Feel-Good Mat

Welcome everyone out there watching. And first I want to say thank you for joining me in the first live class for Pilates. Any time it is my honor to be here and I will get a little emotional, but that'll probably be it because I can tell that you're out there watching and you're here with me and I'm here with you. And that's my real self that just happened in a lot of you know that about me. So have a great class. If you have a squishy ball, bring it nearby. If you don't have a squishy ball, you can get go real quick and get a pillow, uh, maybe from your sofa or your bed. We'll probably, we'll be using that just a little bit for support and connection and feedback and extra challenge. So once again, Amy havens, you're in my workout den. We're at stay at home. I'm here with you.

You're here with me. Thank you so much. And uh, I can't see you and I can't hear you, but I feel you. Okay. So have this nearby and let's all begin standing on our feet. So if you're running and getting your prop, hurry back and I want you to really just to feel yourself grounded on your two legs. Start to just easily bend your knees, just gentle traction, parallel, let the arms hang. This is a feel good mat experience today. So when I think of a mat session that I want to emanate, what feels good, I want to bring in my breath.

I want to let go of some other stuff and I want to welcome in levity and bring levity in and a sense of lightness and not take ourselves too seriously. All right, so ball can be that is playful. It's has a little joy and rebound in it. That's why I chose to use it for the first prop. So guys, let's go ahead and just start raising your arms. Take a very deep breath in, lift the ribs up off of the pelvis and they'll press your hands down toward the ground. Use a little bit of resistance as if you're coming through some thick matter which we are. Inhale, lift that lightness up and then exhale, press down maybe a little less. Press.

Inhale, lift up and XLS. 10 this time, bend the knees when the arms come down. Straighten the knees as the arms come up. Okay, and one more time. Down and up. This time stay up. Reach or something that you want up there.

Bring it into the right and left side. I'm thinking about my rib cage moving with more freedom almost as if my ribs were little feet walking up my spine like a ladder going up. Levity, joy, Lee. Let's take four, three, two and reach a little bit higher with both sides of your spine and everyone just lower those arms. And as you lower them, I want you now to start moving your shoulders, your ribs, your spine. Heck, I'm going to bend my knees and let my hips sway a little. Let's just loosen up and get ready for some fun and some work. Okay. And then let's go ahead and go to the one end of your mat.

So we're going to do a little bit of standing roll down to start warming up even more so. So take those arms up again. Inhale, my legs are a little bit apart. Do what you need to do round forward. Let's get some technique. We're going to take our body weight shinbone slightly forward. Walk out right away onto your two strong arms and two strong legs. Okay, so we've got some solitude right here.

Think about your shoulder blade position. Plug them onto your back ribs. Send that color bone rounded back. Yeah, your chest forward to whatever's in front of you and your leg strength and length behind you. Okay? Pick up those abdominals, a little transition to kind of an up stretch or pseudo downward dog. We're warming up when I have you put weight into your hands. Push yourself back before you roll up everyone. Bend your knees, slump forward and very slowly roll up to standing, unfolding unfurling. Let's raise the arms up again. Breathing in.

Remember that levity, bring it in and exhale technique with your body position so that your round inflection, your shinbones are slightly for risk so that we unlock those knees walking out onto those strong arms again. Mmm, same thing. Breathe it in. Magine that collarbones spiraling back the legs, reaching back the chest, reaching forward. I won't be able to see you, but play with putting a little more weight on one foot and then the other just a little bit. And just notice when you distribute weight on one foot, the abdominal skin, the other foot, the other abdominals kick in. Let's center that weight. Same transition to come up to standing. One more time.

So a little up stretch, not too long. Push those arms. Same thing. Bend those knees. I want you to really round your spine. Now get that proper ready. Roll up to standing. Okay. Every one. One more time. Raise the arms. Ah, feel how good it is to do something as simple as raising your arms up, round your spine. Now let's start to go slower because I want us to feel those abdominals now.

Really like I'm trying to suspend myself over a fence or something. An imaginary something. Lift those stomach muscles up. Now here we go. We're going to walk out in this time, get down to all fours Quadro position so that we can continue connecting into those abdominals. I do want you to press your shin bones down on the mat and as you activate the press of the shins, press your arms strongly down to chance for reflection of the spine. You can start at your head or tail or go all of it in one piece.

