Working With Seniors

Chapter 1

And today I'm going to be sharing with you my workshop of seniors. And who else, who better, right? (Lolita laughs) Because at 76 years old, I am a senior and a very proud of it. And my point always is it's not how old you are, it's how flexible your spine is, number one, and how flexible your mind is and how well you're functioning. And that's the important thing, because it's beautiful that we are all living longer, but nobody wants to live longer if you do not have quality of life.

And that's something we must always keep in mind. Now, when we talk about seniors and they say the golden years and make it sound very glamorous and romantic, well, let me tell you, as you age, a lot of not so romantic things happen. For example, you start to lose your concentration. You're not as well concentrated as you once were. Well, as well focused.

And you often will see it in your grandparents when they were watching television and they're looking, but their minds are wandering. Acuity, the ability to learn something quickly. You know, you have something new and the ability to learn it as quickly as you used to. Well, you lose some of that. You lose circulation.

Your circulation lessons, not that you lose it, of course, it lessons. And where once upon a time you probably wore a little baby doll to go to bed, and now you wear pajamas and socks because your feet are cold or your hands are cold or you need to bundle up more. And if you sit for very long you feel it very much in the circulation. And your lung capacity. Think about it.

You know, we work on our breathing a lot, but we do lose our ability to go up and down a flight of stairs and be able to speak to you without huffing and puffing, to run a few blocks and not be huffing and puffing. So that is another thing, that capacity for breathing we need to work on. Then we lose range of movement. Where an arm used to be able to go all the way back, maybe it doesn't quite reach back there anymore. When a leg used to be able to come up by my ear in ballet, maybe it goes there and I don't like that.

So you lose range of motion. You lose also the flexibility. And that is very distressing to all of us, you know, to dancers especially, but certainly to all of us, that sensation of losing your flexibility. You lose your reflexes, that ability. Something false to catch it before it hits the floor, to be able to react with your reflexes sharp, like they once were.

And of course, you know, we always expect to be doing as well or better, and when we see it's not happening, it's not pleasant. We don't like it. Then, when we get to the feet, 'cause I'm sort of thinking of it, you're going down the body, you lose something that is so important for us, balance. Balance. The fear of falling is the greatest fear that the elderly have.

And it's a very real fear because falling means you could fracture something. And that could mean great medical complications and loss of freedom. You lose proprioception. Those little antennas that lets you know just how close you are to a wall or an incline, just how to adjust that foot. And those little antennas lessen.

And those little antennas are very helpful to us. So when you think of it all, it's rather depressing, isn't it? (audience laughs) Yeah. And when I say it people say to me, "Oh yes, but you gain wisdom." I say, "Well, wisdom? "Traded for all those other things?" But there's not much we can do about it, except there is.

We cannot stop the aging process, but we can do something like Pilates, and Pilates does stop the aging process. And it certainly helps incredibly to lessen all these negative things that I have mentioned. Whether it be the breathing, the circulation, the flexibility, the coordination, the reflexes, the concentration, the balance, all of that our work can address. And we also know that our best clients are our seniors. Our seniors our best clients because number one, at that stage of life, the kids have been put through school.

They have the economic means, more money. They also have more time. Many of them are close to retirement or retired. So therefore, time, which was so precious before and they always said "I love to do a Pilates, "but I don't have the time." Which I always say that's an excuse, 'cause you find time in this world for all the things you want to do. But now, they have the time.

And so therefore they have the money, they have the time, and they have the awareness that they want a good quality of life. That they want to live long, but that they want to live long well. Because no one wants to live long if you're just lying on a bed, some places it's inevitable. But if we have it within our power to live and enjoy getting old, because it is a very enjoyable phase of life, one of the stages and life is full of stages, and don't be afraid of it. It is annoying sometimes when it hurts a little bit here and there, but you will learn what to do to take care of that so that you can truly say, I enjoy this stage.

I can tell you that I do. I've been through it all obviously. But I can tell you, and my friend here is shaking her head. She probably knows a little better than most of you, what I am saying, right? Oh right, I'm glad it's so obvious.

(everyone laughs) No, you're active. Uh-huh, absolutely. And so enjoy and remember, number one, Rome was not built in a day. Joseph Pilates used to say it all the time. "Rome was not built in a day." So you have to give yourself time to be able to accomplish all the things you want to accomplish and to maintain yourself in good shape, you have to allow the time.

And of course, we always have to watch out for getting lazy and eating too much, right? Because there's no doubt about it, that gluttony and overeating, and it's very hard because we live in a country and in a world where food is delicious and it's so accessible. So it was constant having to watch, you know, your diet and your nutrition and eating properly. And at the same time, staying active. Burning, burning those calories that you eat.

So now I'm gonna get into the nitty gritty of what is it that we do in order to stay young when you are a senior, and as teachers, which most of you are, it is important that you be so, so very aware that number one, the beauty of Pilates is that it is tailor made for your client, and your client is unique. That person, that body in front of you is unique. There's only one like it, and you are privileged to be able to work with that person. And that person has placed their biggest stressor, which is their body, in your hands, right? And you must get acquainted with that person.

You need to know very clearly the medical history of that client. You need to know, especially with ladies beyond 50, you must ask for a bone density test. Osteoporosis is very, very common. I believe the statistics are almost one out of two. That's pretty scary after 50.

And there are other conditions like stenosis, and spondyl, hypoglycemic, high blood pressure. All kinds of medical things that affect the way we work with a client, because that is the beauty of our work. That we can work with these conditions. As long as we know, first of all, the condition, and we have had the training to be able to work with them. But you can work and make their workout very enjoyable and make it an enjoyable movement experience which is what they're there for.

They are there, we're not doctors. Let's never forget that. You know, we are not doctors. We cannot cure them, but we can certainly give them a wonderful movement experience throughout the body. Then you make other areas stronger to compensate for whatever patterns and correct patterns that are incorrect, and make certain areas stronger that are weaker to compensate.

And that's where it's important to really know our work. Okay, so once we have checked that they are not, they do not have osteoporosis, we always remember that as we age we lose muscle mass and bone mass. Of course osteoporosis is a bone mass, but the muscle mass is very important. I start all of my clients with a posture assessment, and because to me Pilates equals posture, so the first thing I do is I stand them up and I have them check everything. I start at the feet and I look at their feet.

I check the bunions, I check the hammer toes, I check to see whether they supinate or whether they pronate. Very important, because if they do either one, it will affect the whole body. And I've talked to you before in my last sessions that I have done for Pilates Anytime about that posture assessment. I know I have one whole lesson on posture assessment. But always make sure that is, you're getting to know your patient.

You're getting to know your client. It's to assess that posture, check the placement first of the feet, and for me the feet first, because that's on what you're standing, and whatever it is that you are doing, taking the weight too far back, taking the weight too far forward, is going to influence taking the weight out, taking it in, the tracking of one foot as when you walk or the other way or the posture is going to affect the whole body. And then you go up the body, and then get into your pelvic area. Where the pelvis is is going to determine whether you have a spine that is arch back, lordosis, or whether you are tucked under and you have an anterior tilt, or whether you have that pelvis right under you. And of course the importance of zippering up.

I call it zippering up. And that is taking your belly button towards your spine. And the moment you impress them with that, that automatically will mean that their back has gone into shape. Into what we want for the powerhouse to be lifted and integrated, as one. Always remember, we don't release our hips back.

We bring them under you, under us, so that we have that smile, right? Which there's a leg and there's a buttocks. So then the placement of the upper body, the shoulders, remember you're going to come across a lot of this in your seniors. You're going to come across what we call kyphotic. Nowadays, our population is very kyphotic because of the computers and the freeways and the TV.

But with the elderly, there is definitely a tendency as they shrink and they lose inches, inches, two and three inches, it rounds in. And as it rounds in the shoulder, then it's no longer placed on top of the hip as it should be, and they came in here. The kyphosis. This happens, everything gets shortened and the head juts out. Then terrible problems are going to take place, of course in your cervical because nothing is aligned.

So therefore remember the sensation of aligning your cervicals, reaching through the tips of your ears, your string on top of your head, lifting up. And remember that posture is 24/7. 24/7, it's how you sleep as well. How you sit driving your car. How you walk down the street.

How you sit on a chair, how you watch television, right? So it's 24/7 that you must be aware. And always impress on them. Think two inches tall. Think tall, think tall.

If you think, if we all think tall, we will immediately have our axial elongation, right. And if we align our body, and we have an awareness of where our body should be, and we think tall on top of that, you will have pretty good posture. Always remember to make sure you bend your client forward because you want to check the scoliosis and there's nothing truer than again, what Joe said, "You are as young as your spine is flexible." And our work is wonderful for that, but we must also be very, very aware of our client with osteoporosis that cannot go into a deep flexion, right? So that's why that very first postural assessment is wonderful. Now that we have you all placed, we are going to talk breathing, which is maximizing your capacity.

And I believe again, that I spoke to you the last time about this. I believe that you inflate, you breathe thoracically like Joe said, and you inflate through the ribs and the ribs are three dimensional in the back as well where your lungs are. And of course you're breathing through your lungs and you inflate out as you inhale. And then it closes or comes in as you empty out or exhale. Joe used to say that the exhalation was more important than even the inhalation.

So it's something to remember. The importance of maximizing your breathing capacity. And for that, what you do is very simple. You start seated in a chair, and this is an exercise that you give to your senior clients from the very beginning, and impress them with the importance of that, because it's going to help them with the stairs, it's going to help them with all those things in which they need to really be able to breathe deeply. And it's just an inhalation that goes from eight to 12, and we will practice it quickly.

All of us. And just relax. Feel that your spine is very tall and very long and that your shoulders are down. And that your head is reaching through the string and center your eyes, even if they're closed. Center your eyes, right.

And take a cleansing breath, inhale. And exhale. (Lolita exhales) And inhale one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Inhale one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

Exhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11.

And inhale one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. Exhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. Relax. Ha. Number one, nothing like breathing to release stress.

And what is our biggest enemy? It's stress, right? So therefore have your seniors do this breathing three times a day. They should sit down and just work on breathing. I can get up to 30.

You should be able to within two weeks, get up to 18. Okay, I took you up to 12 today. So you will find what a difference that deep breathing makes, and always make sure that you're not, you know, using accessory breathing. You don't lift your shoulders. You don't puff and pump.

Very easy, you just visualize your thoracic breathing.

Chapter 2

So that's how you have to think of your feet. There is this wonderful fat tissue that babies have that's just gorgeous that we lose. And therefore the bone comes closer and closer to the surface. And that becomes very painful. The toes curl, hammer toes, the bunion, from rolling in.

The arches drop just use, and not being exercised. And yes, they have orthotics, but orthotics don't do very much for your foot. They improve you the way you stand, but there are feet contractions that we will be working on. And that you will give your client. That is such an important part of any lesson with a senior.

They should never walk out the door without truly having worked their feet. And if you think that's just for the ladies, the gentlemen suffer even worse because they stay at the same height heel all the time and their ankles get totally inflexible and their feet are rigid. And if there's something that is painful, I am told it's an operation of the arches. So therefore the contraction of that arch is such an important movement. Joe worked a lot on feet.

