Refresh Flow

Hey everybody. It's class time, thank you for showing up. Today is just all about doing Pilates and moving and hopefully, feeling better at the end of this than when we started, even if you're feeling really good right now. So as usual, in my class I'm just gonna start with that roll down and check in. I'll turn sideways just because, I have a view and, you can see what we're doing.

You're gonna look down at your feet. They're parallel. The outer edges are parallel. Welcome. I feel like we haven't said hello in a while.

Glad you're here. Outer edges are parallel, shift your weight forward and just kind of see where the rest of you is in relationship to that, shift your weight back. Like what is gravity doing to you, with you, for you. Now come back to what feels like center and then adjust where you need to. So I like to go from the ground up.

I go from feet, I think okay my ankles are just kind of straight up. They're the base of the columns that I'm about to build. Knee caps over ankles, hips over knees. And then the trickier part for me is where are my ribs in all of this. So I just kind of play with that a little bit, front back, front back okay.

I'm gonna stack that ribcage right over the pelvis as best I can. And then the shoulders of course over the ribs, and then the crown of the head. Sometimes I like to just touch the top of my head and then from there, reach into it. So my feet are anchored. I'm letting my body grow into the top of my hand.

And then the arms down, let's take an inhale, and exhale just sort of shake off anything. Do it again and then we'll roll, inhale, and just kinda shake it off. You know where your alignment is now, here we go, we inhale. On the exhale, if you went further to the ceiling first, you round your head forward. Nothing's shifting back.

In fact maybe a little more weight in the forefoot than the heel, all the way down. Bend your knees, let them reach toward your forehead but take your spine with you. So it's not just sticking your butt out, right? it's more like, "Can I round my spine when I bend my knees and straighten or get near it." Bend again, and straighten. As usual I'm hoping that you kind of decide what you wanna get out of it, knowing that I'm just gonna try and keep this moving.

Bending and straightening. Next time you get as straight as you can or rebend to draw the belly up, your head hangs heavy, your arms, lift off the floor as you roll back up. This time just turn the arm bones outward. Let's take a deep breath, reaching up, grabbing the energy you may need, and exhale let the arms float down. One more of those we'll go into our next roll down.

Inhale up, reach for it, and exhale when your arms get about shoulder height, start your roll down, head goes upper back. Find the middle back, sometimes that's hard for, well me. To look for that, you go all the way down we bend, bending the knees, bending the spine. Keep your head heavy, exhale, go towards straight. Maybe you get your chest a little closer to your thighs.

Maybe not. And again, I'm inhaling as I bend, exhale as I straighten, oh my goodness. Inhale, hold it there, hang your head heavy again. Draw the belly up. Let that be the impetus for bringing you back up.

One moment to do a tiny little stretch down there. Next time, last time. Here we go. Inhale, just leave your arms heavy. Exhale we go. Sometimes they cue that exhale just simply like it's a good place to support yourself right here, especially in the beginning.

Alright so from here, go ahead and bend both knees, maybe, well, as much as you want. Let's start straightening just one of the legs. That's the one I needed. Rebend that leg. Do the same leg again, head heavy.

We're not thinking here we're just kind of testing out those hamstrings and et cetera, and last one there. Then let's just switch to the other side. Relax your head, neck and shoulders. Sometimes we start to think we have to look ahead or anticipate, I'll do my best so that you don't, I'm bending straightening for three times. Here's my third one.

Voila. Keep knees slightly bent and let's roll up from there. Feel the heaviness of the tailbone maybe this time. Feel the bones of the back start to stack themselves up. Then just for a little bit more of a release or a wake up, depending on the time of day for you, you can inhale, just bend your knees, now you can sit back.

Now it's a little more of a hip hinge. Exhale, just like, let it go. Inhale just a few, you can take your arms as high as you want or leave low, but just getting a little bit of energy going. (exhales sharply) A couple more. One more from me.