Keep pressing your shins. Feel as though now this negative space underneath our chest and the mat here is generous like I'm a half barrel or a full barrel, big old beach ball and we're rounded over that. Take this flection spine and elongate into flat back and then pass through to extension of your spine. Whatever you've got, you can go lumbar. If you don't want so much lumbar fluxion extension, you could extend more your upper spine. Breathe in and let's find each other in neutral.

Take one or two more moments here just to connect this idea. You're pulling your mat apart. Well, your upper arms are in their external rotation. You're in a neutral spine. Tuck your toes, you know, however those knees for just about three breath cycles, and just press your arms down, suspend your knees up and your tummy is up with you. Sitting bones are open. And then everyone just come on down to the knees. Let's get off the wrist. Shake that out. Okay. I don't know about you. I'm warm, getting warm and I like to get warm when I work out.

So have your prop come into it. Now we're going to start with this behind our back, lower back, and I want you to keep that right up against your sacrum. Okay? Back of pelvis and sacrum. And for just a moment, sit, get yourself on those sitting bones. I've got my prop here. If it's your pillow, it's your pillow, okay? And now as you exhale, let's everybody just start to roll the sit bones under like that. And I want you to just to be there. Hold your hands behind your knees and let's just put our brain in something here. Okay? I like circles a lot. I have a circle here.

I have a circle, a little salt lamp. I have a circle for my plant stand. I also like things in threes. So good things come in threes. But I'm also working with the idea of the circle, the roundness as if I'm inside the ball right now, I'm inside it. And um, this, um, I'm leaning back against this back curve of it. Can you see that I don't have the most rounded spine in my low back, but I'm visualizing it and the visual skill is connecting me into my physical sense. Okay, now I'm going to have a C there a little while longer. Deepen the curve. You can think that you're deepening your curl of your tail, your sitting bones under.

Maybe they're kind of aiming their way up toward the back of your knees. Now let's let go. We don't need to hold on. So with this position, we're going to go back an inch or two. Let's breathe in on that exhale and curl forward and injure to inhale back and exhale forward. So that's just how we'll start simply. But feeling the work dynamically in, of course, the abdominals. Think about that moment right before you move forward.

You pull that ball in, you pull your stomach into the ball to curl up, back and forth. Some of you may want some more challenge. You can absolutely go with your arms up for more. Inhale, exhale up. Your arms are in external rotation. Your shoulders are dropped. Three, you've got one more and let's come all the way up to the start position.

Hold behind your knees, pull on your knees a little guys, and just lift that sternum just like you did in quadruped. You're getting your upper thoracic. Roll that collarbone back. Okay, look forward. Arm straight ahead. Inhale, roll back onto your prop. Is there for support, but it's also there for feedback and challenge. Okay. What I want us to do, hold this body design. Take both arms out toward your sidewalls. Exhale, collect that air. Let's work with air. Press it back.

It's an inhale. Exhale again. You're pulling yourself against your ball and then creating the circle of the arms. Inhale, open. Exhale, close. Three more. Exhale, close. Your head is kind of suspended there above your neck. The shoulders are nice and low. Your last one here with the arms.

Take a break if you need to or come along. Both arms come up, exhale, they go down. Inhale, they lift up, exhale, you lower down. So challenge yourself not to really get comfortable on your prop. It's mainly there to give you some feedback, little support, and deepen your challenge. Last two to the challenge is to not on it, right? It's easy just to lean on it.

The challenge is to not lean on it and come all the way out. A little bit more. Inhale, same thing. Exhale coming back. So this time is a little more oblique work, but it opened my body toward you. This front arm is going to go down a little bit. So yes, I'm going back on the ball slightly. Not much XL. Let's go all the way up. See if you can take it to your other side.

Your prop might move a little bit. That's okay. Inhale back. Exhaling. Now keep on going. Remember, I can't see you. I know you're there. Three, don't take yourself too seriously. I think some of you might be already laugh, a little and lift and reach and lift for more. Everyone lower and lift and lower.

Am I right though? Can always chat in later. Inhale in the forums. You're going to be able to talk to us last time. Everybody live and lower. Okay. How you doing? Feeling some warmth, feeling some connection. So let's take ourselves down to the floor. Have your prop in your hands.

Legs are slightly apart. Roll yourself down on the way down. Put the prop between your knees. Slide your heels closer to you. Let's take some slant board, pelvic tilt about three of them. Hands on your thighs. Roll that collarbone back. Inhale, you're going. So now the prop is there.