My day we worked a lot on feet. That has gotten lost, teachers. And you are losing one of the basic things of this method that you must put back in because it is important. It is very important that everybody work on their feet. And Joe, I brought a couple of the things that you can use to work on your feet.

This is a little roller. It is wonderful. You just roll your foot back and forth on it. And through the heels, through the arch, through the toes. And then in the arch, and then in the toes, and then you go back and forth, it feels delicious.

And it is wonderful for the circulation of that foot, right? So this is also an invention of Joe's. You've all seen it, right? Joe's toe stretcher. It is wonderful for the bunion.

You place it between your big toes and you pull out from it. Why don't you come here a minute since you have bare feet, all right. And sit down facing that way. Thank you. And now place this between your two big toes, straighten your legs.

Yes, straighten your legs, flex your feet. And now pull out, keeping the foot aligned. And see how the foot spread? And in life there is tension and there has to be relaxation. All right.

And open. And you see how this spreads? It is a wonderful exercise for the feet. It is Joe Pilates, it is not Lolita San Miguel. It has been lost, let's regain it.

And if you don't want to spend the money on getting a Joe's toe stretcher, do the same thing with a rubber band. Asparagus, broccoli, all of that. (women laughing) Bring your feet closer together. And pull out from that rubber band, and try not to have your little toes go around the corner. Right, so that they go straight out.

No, it's not opening the toes, the feet. That's why you must be very careful. It's opening the toes, it's not opening the feet. Right, it's the toes that do that. It's a toe stretcher, not a foot opener.

Right, that's right. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. So feet are very, very important. Massaging the feet.

Taking your foot and massaging. Just up and down. Across the inside of your foot. Right behind that big toe. And then moving it towards the center till it gets all the way out to the edge, and then coming back.

And wonderful exercise that you do with this part of your hand. Pulling your toes out, we call it traction and rotation. Each toe you take and you hold it, you lengthen it out, and you twirl it around, and you twirl it around, and you release it. You go to the second toe, the third toe, the fourth toe, the fifth toe. When you stand up, immediately you feel the difference in your foot.

So make your seniors aware of feet, make them please also very aware of the importance of wearing the right shoes. At that point, it's probably too late, but do start to make all your clients when there is still hope, aware of working on the feet and the importance of the correct shoe. It's all not vanity. We're all vain and that's wonderful, but please don't risk your health because some designer decides to put a shoe out that has nothing in the back and that has a six inch heel. And that it's, you know, you're not supposed to walk on that.

And same thing with flip flops, which I know are very California, right? But I'm against flip flops too, because in order to hold the shoe on, you have to contract the arch. And, when you contract the arch to keep your shoe on, you are no longer doing the movement that you must do when you walk. Which is rolling the way through the foot. From the heel, to the arch, to the toes, you roll the weight as you walk forward.

You cannot walk forward properly if you're wearing flip flops because they'll flap right off your foot. Okay, now the use of props is always wonderful. We now have so many props that are wonderful for integrating proprioception into the work of seniors, right? Whether it be a little roller, whether it be a half a roller, if you want the stability. That line on that roller wakens up that whole spine.

And you know, it feels wonderful. And then giving them the feeling of the full roller, the instability of the full roller, which at the same time is working on the proprioception. It's working on the balance, and with whatever other movement you are giving them. So use of props is wonderful. You know, also a ring toner.

Every Pilates client should have a ring toner at home. Why not? They have other things. A ring toner is wonderful. You know, whether it's for your arm, whether it's for your inner thighs, whether it's for your feet, you can work the whole body with a ring toner.

If it's rainy, you can't get out to walk or to do run or whatever it is that you do or to your class, have these things at home and use them. So the use of the props and the rollers and the little balls, and your elastic band. Now the use of eyes. Eyes are muscles. We don't really think of our eyes as muscles, but they are.

And when I sit here, I can look up, down, right, left, center. Up, down, center, left, center, right, center. A simple exercise like this is so wonderful to strengthen your eye muscles. And you can do circles with them as well. The same thing we would do with our head, you know, right, left, and down, and up, and circle of the neck, we can do that with our eyes.

And the other day I went for an eye exam and the doctor said, "You have very healthy eyes." And I said, "Thank you, I exercise them." (everyone laughs) He looked at me like. Yeah, I said, "We have exercises for the eyes in Pilates." (everyone laughing) So remember the use of eyes. Also, remember always that wherever you place your eyes, your head goes, your neck goes, your spine goes. So therefore, if you're always looking down, you're inclining the head. If you're always looking up, you're also shortening your cervical.

So therefore, always think in the middle, you know. We are able to walk and look down and see that there's a step coming. We don't have to go like that. And that way you are using your eyes. And when you go around in the rotation, make sure when you go around you really go around and use your eyes to go further around, to take you even further around.

Now what would you say is the muscle that as we age, we lose the most? Anybody wanna guess? Our quadriceps. Brava, quadriceps. And that is a muscle that we need most.

Why? Sitting, standing, stairs, going to the bathroom, very important. These quadriceps do lose muscle mass enormously. And we need the quadriceps. So with your seniors, a lot of quadriceps work.

Your foot work with your seniors on the reformer is religion. You always give them that foot work. And anything, for example, plies, they can do, or bending and straightening, they can be holding onto the Cadillac or holding onto a bar, holding onto a chair. Just that use of your quadriceps, bend your knees, straighten your legs, up on your toes down. Bend your knees, straighten your legs, lift up onto your toes and lower your heel down.

That exercise is excellent. And you can also do your quadriceps strengtheners by just as simple as that. Now, I said to you before, how we have a fear of falling. This fear is very real. It is caused by the fact that, number one, as you age, part of the aging process, you lose balance, but then you lose balance because your eyesight is not as good as it once was.

Which is one of your ways of keeping your balance. Your hearing is also not as good as it was, which again will affect your balance. There was a study done that I found fascinating, that was directed at caretakers of people in their senior years. And it was like for them to have an idea of what that senior is going through, and be able to empathize better. Because, you know, if I sit here and if you're 20, it's very hard for you to really comprehend the physicality of what I'm talking about.

So when this experiment that they did and this training that they did for the caretakers of the seniors, they had them put corns, nibblets of corn in their shoes. They had them put cotton in their ears. They made their lenses a little opaque. The smell, you lose the sensation of smell too, which is also very important, the proprioception. And then they had them do regular routines with these impairments so that they had a sensation.

They had a notion of what it felt like to be 80 years old, 85. I'm sure some of you have clients that are 80 and 85. Yes. You do, yes. That's the beauty of it.

Our work is so sweet for the seniors. Our work is the sweetest thing for the seniors, because why, most of the time it is supine, or it is prone, it's sideline, but it is so gentle for them. And we can make it such a wonderful movement experience that is gentle and will make them feel like they're moving at the same time that they are oiling all these joints, right, and working through the body.

Chapter 3

That's what we say, right? Well, you have to seniorise your home. (audience chuckles) You do. And I'll tell you what you have to do. And this is very important for your parents, your grandparents, as they are aging, that be very aware that seniorise their homes and seniorise your home when they come to visit you.

For example, the two places that are the most dangerous in a home are the bathroom and the kitchen, because that's where you spill water. And that's where a fall can easily happen, right? They have to make sure that they have a mop, that without much bending they can just sweep anything that water sponge mop easily. Anything that falls down that's wet or greasy or soapy has to be cleaned immediately. You have to be, and this is painful, very aware of your pets.

And that is very difficult for the seniors, because we all love our pets, right? And pets are our friends. And yet it is so easy to experience a fall by getting entangled on a leash. Or experience a fall by the dog sees something over there, and pulls when you weren't ready to be pulled, and there you go, a fall. A broken, a fracture, a broken bone.

Easy to get entangled in a leash. A cat, you know, they love to come close to you and snuggle, and that's beautiful. We love that, but very easy to trip over them. And I'll tell you a story that happened to a dear friend of mine. And that is, she was reading a book and it was 4:30, five o'clock.

It was still light. She fell asleep, reading her book and the phone rang. So she got up to pick up the phone. Her dog was lying at her feet. She tripped over the dog, fell, broken hip, broken jaw, tooth.

A mess. Very, very sad. And of course, immediately the family says "Well, you should get rid of the dog." Well, that's very painful. You just don't get rid of your dog. But these things that you must make be aware, and this could have been prevented.

It was preventable, which I told her. And we have to think of our homes for our seniors as if they were the landing strip at airports. You know how they have all those little lights? Well all those little lights are wonderful. Think of those, get those nightlights, put them on.

Put the on at the top of the stairs, put them on on the way to the bathroom, put 'em through the hallways, put 'em in rooms so that the room is never dark. In the bedrooms so that the rooms are never just dark. So if she had, when the phone rang, if she had had just a nightlight, the nightlight would have given her at least some awareness that the dog was there, right? So remember the airport landing lights, you want when they visit you, you want them to be able to see their way around. Stairs.

Stairs can be very dangerous. After a certain age, I do not recommend that people live in homes where they have to go up and down stairs. It is so easy to fall and slip. They have to be rugged. Don't ever think they can get away without rugs on a stair in anybody's home, there have to be rugs on stairs because somebody falls, at least a rug will help.

But stairs, after a certain age, definitely should be avoided in homes for senior citizens. Needless to say, there have to be railings. Railings on both sides so that they hold on. And you must make them aware of the importance of holding on, going up and going down. And if they live in New York and they have to deal with the subway, when there's always so many people rushing past you, that maybe somebody could push him, to make sure they have a good grab on those railings.

Other things in the seniorising of the home, train them so that when they awaken, they never just get up and walk. Train them that they roll on their side and they come forward and then they stand and they stay. They do not start to walk right away. Give an opportunity to the body for the blood circulation to get the pelvis under you, to be able to be standing upright. So that they don't go walking like this, half asleep, and there they fall.

So make sure they have gotten, stood up, they're straight. They are aware. Most seniors would take some type of medication that will make them drowsy at night. So therefore they're also not 100% alert. So it is very important, and I'm certain most every senior I ever heard of goes to the bathroom at least once during the course of the night.

That when they stand up from bed, they don't move. They just stand and they stay. And once I am focused, once I know where I am, once my body is where needs to be, then I step out. Bathrooms. In the bathroom, you must have a mat in your shower.

That is a must, must, must. I travel with one. But what I do is, even though I have it in my suitcase I will call downstairs and say, do you have a tub mat? And there's some hotels will say no. I say, "Well, I suggest you get one.

"Because you know, you have many seniors that come here. "And this is a very slippery tub "and if you don't have a mat and a senior falls, "you're gonna have a lawsuit in your hand." And I do it because I want them to have the awareness that they have to supply a mat, a rubberized mat in every hotel. Because it is very easy to fall. And at the same time, for your seniors, you have to use bars. You know, the bars in the shower, they want to wash their feet, and a little bench that they can sit on, but a bar to get up into a bathtub is not easy.

And out of a bathtub is not easy. So have a bar that they can hold on to getting up and down into the shower. And going out of the shower, by the time they get onto something, a rug or something that will dry their feet, let them be holding on, their feet are wet. And when it comes to the foot and the washing the foot and the leg, the shaving or whatever. A little bench, small bench that is inside if you have a rather large shower will be very helpful.

