Inhale and exhale. Inhale and an exhale. So a really nice thing to do here is just to stand behind your client or your student. Give them a second spine so they can stand. Sit up tall and straight. Last time ladies and stop in the center. Now we work on true foot articulation.

So I'll show from the frontier so you can see what's happening. They're going to take both feet out, press through the ball of the foot, point the toes like a ballerina. Pull the kid correction there. Erica, point the toes up to the ceiling and flex the foot and again it's ball point. Pull back and flex ball point, pull back and flex. So this is like high heels, Stiletto time, Ballerina time back to stilettos and now we're barefoot. Twice more point. Yep. Pull back. Flex ball point. I'm off on their account but that's okay. And Flex, stay up. Nice and tall.

Big reach and reach forward for a nice little stretch. Ooh, roll yourself back up and we're going to take the feet over to the other side for our side. Stretch foot is along the inside of the thigh. Left hand is out to your sides, right arm is out to the right of the shoulder and lift up onto the knees. Sweep the hips up, look back to the left hand and set back down. Exhale, look to the right. Make it look lovely ladies. Big Inhale, lift the hips. Feel that nice stretch and exhale as we sat down. Look twice, more big.

Inhale and exhale. Good last time. And exhale. So ladies, if you would just face each other on the inside, come towards the end of your mets and we're going to come into a little roll down position. So bringing the heels in line with the sit bones. Legs are nice and parallel. Hands start behind the thighs. Lift up tall and we're going into a little rollback.

So really articulating lower spine, scooping the ABS, and then come back up. Inhale. So we're rolling back onto the tailbone. Feel the lift of the sit bones just a little bit as we roll back and then roll back up onto the sit bones again. Twice more and an inhale up if you're the nice openness through the chest. Nice, tall, straight spine. One more time. Now we're going to make it a little tougher. Reach the arms up. Turn the palms down. You're gonna roll back obliques toward the right. So right arm sweeps palm up and an inhale to come back.

Palms down left as you're rolling back, you're feeling at nice articulation through the lower spine, scooping in the ABS, lifting up tall. Let the shoulders relax and let's do one more. Set this cause. These feel really nice and we should be really feeling pretty warm about right now. And you're going to roll up and take the backs of your legs and roll yourself down all the way and bring the knees right up above the hips. Inner thighs glued together. Head stays up, eyes between the thighs.

Reach the arms down. We're coming into the hundred. We'll work through a few different modifications. So starting here. Inhale, two, three, four, five and out. Two, three, four, five in next level. Exhale out leg straight. Inhale, bend the knees right above the hips and XL reached the legs long. Good. We're coming up on our fifth one here and reach out. So let's do a little turnout. Inhale, bend the knees and flex.

Exhale, point the toes and reach out. Good. Strong, straight arms. Keeping the abdominals in Nice and tight. Arms keep pumping and working. All right, I think we might have three more left. Good. Yeah.

Last time. [inaudible] [inaudible] excellent. Bring the knees into your chest. Rest the head back down. You're going to cross right over left. Let the knees open up. Hands come down by your sides. We're going to do a rollover prep. Press into the hands, lift the knees over the eyes and then roll back. Straighten the legs. UNCROSS recross leftover, right.

Bend the knees dry in, up and over and roll down. UNCROSS this time. Straighten the legs in our thighs together. Next level, going into the role of a big exhale to lift up and over. Keep the thighs parallel with the floor. Open the legs and flex the feet and exhale, roll down. Use Your triceps. Press through the floor.

You can reach at an angle if you want to make it a little harder, but bring the inner thighs together as you inhale and then exhale up and over. Open the legs as you inhale in flex and exhale to roll down. Good. Now we're going to go the other direction, so you're gonna keep the legs apart. Point the toes. Big. Exhale, roll up and over. Inhale, bring the knees and legs together. Flex the feet. Exhale, roll down, controlling the speed, controlling the weight of the body. Open the legs. Point the toes. Last time. I know you'll be happy to hear that inner thighs together.