So, another way I'm gonna get into today is to just check my balance and I'mma a step off my mat. I actually have a double matted so that you know, 'cause, I think it's a good idea. So I'm stepping with my right foot forward just a bit and, what I'm gonna go into instantly. You're thinking about the backside of my body 'cause it's gonna help me. If I only think about the position I'm gonna go into, which is a bit of a scissor, I'm thinking forward.

And right now I really want to feel the back of my body. So to try this, if your right foot is stepped forward, your left foot is back on the ball of the foot. Imagine you're gonna propel yourself upward with that back leg, make sure that back leg is straight and you can feel the back of your leg, and glute maybe. From there, subtle hinge, direct hinge. Your foot may or may not leave the floor, but probably it has to to stay in alignment.

So let's just float that leg up, and then come back, touch down follow the foot, so you're gonna stretchen out the toes too. Like, is if you're gonna sprint upward on a diagonal, there's energy from there. Hinge forward again. Maybe you'll go a little further this time. I just have my hands on my hips.

You can do anything. I'm finding this pretty well enough and come back up. Alright you can shake it out, you can bend, whatever doing one more at that range, and then I'll give you another option to try it a little bigger. Let's go. You're already in that active back leg.

By the way, channel that energy all the way up to almost the back of your head really and hinge. Hinge you can go further forward. You can soften the forward knee, but try for straight. She says, "What do you got?" And then come back up, just switch sides. She says knowing that she chose her easier side first, "Why do we do that?" (indistinct) resistance.

Okay. So now left foot forward. That's the one being stretched, right foot back. You get that toe on the ground. Feel yourself, ready to go.

Tighten up that backside and hinge a little. Don't worry about the foot wobble. Right? Come back up or do, it's up to you, but no need to worry about the foot wobble 'cause that that's sort of like what save us, saving us. You know, we're not static beings period.

And come back up and I guess I could say more cues about trying to keep the hips level but really I'm just trying for balance. Go a little further if you can, go, go, come up. This was the bigger one. If you're gonna do that or just go to where you were. Here it is, strong backside, ribs are not trying to help me in some weird way, or are they?

Okay. And come back up, right on. Let's just have a seat on the ground. I have my feet parallel and I do my best to get my toes on the ground but, so if you can do, mine will come up pretty quickly. Hold on behind your legs, lift yourself up, and it's like the bones of the butt are on the ground.

The heels are down for sure. Everything else is rising up. Here we go. We're gonna roll back a bit. Exhale, roll back.

Leading from the pelvis, take it to the edge that you can, probably no straighter, no further than straight arms. Start exhaling, come forward. When your shoulders are back over your hips from the base of the spine, elongate up, and remember what we did in the beginning. It's a sense of, "I'm being elevated to the sky." Exhale, roll back lead from the front hip bones maybe. This is a chance to stretch out your low backs, inhale, start exhale, you could even use your arms.

I think we talked about that last time, and sit up. Right just. It's not like we're trying to do more than we need to, but sometimes the act of using in this case the arms, allows some opposition in the belly. So the belly gets to pull back, back, back and sit up. Let's make it a little more interesting right from the start here.

We roll back, take it to the point where you think you can let one go. We did this last time. We'll do it again 'cause it's always good. Let the right arm float up. Inhale.

Your body doesn't change otherwise. Exhale, press it back down like it's coming through a (indistinct) other arm. Inhale up. Start the exhale as if some... that had something to do with your arms moving.

Just hold, inhale, start exhaling and come back up. For those of you who are all warmed up and ready to go. You don't have to hold on, enjoy, exhale, roll back. Check your collarbones and that's a sense more than looking at them, right? Right arm up.

Inhale. Take as far back as you want, just don't drop back with it. Exhale, bring it back. Other arm, reach it up, up, back. Exhale, bring it back.

Holding on or not inhale, start the exhale, scoop the belly. Come forward, and about the collarbones. Try to keep them straight across. They're gonna want to reach forward on you so it's not pulling back, but just keep calling them straight. Feel for that.