You can use your legs and squeeze it if you'd like. But you know what? I want us to visualize the shape of the ball. Yes, it's round. Let's take a breath while I'm up here, but that each vertebra is its own little ball that you roll on to and across. And as you roll into neutral, just play with the ball. Imagery and feeling. Here we go again. Exhale. So you're rolling.

Reaching your knees toward the wall in front of you. Your pelvis is pressing up into your thighs, into your hands. Breathe. Where else can you roll? You can roll your collarbone back. You can roll across every vertebra. Creating more distance between each one.

Take it one more time. We'll add some stuff to it. Exhale. Curl up. Yeah. Pressing those hips up. Okay. Some really yummy feel good is take the arms back overhead. Inhale, circle amount around. Exhale all the way down. Four more times. Just move your body. Right now I have an image that my tailbone is kind of curled around the ball as if we're a big monkey with the long tail. Its tail is out there.

Long curled underneath the ball. Holding onto that. Yes, my images are weird, but I've been told they work. Let's reverse the arms. Five times. Big circles. You arm circles also round three more breath is round last two and lower. How about the last one, but I want us to take the arms back overhead. Leave them there. Breathe in here. Slowly rolling down every vertebra or you know as much as you can like it's its own little ball. Each one like its own little ball coming to a level pelvis.

Let's take the hands. Interlace. Inhale behind the head. Elbows are scooped up. We curl up. Once again using imagery. Rounding up like a ball. It's easy. Breathing down. Four more and lower. I like to scoop my elbows upward, not outward. Upward. Helps me connect that serratus anterior muscle your scapula right onto your chest wall here. And those muscles are closer to the abs, aren't they?

So all this package right here, the lax, the serratus, the external obliques, all of that toward that very strong center. Everyone our last one, we're holding it up or holding it up. Rotate toward me or your other side. It's okay. I'm going to smile at you though and come to the center to the other side. Exhale. So we're staying up here for a bit. I want you to press your ball. Inhale through center to the other side. So if I go left, I want my left leg pressing the ball. I want my right leg pressing the ball.

I'm going to do four more of these. Chest lifted rotation. Last one to each side. Curl steak up off the shoulder blades. Last one, come through center. Take your chest back down. Okay. Release your hands from the back of your head. Take your ball or your pillow out from your knees. Now behind the knees, it's going to go right behind the knees and I want us all two. Press that thing. Press press. Press your calves toward the ball, toward your legs, your hamstrings. At the same time, your upper back is engaged, your chest is wide.

Let's take an exhale and whatever you can do, bring your thighs deeply close to your chest is deep abdominal work. I'm trying to keep my sit bones toward my sit, my heels to sitting bone. How much can you pick up your sacrum and your lumbar? That's your choice. Inhale. Now can we go the other way? Just lightly. Touch the toes down. Exhale, curl the tail.

There's my tail image again. Is it coming all the way around me? Inhale coming out. Three more guys. Exhale, curl strong. Don't take yourself too seriously. Inhale, exhale and ha. One more roll. Now keep the feeling in the abdominals.

Take the ball away or proper. Just put it between your ankles. Now lift your head, neck, and chest. Extend your legs to the height that you want for your 100 right now. Let's go into four or five. Exhale, three, five and two. Now part of the fun here is to keep the ball steady.

Okay? Curl up off your upper back. I said no, laying back. I'm going to go a little lower. Five more rounds of reading. Let's get some body heat. Try to keep that ball steady. So your upper inner thigh really working. Two more breaths there. Last breath, curl higher. Now bend your knees. Catch your prop. Okay. Rock yourself up.

Take your eye off the ball in your hands. Press it. Sit tall. Flex your spine forward. I really want to focus for right now, I'm going to give another image that this ball now is right here in front of me and I'm rounding up and over the top of it, right? So here's the front and then here's the back of the ball. Let's take some roll-ups with that imagery. Roll yourself back. Ha old way stretch long, enrolling up.

Use some arm work. Press your ball, reach your legs forward, focus on the lower back roundness. Inhale, roll back again over the sacrum, over the lumbar, through the ribs, shoulders and head. Two more today. Strong press lift inside the lift inside. Roll that last time everyone. And this time, once you're up please your ball at your ankles.