Or in some cases, the seniors have to shower sitting down and then a plastic chair, any plastic chair is very helpful. Getting it down onto a toilet to sit is not an easy bend for a senior. Especially a senior that has knee problems. And therefore, you should have a support bar next to the toilet, so that they hold onto the support bar and then they can sit, right? And they go to get up and then they have that support bar.

Watch out for area rugs. Small area rugs, very treacherous, very treacherous. They easily, you know, roll and they can trip you. Very easily. So if you have a rug make sure it is very secure and that you have secured it with either tape, scotch tape, or double table, or whatever.

But that rug has to be secured so that they don't get tangled and fall because of an area rug. Well, that pretty much covers seniorising your home. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Remember that we have bathrooms in our studios. We have kitchenettes, or at least a hot plate, microwaves and sinks. And we have to be very aware of the floors. Our wooden floors are lovely and I prefer the wooden floors, but then they should, if you don't want them walking around barefoot, which is not the most hygienic, have some kind of a sandal with a rubberized bottom. That's what I use.

And that way, because it's very easy to slip on a wooden floor. Just like when we do arcs and barrels and things, always put a mat underneath the barrel or underneath the Pilates arc, or the spine correcter so that it doesn't slide away from you. So that's pretty much. Any other thing then you can add to my list of seniorising your home? No?

Oh, yeah. Try to convince them that they're better off doing it than not doing it. Lolita, can you repeat the question? She was asking me about seniors who get, who have the restless leg syndrome and get very nervous about exercising their feet. It's the same thing as people who have arthritis, and when you move, it hurts.

But if you don't move, it's gonna hurt even more. So it's the similar, similar situation. I believe very much in massage. It's worked for me, and I really believe that it's wonderful to relaxing but most of it, the circulation and get a good masseuse. Or train the husband or your other half.

(everyone laughing) Right, I go to massage (indistinct). (everyone laughs)

Chapter 4

You think you have this and do our, hug a tree, and we do our salute, we do our serving the platters. We do our circles. We do wrist circles. We really work the whole upper body and a lot of stretching. And we put that together.

I put that together with walking. Now it can also be done without walking. It can be done in a treadmill, it can be done on a bicycle, regular exercise, stationary bicycle, right? That's the word I'm looking for. Stationary bicycle.

And it can also be done in nursing homes. Which is, I didn't really think of it when I first created it, but it has been adapted at the nursing home, which is I'm very pleased about. And for the patients who can, you know, are bedridden and they just sit in a chair and they can work from the hips up and keep the torso in shape and work their rotation and work their spine. And then another thing that I wanted to mention to you, I call these my toys. Are again for your seniors.

Seniors will suffer a lot of the wrist. Especially if they have any kind of osteoporosis, the wrist is one of the places that gets very affected. And yet, yet the wrist is important for us. I mean, if you go to fall down, what's the first thing you put up? Is your wrist.

So I had a carpal tunnel operation and I saw these little things that at a conference, wrist assured gloves. And I think they're wonderful. They helped me to get my total flexibility back, which I got in that hand. And I think they're wonderful because our seniors get to a point that because of the strain in the wrist, they do not want to do weight bearing on their arms. I'm sure you've all experienced that.

Well, yes, they can do it here, but that usually hurts too. And this is much more comfortable. I don't have any stock in their company. (everyone laughs) What do they do? Oh, well, it's a little glove that has a gel inside.

Let's see if I can remove that gel. Well I can't. It lifts up the heel of the hand. And therefore your hand instead of being flat here is raised this way. And that is enough to release the pressure, but I find them helpful.

I find them helpful, especially at a certain stage, like recovering from like I did. Yes, and I even liked working with them in general because your hands get sweaty and they give you more of a grip. I really recommend them. And because they helped me. And because I feel really that the seniors I have recommended it to, and that have gotten it, they are able to work the weight-bearing because I'm very big on them doing weight-bearing.

It's so important for the density of the bone. And it does release the pressure on the wrist. And I'm also very big on working the wrist. Remember, what you don't keep active, you will lose. So therefore, the strengthening and the flexibility of that wrist has to be worked.

And later, in a few minutes, when we get into our bed workout, I will give you what I call flamenco. Which is a full circle of the wrist. And in Body Walk we do this and this and then stretching. There's so much carpal tunnel, and the stretching of the hand and the thumb is so important. Okay, well, let's talk a little bit because I know they are major for us.

Our seniors that do have osteoporosis, we are told that we should avoid bending flexion and we should avoid lateral flexion, and we should avoid rotation. And that specially harmful is a flexion together with the rotation, which is something like our saw, right? The exercise of the saw. In which we go over and then we go forward and we go up and we come to center. So that combined.

At the same time, as Pilates teachers, we have to find the middle of the road. That's why it's important to have that medical history, because you need to know the degree of this osteoporosis. And you don't wanna cause a fracture. At the same time, you don't wanna put them in a straight jacket. And life requires that they look and that they bend, and that they pick up.

So we have to work that as well, integrated within our workout, but with caution. And whether it is our senior with osteoporosis or not, and we know that the wrist has to be strengthened because that's another weak part of our client with osteoporosis. And we know that if they fall, they're gonna put that wrist out. We need to really work on that and remind them constantly of the harm that poor posture does for them. Because they can be compressing so much by just poor posture.

That spine can be compressing. And, you know, carrying something, lifting heavy weights can be very bad, and carrying very heavy bags in which they do this. So give them great awareness of your osteoporosis clients. Make them realize that they can live well and they don't ever need to experience a fracture, but they have to have some extra caution. And you as a teacher, insist, you know, the risk you're taking if you don't know that they have osteoporosis, and they will not tell you many of them.

Many of them will not tell you. That's why the importance of that screening form that you hand them at the beginning in which they have to tell you, and you have written down all the things that they need to say yes or no to. And the moment you see stenosis, spondyl, osteoporosis high blood, all of these things, put a red mark on it. So my point is that maybe you will remember but someday you may not be there, somebody else may teach that class. I may have that client.

So that person needs to also be able to look at a record and be aware of what's happening with this person. Ballet is wonderful for seniors. I don't mean you go out and take a whole ballet class, no. What I mean by that is the standing exercises. The standing exercises are wonderful and you can hold on to a chair.

You can hold on to the Cadillac. You can hold on to a bar or just the wall, but the knee bends, the rowing up, the tondu's, the lifting and lowering of the leg. And we will do some, once we have the Cadillac up and we are into our bed workout, but definitely ballet, if you have a ballet technique. And this is a very basic ballet technique that I'm mentioning. It is wonderful to use it with your seniors and your pregnant ladies, because they have to be worked quite similarly in a way.

When you stand them up on the Cadillac or you just have them holding on to the Cadillac, there's a lot you can do. On the reformer, remember I said, footwork is basic. Also giving them their arms, a full range of arm movements on the reformer. Bridging is a wonderful exercise, and we can keep bridging for them, but not with articulation. By just what I call lunar landing or hip lifts.

You lift up by the hip, you lower by the hips, you lift up and you lower rather than you articulate. And it's still a wonderful. Okay, because as you are articulating through each vertebrae, you are putting pressure on each vertebrae. And in a case of somebody with osteoporosis or gnosis, you don't want that pressure. No, that wonderful feeling that we all enjoy of being able to isolate each vertebrae as we go down, and as we come up lift in each one I always say, each one has a first name and a last name, and you one at a time, bring them up, in that process there is pressure.

While to just up and down, the pressure is shared. The pelvic clock is wonderful. Yes, pelvic clock, great. Yes, we will do the pelvic clock and the kegel. Now let's get into another feature that you must address with your seniors.

And sometimes it can be embarrassing for them. So you bring it up and find a way of introducing it. As one ages, very often, one suffers from incontinence, and it is... It can be very embarrassing for the people who are suffering from incontinence to tell you, and yet it is something that you can help them so much with, because we do so much work with the pelvic floor. We do so much work with strengthening the pelvic floor.

And basically that is the best thing. Just like the arch contraction for the foot, your kegel, Dr. Kegel's exercise, your isometric contraction, however. Hi! (train clanking) He's back! However you want to call it. Seems longer this time. (women laughing) However you want to call it, that isometric contraction.

It was Dr. Kegel, an American that named it. And we know that pregnant ladies are given as part of their maternity training, they are given that exercise, and that exercise is very, very valuable. At the beginning, from the moment you're pregnant and the moment you have the baby, as they're taking you out of the operation room back into the restroom, you start that pelvic contraction. You don't feel it. You start it going.

Absolutely. And I always say, it's an exercise that okay, Dr. Kegel, that use of your pelvic floor is an exercise that you do all of the time. You're driving a car, you get to a red light, you inhale, pull the belly button to the spine, pull up your pelvic floor. Breathe. Green light, relax.

Take off. (audience laughing) All right. Don't waste time at banks. Don't waste time at the supermarket. There's a line, you stand there and you pull up your pelvic floor, and you breathe and you take your belly button to the spine.

And you think tall, and she gets finally is up to you. Here's my groceries. Whatever, but use it, use it. Affirmation, affirmation. Joe Pilates believed in affirmation.

He used to say, if you're walking down the street, look in every window, and in every windows, think abdomen in, belly button to the spine. In with the belly. This is him saying. And he say, "Don't look in the window "to see anything to shop. "Just look in the window, to look at your silhouette "and pull your belly in!" And the more you affirm that, every time you do it, it's an affirmation of what we want to be positive.

It's again, working for us. It's strengthening us. So next time you're walking down the street, looking in store windows, don't look at your makeup, look at the belly and pull it in. Remember also that every class has to have a beginning for your seniors and then it has to have an ending. And for that ending, make sure you stand them up.

Make sure they don't finish on supine and walk out the door, make sure you stand them up. And as their parting words, give them that awareness of posture. You know, give them that awareness, because nothing is more important for them than having that awareness of posture. So I think that pretty much covers on the reformer. I mentioned the arms, I mentioned the femur circles, the leg lowers.

I would not particularly, except if it's a senior that has been doing Pilates for a long, long time, and you know your client very well, I would not particularly give them a short spine, or long spine or things like that. Although I do them every day, but it's a different thing. But that's something that you leave a rolling like a ball or the open leg rocker. Because if they're very thin, their bones have very close to the surface. And so there you have to use your own judgment, but they feel great, but it's definitely no, no in osteoporosis, right?

You don't go there. So in your cool-down again, and when you stand them up, remember that our method does not do many head movements, right? Or shoulder movements, or elbow movements, or just plain arm movements. Yes? Well, I'm 76 and I'm not a senior.

(member responds) If I'm treated like a senior, I don't like it. At the same time I'm called an elder and that doesn't bother me. And I never have hide my age. I never have. Because I have no reason to.

(member responds) Well, thank you, but it's a fact. So what difference does it make? It's a number. So how are we defining seniors? Okay, when I think senior, I think more a condition rather than an age.

In general, though, they would say 65, you're a senior. That's what the law says. Or 62, 63. Between 60 and 65, they start to consider you a senior. It's where your social security, and your Medicare, and whatever comes into play.

Now, as far as senior, how the person feels as a senior, that's a very individual thing, because I do know 50 year olds and 40 year olds who act like seniors and who think of themselves. They're constantly telling me "Because I'm so old." And I say, "You say it once more, I may hit you." You know? (audience laughs) And when you have that pattern of thought, that you are old, well, you are old. And it doesn't matter how old you are. And it's so much in your frame of mind.