Two more, we'll start with the left arm and the next two, exhale, roll. Left arm up or pick an arm, whatever. Inhale, start the exhale as if the arm are attached to that breath. Other arm up. Exhale, hold, inhale, starting that exhale, Keep the curve.

And up. You were worried we were having technical difficulties, weren't you? last one down. (exhales heavily) It's amazing what a few deep breaths can do for you. I took the left arm, exhale, brought it back.

Right arm, reach. Bring it back, hold on or not, start your exhale, come forward. I think I'm with a tougher group than this today. So we're gonna do both arms after we do the single. So let's go, exhale, roll back.

We're cool. We're good. We're not anticipating. Let go of the arms if you can, if you want, right arm up, inhale. Bring it back, exhale. Left arm up, bring it back.

Both, keep your body still, keep your body still just your arms, just your arms. Oh my gosh! That's it for me. I'm gonna hold onto the inhale. Exhale, come back up. That'd be weird in Pilates to only do the right arm leading first.

So let's do it with the other arm leading and then we'll move on. Let's go, exhale back. For me left arm up, exhale, right arm. We let go off too, sorry about that, I was enjoying that. Both thumbs up.

Oh my goodness, bring them back. Hold on or not, inhale and exhale, up. Sitting tall, hands maybe in the front seat or underneath either way, but so that you can give yourself some leverage to extend your spine a tiny bit upwards, snap your neck, we're gonna just roll. Just, we're gonna roll down and do a few more warmups with the spine, even though, that ought to do it where we were. Same position, otherwise inhale, our heads are just on the mat.

Now, we're gonna roll the pelvis up this way. Up and remember we talked about the back of the body. So here's this really great opportunity to forget about the shape and try to focus on the back. Right. Draw yourself toward your heels a little bit.

Or perhaps you'll feel better if you draw your heels towards your butt. It's not a physical change that you'd see, but you can feel it. Exhale, roll down. Just gonna do a few of these. Inhaling at the bottom and trying to just find the full range of the spine that I have this morning or today. Step into your feet, they're not rolling out.

They did not turn out. The inner thighs are engaged and we're just feeling like, solid. Exhale when you roll down maybe, think from the front of the body, maybe. Just ribs, somewhere near the waistline, all the way down, a couple more. Just takes a moment to find how can you be as pliable and supple as possible in this exercise.

Last one for now. Exhale, here we go. Again the wobble, I suppose we're supposed to be straight, but we do live on a rotating planet. So I like to think I'm aligned with that, sometimes. Inhale, exhale down, and then we'll move into our knees side to side.

So take your arms out to a T position. Still kind of just warming us up a little bit. Knees either 90-90, or you can bring them a little closer. I try to keep my feet at the height of my knees going towards the front, inhale. Check out your knees are lined up.

You have a sense of a rotation and stretch through the upper body perhaps or middle, exhale, bring it back. The range of motion really is dictated, go ahead by the, keeping your shoulders down. So make sure you do that and back, inhale over. Sometimes I think bottom leg pressing into the top leg, but really it's about the middle of the body and the legs are the weight against it. Weight against the core of the powerhouse, whatever you wanna call it.

It's just kind of getting us ready. The more supple we are going into things, the better off we'll be when we really get into this which is about to happen, I promise. Here we go, a couple more, one to each side. From here today, I wanna just do a little bit of rocking and rolling and start the roll. I'm skipping a hundred, you're welcome.

Rolling, and do one or two more, but just make sure you or try for a smooth ride. I'm just rocking back and forth my whole body and not hitting my head. Last one, I'm gonna come up and stay up, and from here, we're going into our roll-up. So a few people have talked to me recently in the forums about like, why is it so hard? Sometimes it's just the way the body is.

That day sometimes it's the way what the body needs because it's structurally a certain way. And sometimes it's just, the reality, it's hard. So if you really find yourself heaving yourself up, you might take a small hand towel. I don't have one with me to show you. I apologize for that, but it just right at the edge of your sacrum and so that when you touch it, you really push into that.

It might drag your legs with you. It might make you bend your knees, that's okay. But it will also start to strengthen those areas that we might be skipping when we just heave ourselves up. I'm kind of wishing I had the towel. Let's go.