Flex the feet and slowly rolled out. Excellent. Bend the knees. Take the hands behind the thighs. Bring your knees right above the hips. Lift the upper body up. We're going to move into a series of five abdominals. Here we go. Single leg stretch, right knee comes in and switch.

There's one and two, three and switch four. We've got eight of these five knee stops above the hip to make it a little harder. Seven shoulders are relaxed. Last set, bring an ease in. Rest the head back. We move right onto the next exercise. Double leg stretch, knees above hips. Press the palms right above the thighs. Lift the head up. We're going to start with a modification. Inhale the arms reach up. Head does not move. Exhale, just the arms circle.

Three more times. Inhale and exhale. Eyes look right between the thighs. Twice for head remained steady last time. Now, no arms, just the legs. Keep the upper body there. Inhale, reach the legs out. Exhale, draw the knees above the hips looking that there's no change here in the lower portion of the torso. Twice more. Inhale, and because I know these girls are steady and strong, we're going to move right into full double leg stretch. Ms Erica Lizbeth let's go. Inhale, just for exhale, circle, draw the knees in last too. Beautiful. One more time.

Draw the knees in. Rest the head back. This is just about the middle of this series. So place the heels down, palms by your sides. Lift the hips straight up. Just give yourselves a little break. Open up the hip flexors. Engage the entire backside of the body. Take a deep breath again and ease the pelvis down by rolling down one vertebra at a time. And we're going to move right into single leg.

Straight stretch, single straight leg stretch. Head Up, eyes look right between the thighs, right like up, left leg up. Double in hill. Two more sets. Last set, and draw the knees in. Rest the head back. Now we move into our double straight leg stretch. Knees. Come right back up above the hips again, fingertips by the temples or behind the ears. Lift the head up. Sliding ribs towards hips. Eyes look between the thighs.

Reach the legs straight up. I'm going to cue this one from a seated position. Inhale, lower the legs down to a 45 degree angle. Exhale, lift up. Now we're going to slow it down. Ladies, we come down for a count of two. We come up. Four, three, two, a little slower down for two and one up. Four, three, two and one. Just one more. Lower down, up four, three, two rest, knees into chest. Rest the head back and I'll join you here for our last exercise in this series, which is Chris Cross, knees above hips, head lifts up fingertips by the temples, elbows in your peripheral vision.

Twist towards the right, left leg extends out and switch. And two we're going to do eight sets. Getting the Nice Oblique work here. Inner thighs, brush one another as they pass. Shin. Stay parallel with the floor as the new draws in over the hip. And three more sets. Oh and two. How are we doing ladies?

All right, draw your knees in. Oh yes. Take a rest. So from here he grabbed the back of your thighs, roll up. You're going to roll onto your right side. Yes. One to the front, one to the back on your right side. Moving into a whole series on this side here. So the bottom foot will flex the top foot.

What Point Eric is going to show a modification? Liz Beth is showing the challenge and we're going to lift and lower the top leg. So just lift up to hip height and lower, keeping the foot flex to make it simple. Good. Sorry, pointed. Thank you Erica. Really anchoring down through this bottom leg. I've got a good hold on both of their feet here and we're going to lift up four and three only about two hip height.

Seeing the crease here in the hip one more time. Keep the foot up, circled to the front. Four, three, two, a little bigger. Erica, one and other direction for three. Anchor through this bottom leg and now we're moving into kick so you inhale, flex the foot, double inhale, exhale, press back two more times. Just a total of three for this you'll notice Lizbeth is doing a wonderful job of showing the torsos, staying straight and strong. Erica is doing the same in the modified version. Beautiful to hold the stretch right there.

Lift the top arm over the head so your top arms just going to reach out. You'll reach out your left arm over your head. You get a nice stretch long line there and I can give Liz a little pull here. He goes, nice and release. Roll onto your tummies. We're coming into a prone position for heel beets, bending the elbows, hand stacked forehead rest onto the back of your hands.

Lift the legs up from the thighs up and beat. Feeling that inner thighs squeeze the whole extension of the back long and straight. Really getting that Nice drawing up of the abdominals here. The lengthening through the lower spine, the activation through the entire back of the legs. And I'm just keeping the talk going because I know that they're being tortured right now. So and rest ladies, take a break.