Age is all there. And there's no doubt about it, no one has ever wrinkled that up. You're gonna have to accept wrinkling down, because there's no other way except if you wanna go through the surgery or whatnot. So there is this process, and for some, like you say, 60 is the old or 40 is now the old 60, whichever. I would like to think that that's true.

And I also think that if people take care of themselves, if people do Pilates, and if people exercise and eat well, and establish what Joseph Pilates called balance. What is balance? Balance is equal parts of rest, work, and play. And if you can get that in your life, and if you can get your spirit to come into the work, because the beautiful beauty of Pilates, as far as I'm concerned, it is a blend of spirit, mind, body. And it takes some people a long time to get that.

Some get it right away, but for many people, they think of it, it's exercise. And of course, yes, it is exercise. And I say to teachers, listen, any beginner or intermediate ballet student can do every one of the movements we do without blinking an eye, but that's not Pilates, doing movement. That's not Pilates. And there definitely is, and I would wish to think that it's going to keep growing, the awareness of integrating spirit into the Pilates work, along with the mind and the body.

And this then is what takes Pilates out of the gym and into another level. And he did this, he did it automatically. He was aware of it. He was not a verbal person. You know you said, "Joe what's this good for?" He says, "It's good for the body." It's good for the body.

I'm like, "How do you do this exercise? "Do it, do it, keep doing it until you got it right." (Lolita laughs) So it's good for the body. There is no reason why our population, our society cannot go into an extended lifetime and not be able to enjoy life, and not be able to enjoy the beautiful world we live in. (speaks in foreign language) And to be able to enjoy life. And this is again, something else that Joseph Pilates said.

"The first prerequisite to happiness is physical fitness." He said it. Why? Because if you're not physically fit, you're not happy. When you're sick, you're not happy. So it's amazing, all the little golden nuggets that he left us.

That just really lead us in the path of fulfilling the work, of really doing the work at a higher level and being able to benefit. Because I think it's such a wonderful thing that our seniors should be able to benefit and have to think of all those negative things that I told you at the beginning when I started to say about all the things that we lose. And be able to instead concentrate on enjoying their life. I think I basically do it through the breathing, and I do it through imagery. Those two tools are so important, that imagery of, you know, just think you're out there.

Just think you're out by the ocean and go out and breathe and breathe in that air, and think of the beauty around you. When you have an ache or a pain, or this hurts, breathe into it. Inhale, inhale, and exhale into it, breathe into it. Feel it relaxing. Release it, let it go.

The same thing with the. Often they will take the mind into someplace else, and that's one of the reasons why I don't believe in a routine that is the same routine all the time, because people go into automatic pilot and they no longer are thinking about what they are doing. So it's very important that you vary their routine, that you can keep them interested and keep their minds engaged by varying their routine. In the mentor program that I have, for example, we always start our sessions when we first meet and we end our sessions with a prayer. And it's a prayer in which you don't have to belong to any particular religion.

It is a prayer in which we thank the spirit for our bodies, the treasure that our bodies are, the health, the treasures that we have received by having had a creator who taught us to appreciate our bodies, and how to work with our bodies, and the teachers that have handed this down. And it is so important to give thanks. You know, it is so important to give thanks, be grateful, and appreciate. (train whirring) The more we can get people to relax, integrate, I always say that movements like the short spine is so wonderful because that articulation of the spine feels so good that inevitably people will close their eyes as if they were getting kissed. And it's so true.

Watch your clients when they're do a short spine, coming down immediately. And the more you get into Pilates, the more you find that people do a whole workout with their eyes closed. Have you experienced that? Because by just closing our eyes we sort of go into the inner chambers, let's say, and we can integrate the spirit, the mind, and the body so much better without any outside distraction. Can I just say one thing about that?

My experiences with people, I like to stress it's a mind body. And so I don't encourage closing your eyes because I see things in laundry lists, and grocery lists, and you just see that they're just nowhere in the room. So I'm very skeptical Okay. of myself and watching people close their eyes. Well they usually don't close their eyes til they know what they're doing now.

(everyone laughs) No, because after then they have to listen and they have to be alert because you're teaching them what to do and this is foreign. But usually by the time they close their eyes is because they're relaxed and they wanna integrate and they want to internalize. To add what you said about seniors coming in and they're depressed or sad about how they're bodies are, I come away though, feeling good because knowing that they had that hour with one on one attention, that alone, Yes. gives them so much. They have someone listening and looking at everything they're doing for that hour.

Listening, looking, and caring. Yeah, and so many of them don't have that. (member indistinctly responds) Well, first of all, I think, I think almost everybody, when they go into a studio or anything that is new is going to be a little skeptical. And I think that it is very good that we educate our clients to be a bit skeptical. That before they go trusting any teacher, to ask questions.

To say, where were you trained? Who trained you? And after all, you're gonna pay very good money and place your body in that person's care. And especially, with the young teachers, maybe they won't say anything because they'll be too polite, but let them know where you've been trained. Let them know that you may be young, but that this is a training that does not happen overnight.

That's one of the reasons that it's so expensive, because it is a very complex training that takes years for you to learn what you going to give them. So suddenly, you know, find a way of letting them realize that. That you may be young, but that does not mean that you're not experienced or that you're not knowledgeable in your business. I'm so glad you brought me to this because I was going to get to it when we started on the Cadi, but I'll get to it right now. We have rules for modifying movement.

These rules, we must know like religion. We must really know those rules and we must apply. When you have someone who is a star athlete that walks in your door, or when a big strong man walks in my door, I have to work that person differently from the way that I would work a young woman or a woman who is 75 or 80. Joe Pilates gave you and the method has all of the ways in which you can modify that movement so that it can be applicable to all. First of all, we call it ROM.

R-O-M. Range of movement. Range of movement. That means that this is a leg circle, and that is a leg circle. It can be a huge leg circle or it can be a very small movement or it can be a very big movement, right?

That a movement is not, "Oh, but that's not correct "because the leg is not high enough "or because it's not big enough." No. You adjust range of movement to the person. Totally adjustable. Okay, second. What we call the length of the lever?

The closer I bring things into my body, the easier it is. The further away I take things from my body, the more challenging it is, right? So therefore that means that a straight leg is more challenging than a bent knee. And lifting that same leg with a bent knee is less challenging than lifting it up straight. That a bent arm is less challenging than a straight arm.

So therefore that is adjusting the lever. Bringing it closer into you. Very important. I am not going to expect a senior, 70, to have perfectly straight legs when they're working. I don't want that.

And when we start to work, it's going to be a challenge for you to do the seniors bed workout thinking like a senior, because you're not a senior. And the same happens for me. I may be a senior, but I'm used to working my leg fully stretched and working to a full extension, but that has to be adjusted for them. All right, I have given you two. There are several more, who can give me one?

That is not spring loaded. No, that likes ring low and the use of (indistinct) are things we can do. Your base of support. If I am standing on one leg, it's much easier than as hard as than if I'm standing on two legs. And if I'm lying down and I have my head up like this, it is more challenging than if I'm lying with my arms straight because my base of support is longer.

Base of support. Right? So that's very important. If you are doing a star, your base of support is on one hand. Right?

So that is much more challenging than if I'm doing an elephant in which both hands and feet are down. That's number three. Number four, proximity to gravity. If I take my leg up, the closer I bring the leg or the arm, to gravity, down to the floor, the heavier that leg gets, right? In my day, when we did the 100, which I don't teach it that way anymore, but Joe had us, you do the 100, you pick your legs straight up and they have to be at eye level.

Very challenging. Most people will push their stomachs and arch their backs in order to accomplish that. Right? But that is a fact. That proximity to gravity, the closer it gets down and you start up here and you will feel how the closer to the floor you get, your spine starts to arch and your abdominals start to release.

And that's why I say you must always work at your challenge point. What is your challenge point? Your challenge point is totally individual. And your challenge point is where you can put your legs out and your knees can be bent. And that's perfectly fine.

Put your legs out, maintaining control of your core and your back. Proximity to gravity. So we are at four. We have four, now, therefore the fifth one is tempo. If I take a movement and I give it to you, inhale, exhale inhale, a single leg stretch, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, or a criss-cross.

If I want you to really get that waist around, and I give it to you quickly, or if I take that same movement and I make it inhale. Come to center. Exhale, inhale, exhale, come to center. Inhale, exhale, come to center, inhale. So I take that same movement, but I make it so that you can take a double breath and you can get your movement done.

At the same time, if I slow it down too much, I make it impossible. I can make a movement, that same movement. It's so, so difficult by saying, all right now, let's lower our legs. One, we're gonna count to 24. (audience laughs) So how you vary that tempo...

Or take a plank. Let's count to 20. So how you use that tempo will be another way that you have of making the movement less challenging or more challenging. Any other questions? No?

Okay, so remember you stand them up before they go off to take care of their rest of their lives. Always make sure that they've stood up and that they have gotten that awareness of correct posture, everything. Please don't have them say after all in whole hour of working out, "Goodbye, see you next week!" and off they go, right? No, you cannot have that. Okay, well, thank you.

And- (audience applauding) Thank you. (gentle orchestra music) In addition to substantially increasing the cardiovascular and aerobic benefits of walking, the Pilates Body Walk is an enjoyable series of exercises which will provide you with many of the benefits of a Pilates workout, such as the integration of mind and body, improving your posture, maximizing your breathing, increasing your flexibility, coordination, and muscle tone. It will also reduce stress, weight, and give you an energy boost. Are you ready? Let's get started and head to the right.

One, two, three, four. Center, head left one, two, three, four. And center. Head right, one, two, three, four. Center, head left one, two, three, four, center.

Shoulders circles, forward and around one, two around, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, other arm. One, two, three, four. Forward and around six, seven, eight, reverse the circle. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, left arm. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, both shoulders.

One. Full circle around. Three. Breathe. Five, six, seven, eight, reverse the circle.

One, back and around, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And now standing in front of this beautiful tree, we are going to lean forward and stretch the Achilles. Feel one line going from your heels through the back of your legs. Feel your glutes, long neck, shoulders down, and bend the elbows, and stretch the arms, and bend the elbows, and stretch the arms, bend the elbows, and stretch the arms, and bend the elbows, and stretch the arms. Now, open the elbows out and stretch the arms, and open out and stretch the arms, and keep your shoulders down and breathe.

And open out and stretch the arms. And, right elbow around. And one, two, full circle three, four, five, six, seven, eight, left elbow. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, reverse their right elbow. One, two, three, four, full circle six, seven.

And now we are going to do these exercises seated on a straight chair without arms so then we can move our arms freely and we make sure we are seated forward on the chair, and our knees are aligned with our hip bone. Our feet are right under our knees. We are seated very straight. Our belly button is towards the spine, our shoulders are well down. And we are reaching up through our string, very tall and very straight, right?

And now we are going to just start moving the head to the right and center to the left and center. Then forward center and back center. Ear to the shoulder. Ear to the shoulder, and down center and back center. And now we're going to do our workout seated on a Physioball, which are very fashionable these days.

And you can find them in most fitness centers. And we're going to do our golf swing. And one, and get the waist around. Two, and three and four, other side. And one, and two, and three, and four.