I'm doing my feet apart and pointed and here we go. So sitting as tall as you can first, just take your arms forward as if you could clap them. From there, lean forward a bit. Now, draw the pelvis back so you find the curve. Let your head follow that.

From here we inhale, we're rolling back. Just like we did in the beginning. Roll back, we're going all the way down. We reach the arms back, we touch the head. We're ready to come up.

We inhale arms all the way forward. Start exhaling, lift up and maintain that C again, that upper position. Inhale, exhale now. Roll. Try to hit all those bones that you know of back there.

When your head touches start bringing the arms up. Look at them, look at your legs. Start exhaling and up we come. So slightly modified right? So you can get out, hopefully.

Here we go. If it's super easy to put your feet together, but keep pointed lately and it's not for me, but I'm gonna do it, I'mma try 'cause I like to challenge myself and back. You touch, you come right back, you stay ready. Nice long lines, down we go again. Inhaling up.

I do like to start my exhale right before I lift, which is hard to do when you're talking, too much. That's all right, here we go, come up, (exhales sharply) and this time we're gonna go down and stay down. So enjoy it, milk it savor it, find it and reach back. Take your arms either out to a T or down by your side, Right leg is up. Let's go, just softly pointed.

Maybe a slight turnout of the leg. Other leg is active. So press down on the other leg for leg circles. We're gonna cross it over. Inhale, exhale, circle down around, come right to where you were.

Again, inhale over, exhale down around, hold. Again, over exhale down around hold, two more. (exhales sharply) Hold it, check yourself. Try to level off the hips as best you can. You can bend the lower leg if you need to, it's okay.

Try to keep the top like straight, other direction. Take it out. Exhale down around. Come to the top, hold. Out, around, up. Do your best to keep your pelvis still.

Here's three, two more. Hold it, reach up for it, hang onto it. Try not to hold on behind your knees and lift your head, lift your head and then as you gently, not gently, kind of gently, bring the leg towards you as you lower your head down. If you can, you can also lower your hands so it's not such a reach. Bend it, stretch it out.

Bend the other leg to come in. Hug it for a second. He knows where he's going now. He? Well, anyway, that's what came out. So, slight turnout may or may not help. Here we go cross the body, inhale, exhale down around, stop! You're in charge in this version.

Number three, theoretically only the leg moving. One more time, go the other direction to get out, down around up, hold. Out, down around up, hold. Three. One more time.

Hang out, find it, hold on somewhere and then, on this, it's more noticeable for me on this leg. I'm thinking, butt bones forwards, ankle. Just 'cause I know I need it, and then when I'm ready to take my head down and maybe even lower my hands. Oh my poor hamstring, he break so hard for me. He? What's with the he?

Okay. Anyway, I guess muscle, that's what I think. Right. Bend the knees, hug him in and we are going for a real rolling like ball. So just to get us going, hold on behind the knees.

I have my heels together. My knees are a little apart for now and pick your head neck and shoulders up. Get a little rocking motion going. Now keep your shape. We're gonna come all the way up and either keep that hand position you started with, or hold lower, any bit lower, toward your what?

Shins, ankles, but hugging in as tight as you can then to help yourself you push your shins or ankles into your hands too. So you have that kinetic chain going. Here we go, roll back inhale, exhale up. See if you can pause at the top and back. Can you pull it a little tighter?

It's okay. Let's challenge. You don't have to land them all. You just go again and reset your shoulders. Inhale it back and up.

If you have a flat spot, the trick, there's no trick. You just gotta keep your pelvis really in the same position it starts in. How about, one more here? Okey-dokey, if you need to move back to otherwise, hold on to your right, I'm gonna say knee today. If you know the traditional one, do that.

Meaning where the hands I'm not gonna go there. I'm gonna press my knees into my hands. I just have hand over hand and slowly, hopefully roll down to a single extract position. Check yourself out here, line up the tops of the feet as if you could set a tray on 'em. I was like, "she really used to give us." And it works for me.