Roll onto your other sides. So this will be your left side again, Liz Beth is setting up the challenge. Erica here is setting up the modified version. Lift up the top leg, flex the bottom foot and you're going to lift and lower and lift and lower. Feeling that sandwiching of the spine, drawing the belly button in towards the spine lengthening.

And we've got four more and down. Lift and lower twice more feeling the length of the like. Each time that it lowers. Good. We're going to keep the leg up, circle to the front for three steadying through the torso. It's really hard to do this other direction. Even if you're down on the floor all the way like Erika is or up as Lizbeth is.

It's difficult. Now we go into the kick ladies and inhale and back. Exhale. Inhale, keeping the hips stacked, reaching the leg long. Feel the anchoring down through that bottom leg. Last time. Get that nice long stretch. Hold the leg back here. Top arm is going to lift up over your head.

It's a nice long stretch from fingertips all the way out and I'll grab Eric, his child, his time getting that nice long stretch. Excellent. Roll yourself up face center. Good. You're coming into that seated position. We're going to bring inner thighs together and we're working here now on teaser prep, grabbing the backs of the thighs. We're going to lift up tall over the sit bones.

Take a deep breath and as you exhale, roll back, lift the feet up, bring the knees above the hips and reach the arms over the head. Excellent. Lift the arms to the ceiling with the inhale. As you exhale, tap the toes down, lift the upper body up. Come into that Nice v and then roll back again. Arms lift up and over the head. Knees above the hips, arms, head, eyes. Look. You can hover the legs now or keep them down. Up to you.

We're moving up the ladder here on difficulty, so this time ladies, if you're ready, we're going to extend the legs out nice and long, lifted into that teaser position. That's a picture moment. If I say so myself and lower down, you can bend the knees as you roll down. Tap the toes if you need onto the floor or keep the legs up. Let stay up with the legs. This time are we ready? Like stay up. Roll back, arms overhead.

Inhale, lift, lengthen. Exhale, reach. Oh yes, one more time. Inner thighs are squeezing, abdominals are working. Back is stretching. Whole body is working. Hold here for just a moment. Let's tap the right toes down and left. Left.

Let's try both just because it's near the end. Ah, bend the knees. Woo. Tap the toes down. Take the feet apart, roll down, palms come down and place in line with your heels. Move your heels closer to your buttocks. Take a deep breath as you exhale. If they have straight up feeling that nice bridge position, knees will stay parallel. Inner thighs connected without actually touching. Right knee lifts above the hip. Extend the leg straight and Straw. Flex the foot as you lower and lift in point.

Lower and lift. We'll do three more for a total of five, keeping the pelvis nice and steady. Oh yes. Lift lower. Now hold the lift. Bend your knee, place the foot back. Keep the hips level left knee above hip and extend the leg straight. And we began our journey on the other side. Flex and lower. Inhale, getting a nice openness across the chest, a steadiness through the pelvis.

Last two ladies, lift, bend, place the foot down. Take a deep breaths in the breath, right over the tops of your thighs. And as you exhale, articulate and roll down one vertebra at a time. Oh really? Nice. Now, knees lift. Grabbed the backs of your thighs. You're going to rule low. Extend the legs out long. And we move into our boomerang section. Let's actually start with the modification first.

So you're going to cross right over left. Yep. There we go. And we can start with the legs long. Yeah. And then what will happen is you'll reach forward. Get that nice long stretch as you roll up, bend your knees, grab the backs of your thighs and allow yourself to roll back. Bring your knees over your eyes, hands down by your hips. Just that little lift.

Straighten the legs. UNCROSS recross leftover, right roll and bend. Lift the upper body. Grab the backs of your thighs. Roll up toes, tap legs, walk, reach long. Roll up tall. Brief intermission here. Oh yes. Bend Roll. Hands down the hips. Up these over eyes. Extend the legs.

UNCROSS recross other way. Bend the knees and roll down. Roll up, grabbed the backs of the thighs. Lift. Extend and reach. Now for the real Gusto, you go ladies. Ready? Up. We go sit tall. Lift your legs. Roll back straight legs. UNCROSS. Recross. Here we go. Roll up teaser.