Just drop your body down low. Get some stretch in your hamstrings right now so you may have, may need to come out of lumbar flection and can go into a little bit more kind of a flat lower back. Fine. Get some stretch here. What you need to do to feel some stretch because where we're going next, we need some length and lift in the spine. I'm going to face the diagonal just a tad just so you can see a little bit better. So can you sit tall, lift those hands up, lift your arms up. And then what I want us to do, everybody is lower your holding the ball in one hand, simple lift up and over to the other side, and then exhale.

That's all. Inhaling up and exhaling down. We're going to add this to spine. Twist. Yes, it's out of order. It's okay. We're here to have some fun. So as a spine twist, I lower that ball arm and I rotate. Look at it, lift up, bring it up. Change hands and who West. Sometimes a prop is useful for extra feedback. What's the feedback now?

Re look at it. See what you see. Like look at that prop. You know maybe your head and your neck and your sh, your thoracic spine could actually rotate more because you have a demand of looking at something. Really see it. Last one coming and then all the way up and relax. Okay, please lie back on your back. A gain. Wonderful. And everyone, well I forgot. I want you to put this your prop underneath. I'm so excited. Underneath one calf. Okay, you've seen me do this before.

Hopefully it is to challenge your stability now forcing the leg circle. So as you take one leg up to the ceiling, remember it's right above your hip right now. Externally rotated, pelvis neutral. As you engage the hamstrings on the bottom leg that's depressed. The ball wants you to use that very small circle in the top leg today. Ultra small five of them. Same breathing is normal.

Inhale cross. Now, where's the circle? The circle is in the femur head mobilizing it, so moving around the joint. Let's go the other way. Enjoy that simplicity. How that femur magic leaves a little round shape of the femur head. It's a ball that's a beautiful shape and your last one. Now hold there.

Now let's grab the leg. Do what you need to to feel more stretch in your hamstrings. We're all in a different place with that these days. Okay, now guys, without any fancy transition, let's just move that ball to the other side. Press your leg against it. Using the hamstrings on the straight leg. It's not behind the knee. It's behind the flesh of the upper leg.

That's where we need to connect. Extend the opposite leg up. You're in a turnout. You're all anchored into the floor. I can tell you, here we go. Top Lego over. Exhale around. Exhale around. Is this leg as circular as the other side. We're hoping that it will be in the felt sense of what that is.

Okay. Make note. If it's not, you may want to repeat practice feeling the same sensation on both sides. Relatively the same last two and last one and that's it. No fancy transition. Just bring yourself up now with the ball or your prop. I do want you to choose. We're going to do rolling like a ball of course. Twice, two different ways.

One way here with your prop between your chest and your legs. Hold onto your shins. Okay, let's let's, I'll go there first. So hold your shape. So often we hear in the rolling like a ball that the distance between the chest and the FYS should stay the same. Okay. That's kind of fun. A ball is in there, so I want you to feel like you're doing two things.

Chest toward legs, legs toward chest. Maintain that. Let's go form all four of them. Rocking back, rocking up, chest toward legs, legs toward chess. Two more. You're rolling over the vertebra like they're little balls, I'm sure. Okay, now put it behind your legs. This is a little different. Okay, so the same thing that we felt earlier. Press your calves against it. Same idea. This stays equidistant. Roll back, roll up, rule back.

I think both versions are helpful. Last two, last one and let's balance place your feet down for just a moment. How would it go? Good. I think it probably went well on our side. Now as you're on your side using your prop, I'm going to have you put that right underneath your rib cage side and get yourself set up just as if you were doing some clam set ups and these are stacked ankles are stacked. All right and without a whole lot of preparation here, just recognize your, the sh the ball and it's feedback, right? It's also trying to help you keep your ribs lifted so that you don't rest on your ball. So lift that up and I'm today I want you to just go, we're going to go right away. Front kick, back kick. So leg extended, lets flex.

Let's come forward. Kick, kick, stretch behind kick, kick and front, front, back and back. Breathe. How you need to make sure you're breathing. Okay? That's four reps. Let's take four more hand behind head for a little extra challenge. Okay? Make sure you're not laying down or smashing that ball last too well.

It's like you're in your hip joint. Even here, you're going around that little ball and around. Hold it, hold it, hold it. Now everyone make that a diagonal line. I love this. Stretch the arm to that corner of your wall. Space the leg behind you. Look down. Now check yourself that you're not leaning on ball. What I want you to do is lift your leg a little higher behind you.