So you're not crossing. You don't have one higher than the other. It's balanced on this imaginary tray. Put whatever you want on it. Switch legs. Make sure you have it on the side 'cause they're different.

And we go inhale, inhale, you can pull in closer but today I'm really just focusing on, deepening the contraction of the belly. And I'm choosing like, inhale, inhale, exhale, exhale, but just keep breathing. A couple more. Both knees and again, I'm kind of holding back on the full expression of the position so you can do more or less if you want. Double leg stretch for now, just reach everything forward.

Everything forward. Exhale, pull it back. Push your knees into your hands. If your head's getting heavy, get up. Rock yourself a bit forward.

Come back to the shoulder blades and inhale forward. Exhale back, again. Imagine sinking the belly first. Don't imagine actually do it. One more time like that.

Hang onto the knees. Let your head go down. You need to rocket side to side otherwise we're coming right back up. So engage the abdominals first. Like you didn't have arms and legs.

You're just gonna get yourself up somehow. Back in that shape. This time, the arms go behind you as the legs go away from you. We go, inhale, reach, exhale, hold. Recommit on that hold. Inhale, exhale, again, out and in, out and in, two more.

Out and in, one more, and rest your head. Right? This time, same thing come up, not too much rest. Just your head. Here we go.

Curl back up, take your hands behind your head. Lace or hand over hand, bend the knee and rotate. I'm going towards I'll call this the front where the seahorses rotate. Same deal with the feet, switch and switch. We love the crisscross.

Can we get higher on the crisscross, can we support ourselves? Can we let our heads rest in our hands? I don't know. I can now I've never thought about it. I'm doing two more best cycles, that's my inhale inhale.

Here's my exhale exhale, one more set. Rotate in rotate, back to the center, hug the knees, rest. I'm gonna scoot down just a little. I am gonna go for the rollovers today. So, and then we'll get up.

(indistinct) we'll be back extension and change things. For this, if you aren't up for going over near your upper back or neck, what I can recommend maybe is to just do this what I call a, it's like a prep. It's like just, you can either cross the ankles, but just to get the sense of initial contraction that gets you over. So that, that would be my alternative. Otherwise, Legs are straight.

Sorry I thought a bird came in. Alright. Legs are straight right about, I don't know. 90 degrees. We inhale. Exhale over.

Think parallel to the floor. Flex your feet separate. Lower if it's available and roll down. Circle the legs back together. Inhale to about 90 maybe a little more, exhale over, flex, separate, lower the legs. Roll it down. Keep going.

Circle the legs around and back to 90. Inhale, exhale up and over. Make sure your legs aren't going too high. Make sure you're not collapsing yourself and roll it down. Let's reverse it.

So now we take the legs to a V position, exhale up and over, squeeze the inner thighs. Connect that to your belly. Flex your feet lower if it's available, a little tougher and melt your way down. Point, open, circle, over, squeeze, close, flex. Imagine reaching the bottoms of your feet in the opposite direction of your tailbone.

One more. Flex, close. Take it down, take it down once you get to the bottom just bend your knees. Hold onto 'em. Rock yourself up.

Right on. Spine stretch, (indistinct) about the width of your map. Arms straight ahead first, Can you imagine you're leaning, not leaning but up against a wall, (chuckles) but we all can right now, right? Let me rephrase that. You're supported.

So you're not leaning back. You're not leaning forward. If you find yourself upright and it's too hard on the front, bend your knees. From there, I press down on this imaginary table. Now I'm gonna turn my whole arm out my entire arm.

Not just my hands because I need some more external rotation these days. It goes like this, exhale round forward, round forward, round forward. Like you're trying to touch your head on the floor even as your arms stretch forward. They're going lower for sure. Then just come back up.

Start the exhale. Think of the shape this time as actually squeezing air out of the lungs. Squeeze the air, make the body like a sponge. Squeeze the air out. Once you've gone as far as you can just inhale back up.