And chest expansion. Gives you a little bounce. And head right, and left, head right, center, left. I hope you enjoyed your Body Walk, for additional information, please contact my website, which appears on your screen. Thank you.

And as we say in Spanish, (speaks in Spanish), see you again soon.

Chapter 5

And just the fact that you have been motionless for so many hours, somehow everything sort of gets like stiff, and achy, and you're more aware of how you feel. Not being quite positive, right? And so you want to wake up the body. At the same time, there are those that are bedridden and perhaps the most of their exercise, or not so much completely bedridden but are not able to move fully. And therefore, a lot of their exercises will be done both on the bed or sitting on the bed.

And they will be, or just standing by the bed. They are more confined. And so therefore we want them to get a full body workout. And that's what we're going to be working on right now, is our bed workout. We are going to start just by lying down.

Opening your legs, straightening your legs, opening them. Arms down by your sides, palms down. You are completely relaxed. Feel your body just settling down into the floor. Becoming one, integrating with your mat, integrating with the floor, integrating with the earth underneath.

Or if we were in a bed, we would be integrating with the mattress, and just letting it all relax. Give the weight, don't hold anything, just give the weight of your body to the floor or the bed. And in that position, we're going to start inhaling. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Exhaling one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Your mouth is relaxed. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Exhaling one, two, three, four. Between your eyebrows relaxed, six, seven, eight. Again, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

Integrate with that mat, become one with it. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Inhale one, two three, four. Feel the string on the top of your head. It is lengthening right.

Nine and exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. And again, deeply feel how the lungs press into the floor because you are breathing through the ribs and the lungs and the back. And you are you seeing them as well. You are breathing three dimensionally.

And now empty out, empty, empty, empty out, out, out, out, and last one. And in. Relax through the jaw, through the mouth. The back of the throat, relaxed. And empty out.

Empty fully. And now take your head towards me, towards the Cadillac, and bring it to center, and take it towards the camera and bring it to center. Keep your head nice and straight, as if you were saying no with your head towards me. And center towards the camera. And center again towards me.

And center towards the camera. And center, last one towards me. And center, and towards the camera saying, no, no. Now let's say yes, a cervical nod down. And center and back, and center and lower, and center and back and center.

Two more, down and center, and back and center, and out and center, and back and center your head. Drop your nose and nose circles around. And come take the head towards the Cadillac, and up, and the other side and down. Reverse it towards the camera, and up. Small nose circles.

And down, let's repeat that. And right, and up, and all the way to the other side, and down, reversing it and towards the camera, and up, and all the way, and down. Good. And now bend your forearm up and take it down. And left arm bends, and take it down.

Again, right arm bend, forearm, and left arm bend and take it down. And bend both forearms and bring them down, and up, and down, and up, and down, and up. And let's do forearm arcs. And down and open, and come up and towards the ceiling. And down and open, and come up and towards the ceiling.

And down and open, come up towards the ceiling. And down and keep the elbow close to you and lower, reverse that. And up and open, and around, and down, and up and open, and around, and down, and up, and open, and around. Let's have you move like the Rockettes, feel the person next to you. Up and open, and around, and up.

Relax both arms down. And now lift the right arm straight up. And lower it down. Lift the left arm straight up. And lower it down.

Lift the right arm up to the ceiling and take it behind you, and bring it back up to the ceiling and lower it down. Bring the left arm straight up. And reach behind you and take it back up to the ceiling and lower it down. Bend, go, sorry, lift both arms up straight, take them behind you. Gently lower your rib cage as you're taking the arms back, breathe into that stretch.

Bring the arms back up towards the ceiling and lower them down. And let's repeat that. When we bring both arms up, inhale, and exhale as you take them back. Feel the sensation of lowering the ribs down towards your hips. Bring the arms back up towards the ceiling and take your arms all the way down.

And now bring both arms up, clasp them together and do a circle. And towards the Caddy, and down, and towards the camera, and up. And reverse it. Camera, down, Caddy and up. And towards the Caddy and down, towards the camera, elbow straight up, and towards the camera, and down, and towards the Caddy, and up.

And separate your arms. And now let's do protraction, lifting the scapula from the floor down and retraction. And the arms stay opposite the shoulders, they do not move in or out. Protraction is for your shoulder blades that are working, retraction down. And again, and protraction.

Reach for the ceiling, lift the scapula and down, and retraction and up, and protraction and down, and exhale, retraction, and down. And now let's circle the arms behind you and out, and around and down. And up and behind you, and around and down, and up and behind, around. And let's reverse it. Out and up, and above our heads and down, and out and up, and above our heads and down, and out and up, and above our heads and down.

Last one. Out and up, and above our heads and stay there. And lower the elbow. Tricep lowers down right next to your side. Hand fingers are up towards the ceiling, fingers towards the ceiling.

And lift, and tricep lowers to the floor, elbow, and straight up. And tricep lowers. And straight up, and tricep lowers, and stretches down, and bends again, and stretches down, and bends again, and stretches down, and bends, and stretches. Relax and bring the right arm up. And we'll go towards the ceiling and we're going to do some towards the ceiling.

We're gonna do some flamenco. Circle the wrist around. One, and two, and around, and around, reverse the circle around, and around, and around, and around. Now drop the fingers forward towards the floor, and straight up towards the ceiling. And back, back, back, back, back, and towards the ceiling, and drop the fingers front.

Feel that stretch across your wrist and up towards the ceiling, and back, and feel like with the heel of your hand you're gonna push the ceiling away. Flex those fingers all the way back and up to the ceiling, and bend the elbow and bring the arm down. Other arm comes up and flamenco around, and around, and around, full circle of the wrist. Reverse the circle. And around, and around, full circle around, and drop the fingers down, and fingers up to the ceiling and heel of the hand towards the ceiling.

Push that ceiling away. Stretch that hand and fingers through the ceiling. Again, drop the hand down and fingers up to the ceiling and heel of the hand, push that ceiling away. Now take your other arm and give that hand a stretch. Those fingers back.

And give the thumb, grab it from behind and stretch it. And change hands. Stretch the forefingers, and then stretch the thumb. The fingers are all aligned. That hand is all aligned.

Open the fingers. And now relax your arms and bring them by your sides. Okay. Now let's take our concentration down to our feet. Separate your legs.

A little more so that you can do a good ankle circle. Ankle circles are very important before you go running, before you go walking, all of your exercises that you do you should always warm up your ankles. And in, and up, and out, and around. In towards each other, up to the ceiling, all the way out and around. Into each other, up to the ceiling.

Full circles, don't rush it. Into each other, up to the ceiling, all the way up and around. Let's reverse that circle. Down and out, up and in, and out, up, in, and around, and down and out, up, in, and around, and down and out. Up, in, and around.

And bring your legs together. And point your feet. Heels are together, and flex your feet. And point your feet, and flex your feet. Okay, I don't wanna see sickled feet.

By sickling your feet means that you're bringing the little toe in front of the big toe, which means also that you are supinating when you walk. And point, and flex all the way back, full flex, right. And point, and flex. Little toe back in line with your big toe, and point, and flex. Little toe back.

More, more, more, in line with your big toe, right. And point, and flex, and the sections of the foot, press the arch only down, follow through with your toes. The toes go back, and the entire foot flexes. You reach out of your heel. Arch presses down.

Toes follow through. Toes back, and little toes back, and in full flex and arch down. Toes point. No, arch down first and then point the toes, and toes back, and the entire foot flexes, and arch down. Toes follow through.

Now, when you point your toes don't scrunch your toes under. Pointing of the toes is lengthening them out. It's not curling them under. So be very aware of that because the toes are curling under, it's very negative. Actually, if you were a ballet dancer you would be standing on your knuckles.

So therefore, it is the long toes that we want for a pointed foot. Okay, and remember also the Pilates foot is not the ballet foot. It does not point as hard, okay, as the ballet foot. And toes back, and a complete flex. Okay, now only the feet scrunch the toes forward, keeping the little toe back.

Don't give me scrunch with a sickle, and flex the toes back, and scrunch forward, grip, and back, and forward, and back, and forward. No, don't point. If your feet are flexed, only the toes are moving back and scrunch forward and back. Now, as if you had Joe's toe stretcher on, open, fan your toes out, not your feet, your toes. Open in between the toes and relax.

And open between your toes, and relax. And fan the toes out and relax. And fan the toes out, out, out, out, out, hold it. Remember it's not the feet that go out, it's the toes that open . And they don't turn the corner.

Like, I mean the little toe coming around. They open all like a fan, all in the same line. And relax. You got the picture, right? Good.

I'm glad. Very good. And now we are going to start bending the knees. Here I have a little pillow. It's a heart-shaped, lovely pillow, but you must always have little pillows in your studio.

Especially for the seniors, because most of them will have or many of them, I should say, not most of them, but many of them will have a forward head and they will have shortened, or this will be. And therefore, when they lie down their position will be something like this, right? And we need to then take a pillow, place it under their head and adjust their necks so that their head is straight. And it can be a bigger pillow depending on how much support they need, but that area of the neck should be aligned, okay. So always have your little pillows around.

Especially for your seniors and make sure that neck is aligned. Okay, now our legs are straight, and we are going to bend the right knee, bring the heel into us, and place the foot down and stretch the leg out, and reach, flex the foot. And again, bend the right knee and bring it into you, and push the heel, push the heel, push the heel away, and point the foot, other leg. And bend and bring it into you. You have a flexed foot and push away, push away, push away and point the foot, and flex the foot, and bend the knee, belly button to the spine.

Always, we apply the same principles for all of our movements for the seniors as we would for anyone else. Okay, now with the bending of that knee, rotate your feet into Pilates V and we're going to do external rotation out and internal rotation in. Right leg again. External rotation, keep it on the floor, just slide it up along the bed and cross the middle and internal rotation in and go back to your Pilates V, other leg. External, the heel comes up and turn it in.

And internal rotation as it lowers, and external rotation out. The same leg crosses the middle and internal rotation in. And there we have started to warm up our hips, and now bend first one leg, and then bend the other, and bring it up towards you. Gently hold it and hug your knees. And take 'em down to the floor or the bed, and place the feet on the floor.

Again, bend the knees, both of them and hug them. Bring them into you. And inhale and exhale, and lower your feet back onto the bed. And again, and bend. And if you do not have patients that has osteoporosis, you lift the head.

And now place the feet down, the head down, stretch the legs, and flex the feet and finish your movement without any sickling and starting add your belly button by zippering up belly button towards the spine, bend the knees into you and lift up the head and bend the knees, and feel that stretch with the elbows out, and lower your head and lower your legs. In the case of the seniors, we allow them to keep their legs open. It is easier. It is friendlier. Where a regular class I would say knees, legs together.

But in the case of the senior and especially the gentlemen it is fine for them to keep their legs separated. Okay, and now we're going to, again, bend the knees, or if that is too challenging, keep them on the floor and take them right. And bring them to center. Take them left. Small movements.

Remember, you are working with an 80 year old. It is a great effort. Center, and left, and center, and right, and center, and left, and center. And if you have warmed them up and it's okay, or if they're in good shape and take it right, and around, a little circle left, and center, and take it left, circle the knees to the right, and the center. And again, right.