One lifted two. We're going to do 10 of those three, no lane and on the ball. Lift up and lift and six, seven, eight, nine. Stay up there please on 10 reach a little further in both directions. Now I want you to circle your top arm. Bend your back knee. Let's get a little hip flexor quad stretch and just pause there. I'm going to have you think about your pubic bone and two hip bones pressing toward your, the space that's in front of you. Just press.

No leaning on the ball. I just caught myself getting really cozy so I to lift off the ball. Okay, now let's work on inner thigh connection with the ball at the ankles or your profit, your ankles, so just down you go right at your ankle bones and I think this morning. Yeah, this morning today I want you to start with your bottom elbow. Bend your head on that arm. Take a moment everybody and literally on purpose.

Hike your hip up so that you just don't do it anymore. That's it on. Hike it on. Hike it. You should feel a luscious stretch through here. Some activation here and then if you'd like to do two choices of hands right now, either fingertips or more challenging here. Let's raise the legs, lower the legs and lift the legs. I'm thinking eight repetitions. I'd like you to steady the ball. Exhale, belly back, legs up.

I actually think about my low abdominals. Threw me toward my sacrum and lower lumbar for supports. That's where I think of mine going through me toward my sacrum. The top of it, especially lower lumbar. We're going to stay up there one more time. Hold. Now, take your arm overhead if you're ready for that.

And don't worry if you're not balanced on your side. Well don't worry about it. Use your hand and support yourself. Okay, now soften your feet and everyone, let's do, put our hand down on the mat. Okay. Bend your knees, take the ball out from under your knees and just close yourself back down. Okay, that's it. Let's roll up and over to the other side. So the at your ankles, perfect. Down we go. Okay. And then once again, take that hand and hip and just rock a little bit to get that hike, hip hike out of the way. Stretch it to your hip, towards your feet.

That should allow you to lift your bottom waist without any challenge or any trouble. And now, legs up, legs down, legs up, legs, down, and exhale. So of course, this is not an exercise that I have any real clear imagery for a circle except for energetic and breath. So it's like, and, and, and last two and lower. Last one, please stay there. Arm, overhead, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, and lower down in. Yes, I realized I went a little out of order and it's fine because remember we don't take ourselves so seriously. Come up on your elbow levity, naming the game joy, play. No big deal. Okay, so your ball is underneath your rib cage side. Check into that. You're not going to squish it. Take your legs straight forward, leg in line with hip and on the hip. Let's go kick, kick front and kick you back. So we did eight of them, four with hand on hip, where? With the hand behind head. So as you kick your leg forward, there's a little bowl right here. You're pulling up all in. That's the femur head again, that Beamer head that rolls in the joint space, which is round is really nice. Make it easy on yourself.

Last one, and then laid behind. Keep it there. Top arm reaches to the other diagonal in your room. The back leg is to the other diagonal behind you. Take that leg up and down. 10 of them. Exhale, lift doesn't have to be high. I want you to focus mostly on not smashing the ball up and five more.

Here we go. And to check those abdominal muscles that they're in against your body for support. Last two, up and up, and we can rest. Okay. Come up to sitting. I'm going to face the diagonal again. Spine stretch forward, yet it's out of order. Like I said, it's okay. Sit tall. Prop is here. Flex your ankles. Roll your collarbone and shoulders back in. Everyone take a breath. Okay.

Starting with the nice long spine that you curl, lift your waist and round and roll this ball out. Yeah, stretch more. Stretch more. Try to plug your sit bones back on. Put weight on them. Roll yourself up. I'm only doing three. We're only doing three. Take a moment before you go forward. We need to lift where normally there's always that levity.

Even in here, even in the neck to skull, you've got to lift before you round. That helps you pick your ribs up off your hips. Keep your sitz bones plugged down. Try to stretch that lower lumbar base of ribs and member. Ooh, yeah, and roll up one more. I'm sweating so much. My glasses are falling off my face round. Round around. Oh good. It feels so good to move.

I feel your energy if you guys, thank you so much. I feel it. Okay. OpenLink rocker with the ball at the ankles. So here we go. So the legs are open. Just not as much as normal. It presents a challenge, right? It presents a challenge. We like challenges. Before you roll, go basic. Go simple. Put the ball in your dominoes here.