And as far as you can usually means once the exhale is finished, so that you automatically have to take in good air, get out of the bad hair right? Go, go, go. Watch how much you hunch your shoulders. It's okay a little bit. Alright. My favorite.

If this gets to be too much, I'm gonna offer this right now. You can turn your feet to touch each other knees out or again bend them but here we go. I'm gonna start focusing on that upper back. Take it forward. Same start, go, go, go. Alright, you've gone as far as you can.

Theoretically now, use that inhale to lengthen your spine on a diagonal, start at the tailbone, the low back, the middle back, the upper back. The arms are just following along as if they're somehow connected to your head, which of course they are. Exhale round and come back up. It's a lot of words for this one. So bear with me.

It starts to sync. You inhale. You're tall. You're hugging these imaginary trees, your pecs are even involved a little. Exhale round forward, round forward, round forward. Not the hips, just the body, just the upper body from there.

Now you can rotate the pelvis forward. Let the tail bone stick out. Start climbing your spine on a long diagonal. Try to include your arms. They're little lower it's okay, but try lean into it more and round forward to roll up.

I'll do my best to give you breathing cues if you want 'em. Otherwise, you're gonna have to close your ears. A lot of words coming, exhale forward. I Inhale for back extension. That makes it easier.

So I'm inhailing into that long line, I'm getting a little more room every time when I'm done with that, I exhale, reach way forward and start to roll back up from the pelvis again. Again inhale. Exhale forward. I even use the back of my legs into the floor here. When I can inhale in to that long line, find it, find it, get it, get there.

You can bend a little to get there more and then try to straighten reroute. Oh that was a good one for me and roll up. We're gonna add a little bit more. So, come on exhale. Find your inhale in a long line.

If you had a pole, it would be touching the back of your head and your tailbone. Theoretically, you can be higher or lower from there. Thumbs are still pointed to the ceiling, right? Draw those arms back. Lean forward. Reach forward back with the arms.

Here's three. It's almost a pulse, right? Four. You're just getting longer. Five of 10. Yep. Six, upper middle back.

Seven, flexed feet. Eight, toes to the ceiling. Nine, you're fine. 10 inhale, exhale. Just round forward.

And don't hang out for a second. So that we're really fine. Okey dokey. That's about it. Sit yourself up.

And just bring the feet kind of to the diamond position for a moment. I am speeding forward 'cause we're about to roll again. Open (indistinct) check what's behind it. just have my hands holding on here. Okay.

So holding on here, what does that mean? You can hold behind your calves. I was aiming for the side of my calves, but traditionally you're probably right on top of your calf so, you choose like the Goldilocks open, like rocker. Alright. Drag those toes and get yourself almost F right. Tilt the pelvis back. But you're not collapsing.

There's such a huge difference and you know what it feels like when you collapsed. You're like proud, you've dropped the hips back and then you it's like almost effortless to balance your feet I think on a good day. Extend your right leg. Put it back. I'm still in the air with both toes.

Left leg. Oh, come on baby. What did I do to you? Both legs. And bring it back. Okay start with the left leg this time and this arm you get to help yourself. Right?

Lift it. It's almost like, could you let go? Maybe what would you have to do? I don't know. I just do it. And then eventually, my body figures it out before my brain does both. Hold it there.

Okay. So here's the thing. Find a spot if it's wobbly, reset. That's all you can do. What I've learned to do when I'm not sure, and it's often, I'm kind of pulling my leg bones into my hip socket right now.

Just a little bit, but it kinda just like, "Oh cool. Okay, hang out." Then to get me going. I'm gonna do everything we've been saying, but I'm also gonna think about lifting or pulling my legs out of my hips to go. See if that means anything. If it doesn't, I'll just leave it there. We go. I lift my leg and I go back and I push him back in and I hold.

Works, sometimes lift them to pull back push them back in and hold. So I have a somewhat going for a bit of a flat back, but the truth is it's not flat at all because that pelvis never changed when we rolled it back, inhale back, exhale up. Oh, it's gonna be a good day. If I could do these today. Two more, (inhales deeply) (exhales deeply) Hold.