And circle the knees to the left, and the center, and left and circle the knees to the right, and center. Place the legs down on the floor and stretch your legs long. And know, let's raise our shoulders up. As if we saying who cares. And lower your shoulders down, sliding along the bed.

And raise your shoulders like a shrug, and slowly slide down. And again, shrug up, and down, slide the arms and get that shoulder moving, and down, and bring your shoulders forward and center them, and take them into the bed, and center them, and forward with the shoulders and center the shoulder, and back with a shoulder, and center, and forward, and center, and back, and center. Last one forward, and center, and back, and center. And now bend the knees once more by sliding one leg and then the other. Slide it always using the floor.

Slide. And now we are going to take our pelvic floor tilt. Okay, separate your feet. They are in line with your ischiums and aligned with your knees. That is what we call tracking, and that has to be perfect.

Perfect alignment of hips, knees, and feet. Don't take the knees out further than the feet. And now tilt your pelvis towards, let's say that we have a clock placed on our bellies and 12 o'clock is our belly button. And six o'clock is the pubis. And nine o'clock is my right hip bone.

And three o'clock is my left hip bone. And I am going to tell my pelvis towards 12 o'clock, and bring it to neutral. Again, tilt towards 12. Belly button towards our spine and bring it to neutral. Now, down towards six, pubis towards the floor, a little hollow behind you, bring it to neutral, and down to six, and bring it to neutral.

And tilt towards your right hip bone nine, and neutral, and three, opposite hip bone, and neutral. And again, nine, and neutral, and three. Nine, and three, and don't move your knees. Nine and three. And what we always have to be careful here is that the movement doesn't happen at the knees, but that it happens at the pelvis.

This is a pelvic isolation, and now we're going to take our pelvis back up to towards 12, and we're gonna come down the right side, touching each hour of the clock. 11, 10, nine, eight, seven, six. That means pubis is down to the floor. Now you're using your knees. This is not a knee exercise.

Five, four, three, two, one, 12. It is small exercise and it does not move the knees. And pelvis to neutral. Okay, and back up to 12 and let's go down the other side. One, two, three, four, five, six, pubis to the floor.

Ribs in the body. Seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, and pelvis comes into neutral. And now we are going to do the kegel. Dr. Kegel's exercise. Remember I spoke to you about the importance of this exercise?

How it is important in all of our movements to be using that pelvic floor. And it is just as important to tense it as it is to relax it. And I think that's a mistake that is often made by Pilates teachers and people who are, do a lot of movement. They want to always keep that pelvic floor engaged. No, you have to be able to relax it.

And that's as important as tensing. And now, as Joe used to say, "That's great for sex." He knew all about it. So therefore, let's do our kegel exercise. Take inhale, and now feel like you are lifting your pelvic floor by bringing your ischiums together closer. And it's like having a hammock that goes from the back towards the front.

From your anus through your urethra or into your penis or vagina. Feel that. And relax. (Lolita exhales) Okay, and let's do it again. And inhale, and now think of it as an elevator.

And you're taking the elevator up to the penthouse, all the way up towards the shoulders, lifting that, lifting that and exhaling, and now take an inhalation and lower the elevator gently down, down, down, down as you release the elevator to the bottom. When you get to the bottom, you have to open and close the elevator doors. So relax there. Okay, and again, inhale and exhale as you lift that, that pelvic floor up, up, higher, higher, higher, feels coming up towards the shoulders. Right.

And now inhale, lower it very controlled down, down, down, down, down, and relax and open and close the elevator doors, take a breath, just relax. And the last one. And inhale, and lift, lift your belly button towards that spine, lifting, bringing those ischiums closer together, feeling that relationship of that hammock. And remember this is your exercise that is so wonderful for incontinence, as well as returning back from maternity, preparing for maternity. There is no end to the value of this very simple exercise, and very important for your seniors.

And relax. Also, always remember, your gentlemen also have pelvic floors because we think gentlemen tend to think that only we have pelvic floors and many ladies think that only feminine pelvic floor. No, they have pelvic floors the same way we do. And it's very important to work that pelvic floor for the erectile dysfunction, very important for the incontinence. Very important.

So you remind them that this is good for them as well. Now relax a moment because as I speak of the gentlemen I just want to insert here, when I was going to Joe Pilates, in our studio, 60% of our clientele were gentlemen. Of course, I'm talking the 60s. Ladies really didn't go to gyms much because you know, those weren't pleasant places to go to. But we have lost our gentlemen, and we need to get our gentlemen back because they- A senior gentlemen that you get back is such a good client, he'll be with you forever.

Because they truly appreciate and they're are that stage in life. And of course, the ladies as well, but it's interesting that I always feel we have to be more receptive to our gentlemen clientele, and encourage them to come. You know, if you have the wife say to him, "Why don't you bring your husband? "I'll give him a free lesson." Because if you get them, they're hooked. Okay, back to work.

And now we are going to... Remember, we were at least 76. You're going to lift and lower, and lift and lower, and lift and lower, and lift and lower. And if they can, lift both, and lower. Belly button to the spine, lift and lower.

And remember, range of movement, it's not important that they lift high. Just by lifting off the floor, they're working those abdominals, and they're working that pelvic floor, and they're working those legs. Right, and again, right leg put down, left leg goes down, and both legs come up and down. And once more, up, and now, if they are capable, we do a toe tap with the right foot and up, and left foot and you all giving me tabletop and I don't think many 75 year olds are gonna give you table top. And left foot goes down and up.

And now both feet, challenging, down and up, and very small down and up, and down and up, and down and stay. Stay. That's right. Okay, that can be a very challenging movement for a senior. Now straighten your legs out by sliding them, all right.

And now we are going to do a wonderful movement for lengthening our hamstrings, warming up our legs. We bend and we stretch. We flex, we bend, replace and we go down. We bend, we stretch. We flex and point actually, flex point, we bend, replace, we go down, we bend, we stretch, flex point.

We bend, replace, sit down. And we bend, we stretch, flex point, and we bend, we place it down. That senior is in good shape. And therefore that senior is gonna bring down the single leg straight down and right leg bends into you, and it unfolds. Flex the foot and reach straight down with a flexed foot as you lower.

And left leg bends into your sliding, and belly button towards the spine, stretching, flex the foot and reach for the floor. Okay, and right leg again, bend, and stretch, reach, flex point, and down, and left leg bends. And it unfolds. Flex the foot and lower the leg. Okay, and if our senior is in good shape then we give them both legs.

Before we do the both legs and go on, I must once more remind you of what we discussed in the workshop for seniors. Which are the ways that we have of modifying movement. And it's wonderful because we can make Pilates as for the star athlete and for the 85 year old. And that is wonderful. Now, remember, that you can modify your range of movement.

A leg does not have to come up to there. A leg can stop there, right? And here I have modified my range of movement. I have also shortened my lever or lever by bending the knee, which is your second way of number two, of modifying your, your movement in general. Number three is proximity to gravity, right?

So, if I do this, it is much easier than I ask you to do that. And if I ask you to bend and come and straighten here, it is much easier than if I have you descending, descending, descending, descending down. Okay, so be aware of that. The further you are coming down, the more challenging it's gonna be. So yes, you're young, and it's very difficult to keep it, you know, but this is a seniors workshop.

So be aware that, of how to modify that movement. We mentioned three there. Next one, remember your base of support. When we get to the sidelines series, the easiest will be here, right? And then there's there.

And the more pieces of the body, the more parts of the body that you have touching the floor the easier it is, right? If I'm on one leg, it's much more challenging than if I'm on both legs. And then the tempo, if I take a tempo and I make it very quick, or make it too fast, or very slow, then it gets very challenging. And then to that, of course we know that repetitions, that too many repetitions or too few repetitions, we adjust for our client. But nevertheless, we're always keeping in mind that Pilates does not believe in the burn.

You know, going for the pain. No, that's not us. And therefore we do not go into many, many repetitions that are gonna build a big muscle. We like a long, lengthened, stretched muscle. Okay, so now let's continue.

Now this 70 year old, this 80 year old is gonna bend both knees. And all the way up, in towards your chest and stretch. And it's not going to stretch fully and it's gonna flex the feet, point the feet, bend again, touch the floor, and belly button to the spine as you slide in. And again, bend and just clear the floor, stretch the legs as much as you can, which is not much. Flex the feet, point the feet, bend the knees, touch the floor.

And if it's too long for them to stay out there, you leave out the flex and point. Just let them stretch, bend, and come right back down. There, and flex point. And down. Okay.

And down. Okay, very good. And now with our bent legs, we're going to bicycle. A bicycle is a wonderful exercise. First of all, because they're all everybody's familiar with the movement of the bicycle so it feels like you're home.

Don't straighten the legs out too much. Remember, and now place the feet down in between. Okay. Bring your feet together and let your right knee drop out. Don't move your hips, and bring it back in.

Let your left knee drop out, don't move the other leg. The other leg stays up to the ceiling, and bring it back up. And inhale and gently open both knees. Exhale, inhale, and close, both knees. Let's repeat that.

And we drop the right leg, and we bring it back, and we drop the left leg, and we'd bring it back. We inhale and we drop both knees out and breathe into that position. Feel that opening. Inhale, exhale, and close both knees. And now, it's not Pilates but it is a most important exercise because throughout life, we have to be able to put our shoes and our socks on.

And therefore, this piriformis stretch is excellent. I call it the number four. And cross that leg over and lower that knee. Feel that stretch. Gently lift if they can the other leg from the bed or the floor, and place it down Both legs on the floor and change legs, and lower the knee.

Don't move the hips. Feel that opening working through your abductors, your abductors. Lift, feeling the stretch through your hips through your ischiums, and back down on the floor. That's good. That again is a very important exercise because we always have to be able to do this.

All right. And now we are going to bend the knees and reverse our bicycle. And usually we would do 12, but when we're talking seniors one second, please wait for me, don't start. When we're talking seniors, one of the things that we often do, or hold back on or that we reduce are the repetitions. So therefore we're going to only do eight.

And bend your knees into you, feet are flexed, and now stretch one, and two, and three, reverse bicycle, four, and five. You going forward, go back five, six, seven, go back, going back. I have most people here going forward. Hello, and feet down on the floor again. (Lolita laughs) It's amazing.

A lot of people, when you say reverse bicycle keep going forward. No, whatever goes front must go back. Right, and now relax and turn on your side towards me. And bend your knees, and nice straight head. Feel like your back is straight on the edge of the mat and take your feet back.

And remember, in the seniors workshop this morning, when we talked about rotation. And we talked about rotation for our clients with osteoporosis. And I said they can do a certain amount of rotation to there. It's perfectly fine. And back.

And now we're gonna go further. And back, because this is a healthy senior, and that healthy senior wants the full range of movement. And we go out, as far as we can, looking at our elbow, and come back, and again, place your eyes on your elbow. And go all the way out, breathe into it, feel that rotation, and come back. And know you stretch your arm out, right?

And again, you are using a total base of support for lifting the femur and lowering the femur. Lifting the femur, lowering the femur, lifting the femur, lowering the femur, opening the knee to the side like a clam. Feet are together and bringing the knee in. Opening the knee to the side and bringing the knee in, and now lifting, right, and bringing it back in, and lifting, and bringing it back in. And femur swings forward and back, gently forward and back, and forward and back, and forward and back, and close.