Lift arms circle, reach back behind. Extend Long, lower slowly. UNCLASP and reach. Roll up tall and straight. We've got one more rollback. Lifts. Lengthen.

UNCROSS the recross. Scoop the ABS. Roll up inner thigh. Squeeze together as we lift and reach effortless. Arms behind. Extend. Reach Long. Oh yes. Roll Up. Now we're near the end. Bring the legs in.

We're coming in for our seal. I won't make you bark. We should though. Scoop the ABS. Keep the heads up as you roll back. We have four sets. You know what to do on the last Robeck roll up balance. There was one I am going to make you clap the hands though, even if you're not going to bark. And I rolled back just a bit too far on that one's just, I know you didn't do.

Yes, no, I know. It's like right in between. We have to be goldilocks here. Just the right amount. This is the last one ladies. We're gonna stand up role. Oh yes. Like a dismount off the beam.

Go ahead and face actually come to the ends of your mats. We're not quite done that end over there. Yes. Our favorite, my favorite part of the entire workout is the pushup. So here we are. Heels under, hips, strong and straight. Legs. Lift up with the inhale as you exhale. Roll Chin towards the chest, up and over. The sternum. Belly, pubic bone wall count. Now we have several modifications here.

Liz and I will stay with straight arms. Erika, we'll show the modified version. Inhale, inhale. Inhale. Big exhale, push. She got three more feeling that long plank like position last time. Ladies, elbows in by your waist. Beautiful. Walk back. Take a big breath right here. Soften the knees. Roll halfway up. Another breath. We continue to roll all the way. All the way back. Yeah, the breath arms come up.

You're going to exhale. Roll just partially down. Soften the knees, let the arms hang with the head. Hang weight across the entire foot and let the arms make little circles here she's scooped the belly and just a little bit more. Allow the arms to circle other direction. Oh, that feels so good. Such a freeing feeling. Take a deep breath, stuff the arms, and now roll up all the way.

Excellent. Facing the front heels under hips, making that number 11 with your feet. Take a deep breath in. Arms overhead. Exhale, arms come down. One Nice lateral stretch. So as you lift up left-hand to hip, right arm over, stretch to the left and lift up right hand to hip. Left arm over. Stretch. Anchor down through the opposite foot. Take a nice big breath as we lift up and release.

Now we're going to release the shoulders. Ladies, take a deep breath in and lift them up to your ears. Let them go down with a big x twice more. Take a deep breath. Arms overhead. Excellent. This time, like you really worked out hard, a big sigh of relief on the exhale.

So big inhale, take in the breath. Big Sigh of relief. Ah, that was not very convincing. So you have to do one more. One more big breath in. Big Sigh. Ah, that was a little better. Nice job ladies.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Thank you Portia for a great little morning workout. A lovely start to the day with some body awakening stretching and ab series. For me it was my first time to achieve the rollover and almost a boomerang!
3 people like this.
Truly fun and engaging :) Thanx Portia !!
the modified into the intermediate ~ advanced movements were brilliant ~ sneaky ;) Loved This Class
4 people like this.
Thanks Portia, I loved the preps and the modifications!!!! Great class!!!!
3 people like this.
Loved it all - the flow, the delivery, the transitions... great teaching and great outfits (especially the matching tops and sockies!)
2 people like this.
Really enjoyed and especially the prep phases of exercises good reminder and new ideas for me.

1 person likes this.
Great workout in combination with Rael's roller series. Thanks!
Thank you all SO much for your comments and feedback.
I am really grateful for being given the opportunity to teach on Pilates Anytime and am glad that you all like the workout. It was definitely a fun time and the models (Lizbeth and Erika) were brilliant!!
Hi Portia, I'm on vacation in Mexico for a month so I finally have time to do more Pilates for myself! My first night and I chose your class. Excellent. I'm going to try to take a class a day so I'm sure I'll see you in the virtual world again. Love your relaxed, playful attitude.
3 people like this.
Where can I get these "shoes"?
1 person likes this.
Nice class
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