Don't get too cocky (indistinct) Here we go. Find yourself, find a place, hold it, hold it. If you've, if you're hanging heavy and it try to find that place where you can almost lift your legs out of your hip socket. See if you can let go and then set them down for the sore. Arms are out.

So what I did here was not much. I just widened my feet a bit more, doing my best to sit upright. Some of us really reached forward and some of us lean back and it's really hard to know. So if you've got a friend in the room or a mirror, I suggest you use it. Palms are facing forward.

Feet very much flex rotate to the front, or I'm gonna say right. But if you wanna see rotate to the front, let's go back. Exhale and just reach out. Kinda was a long spine in this version. So you don't have to do just the rotation and twist.

But for today I'm going a little more for the stretch of the back of the leg. Sit up and center. Here we go. Rotate, exhale, hands, reach. Yes reach, reach, reach, get that arm way back there and up and center. It's sort of like a one, rotate. Two, hinge reach.

Three, sit up in the rotation. four is back to center. For those of you who like a beat. One, rotate or hinge. Two.

Up three, centered. Now start thinking about what's actually happening. You rotate, you keeping those hips level. Sometimes you have to reach through one foot more to keep it that way. So as we rotate to the back and we reach, I'm gonna make sure that I continue to reach that same side like forward, up, center.

And again, one. Up. Center. We'll do something slightly different now that you got that. Okay, good. Come back to the front again.

I think it can be clear here. As you rotate this time, turn the back hand up as if you had a weight on it. It's something that's on it., and rather than going away forward, like we were rather think of drawing the ribs up with that imaginary heavy thing on the backhand, lifting you up and look back towards it. So you're not hinged way forward now. Now you're really getting more rotation sitting on both hips.

I hope that made sense. Then just roll up and center other side. So turn the backhand. I reach. It's like something is on it.

So the more I want to go forward, the more I try to push that arm up and actually rotate. Take the ribs with you. And then sit up and center, closing the feet, hands back, fingertips, face your heels. again, not, not for everyone. You may need to use your fist or you can turn your hand sideways, but I wouldn't go to the back.

I just skip it. If none of the other two work for you, but here we go. Fingers, face heels or the other versions, lift into a back support position. That means sort of a backwards plank hinge. Come down, let your arms come up and go again. Lift.

And hands just sit down, try to find that straight line of the spine again, lift again. If you can get those toes down in front, it doesn't always work out for some of us use the back of the body, just like we did when we balanced. Just one more, no big deal, sort of. And sit flex your feet, take your arms back up to the T palms are up. It's a spine twist to the front.

Two exhales, we rotate. One, two center. Use this as like a definite pump of the breath. Arms up Again, you can bend your knees, right? So I'm gonna change this one too much, but adjusting, I'm twisting.

It's a devil pulse, but can you go further on the second one? Go as far as you can further, it's not a bounce bounce further, further. Get there, go more. Sound bootcamp bike, but all right, couple more. Oh, that's rotations so good for us.

I can can't you feel it? Okey dokey shake it out. I'm gonna have us go down one more time. So just getting my hips forward. My feet are parallel, slightly apart rolled and that's slightly their hip distance apart.

I'm gonna do a quick, just short, shoulder bridge. Roll yourself up in that pelvic curl, standing on both feet, when you're think you're at the top. Take a moment and recommit, right? So, what that means to me is that I know I'm as high as I can be, but if I don't drop down sometimes and re-tuck or around the low back and then step into it, I may not be as high, but I definitely feel my hamstrings. So that's where we're at.

Right leg up point it down, flex and kickup one or just six, two, three. The rest remains still hopefully four. Here's, five and six. Keep it flex, lower down. So I'm not rounding.

Now I'm just touching down and lifting up five, touching down, lifting up four. Here's three, two, we're up on whatever here. Point rebend the leg, roll partway down. Part way down, part way down. Fine, maybe the bottom of the ribs so that you can think pubic bone towards sternum or whatever you wanna think, but you're ready to go back up, hips are as level as they can be, left leg up.