And now we do baby roll from side to side, side to side side to side, and we end up on the other side. Right. And place your feet. A long base of support, right? Two elbows are bent, right?

Keep your neck straight, right, your head straight. Inhale, and the little one is for our client with osteoporosis. It only goes up to the ceiling. And back, and take it with your eyes, right. And now we're getting healthier.

And up. And our healthy senior, and down, and our healthy senior who's been doing Pilates for a long time, goes all the way over and stays there, and breathe into it. Inhale, and exhale, and bring the elbow back and closes it in. Now, stretch the arm, and long base of support. Right.

Okay. And lift the femur straight up and place it down, and straight up, and place it down. Take your heels back a little bit, there, right. And down. Don't open it, straight up and down.

And now the clam opens and it comes back, and it opens, and it comes back. And if possible, both legs lift and they close, down, and they lift and open, and they close down, right. And down. Relax. And now we're going to do the femur swing or the femur sidekick.

Front and back, and forward and back, and forward and back, and forward and back, and close, and go on your back. Good, good. And now arms are down by our sides, separate our feet. Place the feet in line with your ischiums and knees. And we talked before in our senior workshop about the importance of bridging, and how we modify our bridging by making it a hip lift when our patient, when our client is osteoporosis.

Okay, so, let's first do our hip lift. Inhale, exhale, lift, by your hip bones. Feel 10 toes on the floor, inhale and exhale and lower by the hips. All in one piece down. And inhale, and again, lift belly button towards the spine.

Don't stick the rib cage out. Inhale and now exhale, and lower down. One more. And inhale and lift the belly button to the spine. Stay there.

Feel 10 toes on the floor. And inhale and exhale down. Now we're going to do our bridging, our spine articulation up, and our spine articulation down. And inhale and bring the coccyx towards the pubis and lift vertebrae by vertebrae. As you raise up and be between your shoulder blades, no higher than that.

And now start your sternum melting down your ribs, your waist, your hips, and finally your pubis comes down. Let's repeat that. And inhale, and coccyx comes towards the pubis, curl it up and say hello to each one of those vertebrates. Each one of those vertebrates is independent and you have 10 toes on the floor. And our senior goes up as much or as little as they can.

And inhale and exhale as you lower and take it with a double breath so they don't feel they're gonna run out of breath. And again, inhale, and once more, bridging, exhaling, as we lift up and inhaling, and exhaling, as we melt like butter, 10 toes on the floor don't supinate, keep that big toe down. And all the way down. Very good. Okay, remember the importance of this exercise.

And now we are going to do the most famous of all exercises, the 100, right? But we are going to do the 100 for osteoporosis first. Inhale two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three four, five, inhale two, three, four, five, and exhale. Just clear the floor. Okay, and our client is getting younger and stronger and there's no osteoporosis.

So I lift two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four five. And I start to lengthen the lever. Four, five, exhale, two three, four, five. And I keep lengthening because our client may be old but boy, she's strong. Four, five, exhale, two, three, four.

Finally straightened fully two, three four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five. And we start to lower two, three, four, five, exhale, two, three, four, five, and inhale two, three, four, five, and exhale, two, three, four, five. Relax, bend your knees, and relax. Okay, so there we went through all of the stages, right? From just the arms pumping, the head down, lifting the legs, head still down, raising the head, more challenge.

Legs are up. Then working your lever, right? Little bit of a straight legs, little more and straighten always, not in front of you, to the ceiling. That's lower because remember, one of your ways of modifying movement is up towards the ceiling and the closer you bring it to gravity the harder it gets. So therefore, eventually, if you wanna challenge your healthy gentlemen, seniors, they'll be very happy to start bringing those legs down.

And when they do, immediately you make sure you say "That's progress." Because it is very important that we compliment all our clients but most especially our seniors. Because it is so much effort for them to be able to do all of these movements, or movement, period. So therefore, you must be very aware of constantly letting them know how well they're doing, because when they're doing something like the 100, that is an accomplishment. That is an accomplishment. And you notice it's difficult for anybody, but certainly for a senior to get it all together, bravo. (Lolita claps)

And now we are going to do the leg series. Now, you're gonna turn towards me. Let's say you're on your bed and you're turning towards me, legs are long. And let's say we prop our head up. Remember, we have the option of keeping the arms straight but this senior's doing well.

Now, here you bring the legs in front of you, right? If you were a dancer, if you were a regular client, I would probably say, I want the legs right under you, as if you were standing up. But in the case of the senior, I want the legs a little forward of you or, that's right. Make sure the shoulder is down and now feel that you raise the top leg, flexed feet, flexed feet, both feet flexed. And just feel the belly button towards the spine.

Feel (blows kiss) that you give me that kiss that kiss (blows kiss) there. All right, and relax. And again, lift up the top leg and place it down and (blows kiss) kiss. And now lift up the top leg and bring the bottom leg to it. It can't be high, remember.

And take it down and take it down, and again lift the top leg and bring the bottom leg up to it. Good. And take it down and take it down and kiss. Right, and know the top leg comes up, and lay down. And up and down, and up, flexed foot, and up, and down.

And when you bring the leg down, think you have a little mini ball that you have to squeeze in order to get your legs together again. And squeeze that little mini ball. And up and down. And every time, your belly button towards the spine and you give a kiss. (train horn honking) Okay, I guess they're headed home now.

No Pilates via the feet. And with a little outside rotation, don't exaggerate. Remember, you are an old lady, and up, (everyone laughs) and down, and up and down. And point to come up, flex to go down, and point to come up and stay. And if they're in good shape, you give 'em a little circle there.

One, and two, and reverse the circle. And one, and two, and lower both legs and adjust both feet. Flexed feet, flexed feet down. Okay, and now, let's bend the knee to the side. And lift up the knee, and put it down again, and stretch it down.

And bend the knee to the side, lift up the knee and stretch a little bit, bring it back, place it, and put it down. And again, bend, and lift it and see how much further it will stretch. And bend it, and place it down. Good. And a little sidekick.

Very little front and back, and front, and back, and flex to come front, point to go back as you exhale and place both legs down. There you've really gotten the adductors working, their abductors working, their flexors working, their foot, you have accomplished a lot with very, very little. And now you are going to turn on your tummies. And, remember our patient, our client that has osteoporosis needs a lot of flexion. In general, we all avoid flexion because we're not used to going back.

And yet flexion is so important, right? So every client that can, maybe not your ones for spondylostenosis, if they have the narrowing (stutters) in the spine of the canal, the root canal that goes through the spine. Which is what spondylostenosis is, then with them, you do not do it, but for everyone else, that opening that chest towards the heaven, as much as possible. Heart to the heavens is very important in every class to maintain that flexibility of the spine, forward and backwards. Okay, and now just place your forehead down and open your arms out to the side and place your forehead on your hands.

Right. The leg doesn't have to come up straight, remember, but lift the right leg up, and put it down, and right leg up, and put it down, and right leg up, and down, and up, and down. Left leg up and down, left leg up and down, left leg up and down, left leg up and down, bend both legs in and stretch them out long. Straighten them, and bend them in, and straighten them out, and bend them in gently, and straighten them out, and bend them in, and straighten them out. Okay, and now stretch your arms right in front of you.

Place your forehead down and raise your right arm and place it down. Raise your left arm and place it down. Again, right arm up and down, left arm up and down, right up and down, left arm up and down. And now let's go into our single leg kick position. Single leg kick up on your elbows, looking at your hands with axial elongation on your neck.

And let's kick the right leg in, and in and stretch. And let's point and flex, and stretch, let's point and flex, belly button to the spine. Point and lift the pelvis from the floor. Head is up, point and flex and down, and point and flex and stretch. Go back down.

Straighten your arms, and raise the right arm and the left leg, place it down, raise the left arm, and the right leg, press it down, right arm and left leg up, and down, left arm and right leg up and down. And now a very gentle swimming movement. One, and slowed, two and inhale, and exhale, and inhale, and exhale and inhale, and exhale. Good relax. And if they can, they are to sit back into a quadruped position in the bed.

Quadruped position. And if they can, which many of your elders will not be able to, they can sit back towards their heels, but if they are in their quadruped position, that is good. Right, now remember if they're in bed, so the bed is relatively soft compared to the floor, but they can either put their fist down or the little gloves that we mentioned and we are going to do our angry cat. Round the spine and lengthen the spine to neutral. Neutral is where the pole touches your sacrum, your thorax, and your head, and go into a horse, arch your back.

And back to neutral, and belly button to the spine and into your angry cat, and back into neutral. And horse arch or camel and back to neutral. And one more angry cat. And now walk the arms forward, gently, and all the way down and tilt on your side by placing your hip down, placing your hip down and to the other side. Okay.

Now for the sake of the camera. Okay, we are all now on our other side? Yes. (Lolita chuckles) Okay, now we are going to do our leg raises and sidekicks on the other side. And feel the flexed feet.

Both of them flexed. And feel the lengthening and the stretching out because you have your belly button towards your spine. You're feeling your kiss. And down, relax. Now bring up the top leg, but not too high, remember.

And place it down and now bring up the top leg and bring up the bottom leg to it, touch it, take it down, and the other one down. Leg up, other leg up, one, two, down, and down and leg up, and other leg up, one, two, three, and down and down. Okay, now we do our leg raises. And lift and squeeze that little ball as you lower and up and squeeze, (blows kiss) and give me a kiss. Up, belly button to the spine and feel that pelvic floor up and squeeze.

And now rotate your legs into Pilates V, and point, come up, and flex, go down, and point, come up, and flex, go down, and point, come up, flex, go down, point, come up and little circles. Little circles and reverse that little circle, and down. Down, down, down. Remember, you're 70 years old. (Lolita laughs) Where are you going with all those circles?

Relax your feet and flex them. Okay. Now the passe or the bending to the side and the unfolding. And bend to the side and unfold. No, no, no, no.

Rome wasn't built in a day. And little by little we get there. And we will get there, but we will warm up that hip, and we will go a little further, and we will come back down. And that is another very important thing to remind yourself. Up once more, and further opens.

When you are thinking of the ways of modifying your movements, it's the sequencing. You do not go to the end in one, on the first movement. You sequence into it, right? I take you a little bit of a bend and I place it down. And then I open that leg and then I open it further.

And then it's when I stretch you. And that way you have gently warmed up the leg and maybe you don't get to stretch, but that's fine too. You will be working that leg to your maximum capacity at that point, which is what we want. And now we are going to do the leg swing, the sidekick forward and back. Remember the legs are slightly in front of you and the leg comes forward, flex and points to go back, and flex forward and point and exhale, and flex forward and point and exhale, and flexing forward and point and take it back, and close both legs.

Did I leave anything out? No? Okay, and on your backs. Okay. And now a straight leg stretch.

I like golden years. What do you mean? That you now pick up a straight leg and pull it towards you, right? You are gentle about it. And we are here.

The bottom leg can be bent and then you stretch that leg into you, and place it down, and bend the other one, (Lolita exhales) and place it down. And then you use your sequencing technique, lengthen the legs a little more, and place it down. And the other one, and place it down. And if they can, then bring it straight and take it down, and straight, and take it down. And then if they are healthy, golden person, and you bring the head up, and down, and up, and down.