Roll over your lumbar. We've done it so many times. That's it. That's all you need to do. See, four more, maybe five. We'll do total of six. Of course we will. Here's the third one. How fun is this fun movement on the floor is fun. Last one. We'll balance at the top to use everybody. Balance. We don't need the ball there. We needed in our hands for some teasers.

Roll down all the way. Roll up any way you'd like. Try to touch your shins. Ankles or toes. Again, teaser down, teaser up shins, ankles, toes, twice. More. Rule down. Okay, read. Jamie go up there last time. Cold. Hold it. And I noticed some of your, yeah, you're up here with your hands. Do it. Take your legs down and up. Three times. That's it. Okay, good. Come on up.

Actually that's not really gonna go over here. I want you to take yourself into side support. Honestly, I'm sweating. Hold on one second there must. Okay. Peter. Stack hand is wide open. This base hand is yours.

Check that it is. This upper arm is rolled back. That collarbone is rolled back in your shoulders, down your back. Okay, so side support first, let's just take the ball in the hand. Profile yourself, look at it. Okay. And then just what's going to happen is what I want to focus that we keep our eyes the ball. Not to sound kind of cheesy, but it gives you something to look at and register with your cervical movement. Okay. This is where the ball is actually a really cool prop. Uh huh.

Now with your legs, you can keep your feet stacked or you can separate them. I think I'm going to separate mine right now and here we go. Let's start to lean up on the arm, the other arm. There you go. And just take the ball up overhead. Honestly, it's going to fall out because I'm sweating you guys.

That's okay. Yeah, I'm going to go all the way. That is totally fine as live. No worries. Reach back for your heels. Yeah, that is real stuff happening. Then undo the ball and lower down. We've got to do it two more times, so I might have to change the way I hold it.

Not fun. And we go lift. Lift. So keeping our eye on the ball. I wanted you to pass through the side bend, move it toward your feet and reach into that upstairs, twist reach, retreat, and then undo it coming through. Yeah, that is hilarious. I think I can't even hold onto the ball. So without it, it would be this move, right?

And then reaching back for the feet and then coming through and lower all the way down. Okay. Now lower down onto your elbow. Let's get the hip flexor stretch. We didn't get on the first side and I'm sure you're like me. You forget things from time to time. You just make up for it. It doesn't matter right now. Okay, let's try that sequencing on the other side. Now, if you had the same experience as me with your ball, well let's try seeing what we can do here. Stack your feet or stepside. Decide one foot behind the other. Stabilize your support arm. Look at that ball.

Here we go. We're leaning into the support arm. We're taking the ball up and overhead. Try to keep a hold of it and then it's just not going to happen. Reach back for the feet and curl up and return to more lift. I can pretend it's there.

It's there for some eye hand relationship. That's what I was going for more than holding a ball, right? Well, one last time is the relationship of how the eyes in the head, all the nerves in that neck relate to those muscles through there to move with good alignment and rhythm. Okay? Everyone come face down using the ball and where I want the ball is that I want our chest on it. Okay, so the chest, then I have to wiggle it between the bosoms a little bit. And then I do want your hands right by the sides of the mat minor in front of my shoulders. And I just want to rest myself over the ball. Let's take a moment here and think about something.

If it's uncomfortable on your breast tissue, just move that stuff out of the way, right? And this allow the breastbone to yield yield. What does that mean? Slow it down. Pause. Allow the ribs there and the cartilage that joins the ribs to the sternum to yield to allow you to flex your thoracic spine. Yeah. Okay. There we go.

So for some babies long before we do that, let's check the shoulders where they go. Your pelvis is flat and extended and your hamstrings are engaged. Now I want us to press your chest against the ball and start to roll the ball forward again on my back, my upper back. I'm visualizing each thoracic vertebra rolling down that way toward my feet in opposition to the uplift of the front of the sternum. And let's go the other way. So now, okay, the front of my sternum is rounding over the ball.

The ribs are yielding all those joints there. I just got some more range and then the opposite way. There's a little press of you on the ball. You're rolling through and up. We're not onto a full Swan yet. Breathe and lower down. I hope this feels good for you. Yeah, a couple more times like this.

Inhaling and exhaling. Find a rhythm of breath that supporting your motion. I just really keep coming back to those round like beads or pearls. Ball-bearings they're really easy to move. Those are my vertebra. Those are the joints. One more and they're right. They're not right next to each other.

There's a little space between each one of the beads with the pearls. Now if you so wish, go further into arm extension lift. It's okay if your ball moves. Could you lift your chest more? Can you roll your collarbone back a little more? Let's start coming down down. I'm going to move my prop.

See what it feels like without that prop one more full, sworn everyone and all the way back down. I feel so good to work the back. Let's go to single leg kick. Okay. Ball at the chest from hugging it like this. And I've got my hands wrapped this way around the ball. So I want you to press your elbows down.

Legs close together. Look straight ahead. Now engage your hamstrings so much that your foot, your legs lift off the floor. Even just a little hair, just a little. I like flexed ankles on my hair. I go an Oh one do and lower other side kick.

Hello, kick, kick and lower and kick kick. And now what I want you to think about with the chest is that you're not laying on the ball. Lift your chest up off the ball. Exhale a little faster. Kick, kick down, kick, kick down, kick just up off the ball and or three, two and one. And now we can release that thing out of the way. Okay, everybody turn your one ear to the ground and just listen to the floor for a second. Just listen to the floor. Other side, just lift your head enough that your nose clears and listen down to the floor.

One more each side lift, maybe a little high or lift. But when you get your ear to the ground, I really want you to almost, I'm going to use the word surrender, like don't make it a pose of listening. Like let your head go. What's your jaw on grip? Yeah. One more time. [inaudible] and then find you way. You can leave your prop where it is.

Just find your way back into a little resting pose. Move your hips back and forth a little bit. Good. Okay. And then let's come up to a thigh stretch position. So I want you to bring your prop with you and put that prop between your knees so that you have some feedback, is providing feedback now for your adductors and of course your hamstrings, those hip extensor muscles. So if we turn a little on the side, right, that we don't have our pelvis in this, this folded place. No, we have it in extension. So you can even put your hands behind your legs here. Encourage yourself to press forward. I like to do the slant board position.

So hands on thighs, collarbone is back. Lastly, press your shins onto the mat, press your shins down and you'll probably feel this reconnect or deepen. Here we go twice without moving the arms. Any amount leaning back. Exhale. Yeah, one more time without moving the arms. Do you heard it? Me? Press your shins to come up.

Couple with the arms here. The arms have energy. Even though you're leaning back, the arms are reaching forward. Press your shins. Remember to come up again. Inhale those hamstrings. Really keeping those hip joints open. Now to more with the arms up here on this moment down to slant board on the way back, you actually might need to do a few of those in new hail and pressing your shins will help you come up last one up and lower the arms to rest. Okay, come back into pad. Here we go. No prop, no problem. I don't. Okay, here we go. Everybody tuck your toes. We're in a neutral to start breathing. Hover your knees.

Okay. Stay there now. Round into cap, back round in the cap pack. Make sure your shoulders are wide and you're kind of pulling them out. Apart from here. Lift those sitting bones up high, lift them up high. That should feel like a nice stretch in your hamstrings.

Pausing in this position, everyone press the floor away. Shoulder blades are not pinched on your knee, on your back. They're really separated. They're wide. Can you get your heels down? I want you to breathe in. Lift your heels, lower your heels. That's the simple, but should feel delish inhale and you're in the perfect environment to look at your feet and check your alignment right and last one. Now breathe in. I want us all to come back to flection of the spine, flection of the spine, mainly in the tail, mainly in that sacrum. Lower the needs. You're still in round.

Undo the talk of the toes and then just come to neutral. All of that. One more time with a little more flow. We're breathing in flection of the spine. Breathing, toes talk, knees hover. Ha. Your shoulders don't go anywhere up. They stay low on your back. As you extend your hips high, your heels are aiming low. Let's do five heels up and down.

The breath is round. One more time. Lifted heels, bend the knees, come down to round spine, however the knees lower and rest off of your wrists and we're going to go back out to plank position. Here we go. Walking yourself out, just getting that solid plank position that we had at the very beginning of the class. Now what I want to do with this is kind of move this just a little bit more vigor and we're almost done. Hand pivot and then just put the other arm on your hip. That's it. Let's undo it and do the other side. So you have to kind of walk the hands.

Pivot the feet, hand against your thigh and hand. Hand, hand pivot arm against her thigh. Ready hand, hand, hand pivot. Arm against your thigh is going for two more hand and hand. We might do four more. I heard some of you, not really, but I think I did. Some of you said sure. Ane let's do two more. Here we go. Pick up the stomach. Yup, we have it. Hold on. Turn. Now guys, jump your feet. Do your hands and sit.