Okay, and you have taken them very gently into their straight leg stretch. They may never get to there, but you're working them very slowly towards that goal. Now I'm going to give you roll-ups, and you're thinking roll-ups for seniors? Well, this is a senior roll up. We are here, right?

Inhale, and I will first take it in stages. One, two, push with my hands, coming towards my knees with my eyes, stretching out, flexing the feet, if possible. Returning back, sliding my hands, belly button to the spine, going towards my elbows and sliding down. Notice I started with one elbow first and then the other, as they get better, then they go inhale, and exhale. (exhales) And then start your arms, push, I'm pushing. And then I just lie and I stretch.

They're here, that's perfectly fine. Right? Right. And they stretch and they feel that spine stretch. And they keep it there, and they start their arms.

And they go back. And then (exhales) they descend. So we will do two with elbow elbow, and then we'll do two more together, both elbows. All right. And right elbow left up and head up and left elbow under.

Now, hands are down. The hands are down on that mat because it's those times that are gonna help you come up. And now push on your hands, bringing your eyes towards your knees, and bringing your slide, hands forward. Don't leave the hands behind you. And stretching, bend your knees because you know it's going to be very challenging to keep them straight.

And now start your descent, inhale, belly button to the spine. You're exhaling, and take one elbow back, take the other elbow back, hands down and now lengthen your arms as you lower your body down. Lower your ribs, integrate with the mat. And one more, a little faster. And right elbow, left elbow, head up, and push, push, push, push, and stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch.

Exhale and inhale, and starting your descent, and roll, roll, roll, elbows first. One then the other, and lengthen the arms to get you down. Inhale and both elbows at the same time, head up exhale. Use that exhalation, push with the arms, bring the head towards your knees and lengthen. And you can stretch your legs if you wish.

And now start your descent. Down, down, down, down. Elbows back. And roll down, lengthen your arms. And last one, inhale both elbows up and head up as you exhale, and come forward, push with the arms, push coming forward, coming forward, bringing your arms with you and on the floor, on the floor.

And going back, going back, taking the arms back, taking the both elbows going back and lengthening the arms, shoulders lengthening down, returning. Very good, to the floor. Let's do one more and we will go into a spine stretch. And inhale and both elbows in and roll up. Push, push, push, push, push, and come up.

Our senior will probably not be any wider than this. And with the knees relaxed. And it is more friendly to give ourselves this sort of fascia massage as we do the spine stretch. So let's keep our hands there. Belly button to the spine and stretch forward, exhale.

Belly button to the spine as we go back. Tall. And again, inhale and exhale forward. And inhale, and exhale back. And inhale and exhale forward.

And looking down at the bottom of the pool, don't let the chin touch your chest. And back, back, back, back, and open your arms to the side. And we will go into side flexion towards the Caddy, sorry, towards the Caddy. And up and side flexion towards the camera, and up, and side flexion towards the Caddy, and up, and side flection towards the camera. Keep your head straight in front of you.

And up. And now you will be seated at the edge of the bed. And of course, that's not easy for you to do there, but I will quickly review those movements that you will have sat up. You're at the edge of the bed, right. And you will take your head right, with that you can do with me.

Head right and center, head left and center. Head right and center, left and center. Reach forward and center. Go back and center. Reach forward and center.

And back and center. Ear to the shoulder and center. Ear to the shoulder and center. Ear to the shoulder and center. Ear to the shoulder and center.

Look down and center. Look back and center. Look down and center. Look back and center. Shoulders forward, up, back, and down.

Forward, up, back, reverse. So keep the ribs in the body. Don't let the ribcage stick out. And back and up and forward and center, hands under shoulders, elbows down. We circle the elbows around, and elbows around, we would generally do four, but we are only going to do two today.

Back up and around, and back up and around. Okay, and now we rotate. Remember, you adjust that rotation to the condition of your client and center and rotate, and center and rotate, and center and rotate, and center. And now I stretch that Achilles and I bring it back in and I stretch that Achilles and I bring it in and I stretch the Achilles and I bring it in and I stretch that Achilles and I bring it in. Okay, and now it's very important movement of stretching the piriformis, getting your shoes on, back down to the floor, stretching the piriformis, shoes are on, back to the floor, stretching the piriformis.

Number four, back to the floor. And inhale and exhale, and down to the floor. And now forward over the legs, up and back, top of the chest to the ceiling and straight and forward over the leg. And remember you determine just how far or the client determines that flexion is. And one more forward, and up, and back, and down.

Okay, and remember, now we all stand up. We always stand them up before they leave. Now we are going to circle the arms up and around, and up and around. Much of what I have given you so far is in the Body Walk. The head from side to side, the shoulders, the elbows, reverse the circle around.

And remember that range of motion is adjusted to whatever is the reality of our client. Back up and around, open the arms to the side. Cut with the elbows, cut with the straight arms cut with the elbows, cut with the straight arm. Change the top arm. Cut and cut shoulders well down.

Cut and cut. Circle the arms. One, two, back, back, flex the hands and push the walls away. And come forward two, three, four. Flex the hands and push the walls away, four and down.

Arm in front of you. Stretch it out, hang the thumb, take it to the side, turn it to the floor, and one finger at a time into a fist and stretch out. And one finger at a time into a fist. And stretch out, and in front of you is the arm and I bring it forward. And stretch, stretch, stretch, other arm.

Stretch those fingers back, shoulders are down. Lower it so both shoulders are down. Hang the thumb, aligned with your hand. That needs stretching that hand. Take it to the side, turn it to the floor in front of you and into a fist.

And stretch down, down. Look at my hand, that's right, into a fist. And stretch into a fist. And stretch into a fist. And stretch, arms down, and bicep curling.

And two, and three, and four, and five, and six, and seven, and eight. And back, two, three, and four, and five, and six, and seven, and eight, and down, open out and close. And two, and three, and four, and five, and six, and seven, and eight. And relax the arms down. Bring the hand in front of you.

Circle it around, around, around, reverse the circle, around, around, around and down. Other arm and around, around, around, around, and around, around, around, around, and down. Okay, and know let's bend and stretch. And again, bend and stretch, and bend and up. As you go down, you reach up and stretch and up and down and up, and don't rock back to your heels.

Keep your weight forward. Back and down, and up and down. Okay, I had mentioned to you doing up in the Cadillac for the seniors and the pregnant ladies, and you can go up. Have you done ballet ever? No?

Is there anyone here that has? Get back down. (everyone laughs) No, it's okay. I'll leave you up there. Okay, place the arms in front of you, all right.

There, okay. Now, give me a slight turnout at the feet. Remember I said how ballet is so very beneficial for the elderly and the pregnant lady? If you get them to go up onto the caddy without fear, otherwise, you know, they can do the same thing right here, but this gives them like a double hold. Now just bend your knees, and stretch your legs, and go up and down.

And bend your knees, and stretch your legs, and go up and down. And now slide this foot in front of you. In front of you, til it points. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Come back to a Pilates V, and slide this foot forward.

So, right, and bring it back. And slide it forward, and bring it back, and slide it forward, and bring it back, and slide forward and back. Good. And let's do the same thing to the side. Slide out, and back.

Someone can grab there, and back, and out and back, and out and back. And now go back and forth, and every time you come to your Pilates V, and back, there you are, you're fine. And back and right. Now bring it front, and take it a quarter of a circle and close it. And take it back.

Bring it a quarter of a circle around, and close it. Okay, let's do the same thing with the other leg. And front, and front. This, we call it tondu. Tondu front and front.

And add the same thing to the side. And side, and side, and side, and going back, and back, and back, and back. And coming front and going side and closing and going back and going side and closing, going front and side and closing, going back and side and closing. And again, bend your knees, stretch your legs. Up and down, and bend your knees, and stretch your legs, and up and down.

And now raise the right knee and bring it down. Again, raise it up, slide it up the other leg, and bring it down. Four times, up and down, and up, very nice, and down. Other leg. And up and down, right.

Always making sure that from the side, as the teacher, you can keep this center placed. Right, and down, okay. And now, remember we talked quadriceps? Bend, you have the foot in what we call in ballet, "coup de pied". At the neck, the foot is pointed at the neck of the other foot, which is your ankle bone, right?

So you bend here, bend, and straighten both legs, right. And bend again, good, and straighten both legs. And bend and straighten. Let's go to the side, bend and stretch, and bend. And this quad is working big time.

And so is this rear, and we make sure that she's well aligned, and close. The most challenging part is when you go to the back, so you don't need to go to the back, and it's not good for anyone who has stenosis or spondyl. Taking the movement back. But it is very good also for working the butt, working the rear end. So, let's do with the other leg sweetheart.

And there, bend and stretch. Lovely, you were meant to be a dancer, you know that. And stretch and bend, and stretch it out to the side, bend. Atta girl, stretch and bend, and stretch. And now let's take it and stretch.

Now let's take it behind. She places the foot in the back and she stretches it behind. Bend and stretch, and again, small. Nobody says the leg has to be up there. No.

Okay, and now close in your Pilates V. Now we are going to do a degage, which means it simply disengages. It can't wait, straight leg. Up and down, and up and down, right. Up, this is really now almost a grand battement or a big kick that she's doing.

Other leg. And up and down, and up and down, and up and down, and to the side with the right leg. Up, good girl, down, up, and down. Are you sure you never danced? You didn't take class?

No. No? Not ever. Okay, to the side with the other leg. I can take directions.

Okay, you sure can! And down. And there, and down, ribs in, and go to the back with the right leg. Back, that's right, now point that foot. Point it! That's right and right, good girl. Point it, and right, and right, and change legs.

And a one, and in, and a one, and in, and a one, good girl! And back, and in. Okay, now, keep your arm up and bring the other arm up and over. Right, feel that stretch. That's right. And right, and then the other one.

Up and over, over, over, over, and feel that stretch, and up and forward, forward, forward, forward. And keep going down till the other arm straightens. You can, no. You're a senior, so you keep that arm there. Right.

Til you till you straighten it, right. And come back. Right, keep coming back. Keep coming back. And then again, now follow with your eyes.

Follow your hand as it's going down. Right, just to there. Belly button to the spine. Belly button to the spine. And now come back up and change hands.

Very nice. Follow your fingers with your eyes as you belly button to the spine and you come forward. Stretch the supporting leg, arm and keep it in front of you. Right, and come back, and we can add going back, going back, going back. And come to center.

Another one coming forward. That's right. And coming up with your arm. Remember your relationship of the eyes and the hand. And going back, going back, going back top of the chest, right.

And for an 80 year old, she does beautiful. (everyone laughs) And center. Okay, and your name? Meredith. Meredith, beautiful, Meredith.

Thank you. (members applaud) And we are going to drop our head down, and we're gonna circle our head all the way around to the left. Remember, at no time, do you compress your cervicals? There's always axial elongation, and go the other direction all the way around to center and over, right, circle the head all the way around, and center. And over left and circle.

all the way around and center. Let's go into Pilates V. And inhale and come up, and exhale and down, and inhale and go to out the window, right, and center. And go out the other side, and center, and bring the arms in front of you, chest towards the ceiling, and center. And arms down and inhale, and exhale, inhale, and exhale, and inhale and exhale, and inhale and exhale.

And thank you. (members applauding) Thank you.