Because my prop rolled away. I'm not going to go retrieve it, but let's work on the seal with the imagery of the ball in here. In your back. Maybe it's round right here. Okay, so picking up your ankles, hold onto your ankles, and before you do this, simplify this. Extend the energy of your feet forward a little bit. As you pull your stomach in opposition behind can start to visualize the spine like a wheel. Each vertebra, like a ball. Here we go. Three times. Open club, back, open, close and up. One, two, three, roll back.

And one, two, three. Roll up. One, two, three. One, two, three, four more reps. Don't take yourself so seriously. Bye. Now, some of you should be giggling inside knowing. Oh gosh. It's that feel exercise. If you're at home and you want to make the noise, go ahead. One more. We'll balance at the top. One, two, three, uphold two, three. Gorgeous.

Let's bring it down a notch. Turn toward me. I hope your knees are okay. Well, I didn't ask you yet. I should have asked you earlier. Sit this way for me. Okay, so we're seated and we'll do a little stretch that I've been adding to almost all of my classes as of late. It seems like it's feeling good for everyone, mainly. So I'm turning out toward my thigh, leaning onto those hands just for a moment and now walk your hands as far out as you can and get your chest as far out as you can. If someone were behind you, giving you just a little walk with their foot gently on your back, stay down low. Now when you roll up, lead with the back of your pelvis, the back of your waist, the back of your ribs. Really keep that wide and then I want you to come up into a breath of extension. We're going to do that one more time. Everyone summit or like there's a big ball rolling on your back.

That's kind of a fun one is rolling. How far out can you get your chest over this thigh? When you roll up this, lead in with the back of the waist. Use your hands and push into the floor a little bit and walk yourself up right now with your hands. Take them in. Turn away from me. Just look up the wall that's behind you. Let your ribs rotate. Look up.

We're going to do one time these hands walking around the front and then that ear listening again. Get down really low here, the floor, but feel the stretch in the buttock or hip on which your chest is resting. Get low, guys, get low. Okay, now we have all of that on the other side. This is a very abbreviated series, but I got in when I wanted to on those massive muscles of the buttocks and hips. So you're turned towards your front side. You're walking your hands, you're getting your chest out and as low as you can, as low as you can. Yours might be halfway down to what mine is. That's okay as far as you can blender.

Let the net go. Now when we roll up, it's from the low back, the back of the ribs. I'm using my hands to kind of push myself up, up, up, up, up, up. One more time. A bigger breath. Hmm. Walking out. Yeah. Walking out. Get your body weight down on that thigh. You know, you should feel that when your body weight is down on that leg, stretching out those hips, those buttocks. Lateral hamstrings. Okay. Coming up now the hands go walking around.

You're looking at the wall behind. You get some thoracic rotation and then the last stretch, here's your hands. Walk around the front and you're turning and you're looking down, lowering your ear to the ground. I'm getting a body weight really low on that leg and then everyone come on up and then just sit in a comfortable sit. Yeah, comfortable. Sit. That's what mine is right now. And I want you to take your hands on your knees and then just gently feel so one more round image because I can't leave it alone. That the Palm of the hand, you know, you can make a circle. Of course, the hollowness there, capita around your knees. Recognize that that round space like one embraces the other.

Let's just breathe a little bit. We're going to kind of wind it down and I just want you to use your own thinking on where other round spaces are around things that Cal, Kenya's, your heel bones, my gosh, the elbow bone, the whole head, humeral head, femur head. There's lots of circular design in us for sure. I think mainly our breath is the main one that is like a circle that doesn't really stop. So the inhale is it rises and then kind of tops over the top and exhales down. Right. So let's just do about five or six cycles together and um, cause I can't see you, but I know you're there and I feel I really, it's an amazing thing.

I will take right now to say thank you for coming and moving with me for the first live class for Pilates anytime and for showing up for yourself. Taking the time out of your day to join us in the community. That is Pilates. Anytime. Um, yeah, I'll be back next week, Tuesday at 11 o'clock. Right in here. Stay tuned. Look on the website for events and you know what I what prop I might, so we might do a little prop, another prop, and I promise I won't drop it next time. Okay. So have a wonderful week everyone, and thank you again so, so very much.

I'll see you next week.