And we kick down flex up, kick down flex up. Three, four, I think I said five. So we'll stay there. If it was six, do the next one. Lower down lift up.

This is not a role. It's just that like, you know, good old down-up thing. Okay. One more. Repoint.

Put the leg down, roll yourself down. Hug your knees to your chest. Turn to your side. I'm going on the elbow again. Just into it these days.

This is like the modified version, but I just love it. If I'm not really gonna swing it, if you wanna swing it for those of you or, wanna swing it and know you can, do it. It's your class. I'm gonna be up here lifting that top leg. So basically up here, what that means is my lower legs at 90.

I think I'm stacked in my hips reaching the top leg. It lifts to the height of my hip. Maybe a tiny bit more. And I'm flexing as I kick forward for two kick, kick point and reach back. two, two, and reach back.

Three, three, and reach back. Here's four, five. How many? I'll just do six. It's just like getting the body moving, take it to the exact side of your body.

Again, lift for six, two, three, four, five and six. So there you are. Is your knee cap still pointing forward or have you rolled back going Y. Keep everything lined up to the ceiling. The hips, et cetera.

Now just do some circles here. Four, five, two, three, four, five reverse. Where did five come from? Alright. That's okay. That's gonna do it for now.

Yeah, it really is just come up and switch sides. So bottom leg it 90 for this version, you stretch yourself out. You're proud, I like to say. I don't know why that kicks in, it might be the Leo in me. And where do we start?

Flex kick flow. One, one, sweep it back. Two, two. Why I like this position. Someone's gonna count for me.

Three, three. Is this, that you keep stable everywhere else? Two more. I got it. Oh, maybe. Okey dokey, take it to the side. From there what we do?

We lift it. For some reason, I think I said five, but maybe it's six, one, two, three, no it was six, wasn't it? Anyway. You'll know. You'll do it. From there do the circles. This, I think I did do five, one, two.

You know, it doesn't matter, right? We try to even reverse it, make it a circle. Look at it. Is it, are you making a square? What are you doing?

Voila for me. Five or six-ish. And then bring it in and just sit up into that figure four position for the mermaids. Oh or I'm giving you options, right? You know, the mermaid a different way.

Do it that way. I'm doing this one where my foot is touching my thigh. Some of us call it a figure four position. It allows me to kind of reach and expand my spine a little bit more this version. That's what I'm going for today.

Inhale, reach out. Let your hand land as soft as it can. The other one is just enough position to it. from the spine you rotate, the arm simply follows because once again, it's attached, reopen it. That top arm is one that's gonna help you up. And now hold onto the shin arm comes up.

Can you sit the hip down a little bit and tiffy off as it stretch? Let's go again. So I start sort of T-position. I am definitely using what I can for my legs for anchoring. So that means I'm pushing into my thigh a little bit.

My hand lands, we rotate from the spine. Maybe we get a little more rotation. Sometimes, I understand that if you use your eyes to look further, your body will do it and it turns out to be true not just my head, reopen. You had to watch Elizabeth Laura comes (Indistinct) and Brent's, Brent Henderson to really understand it. I'm working on it.

Hip down, reach up, twist over. Just one more. We go, we reach out, we land softly, we spiral. And if you can get your hands down, do, if you can't, you might come up a little so that you can. And then it's the sense of drawing your chest through your arms, finding maybe the spiral stretch through the trunk.

Maybe not, but looking forward, you don't pull the pelvis very, if anything, the pelvis is going backwards. In fact, once we've done this, let's actually use the hands now to press the pelvis back the lower that you take the stretch that way. So just so we get it now we're around it a little bit. Let's do the opposite again. Keep your legs where they are as best you can and draw your chest through almost like you're pushing the floor or not away from you to lift up.

I guess in both directions, you're pushing them out away. Alright. Find what feels like a little bit of neutral reopen. Sit yourself up. Hang on to the stent. If you can.

And I say that with love because it's still a challenge for me. Try to get the bicep right next to you. So many of us have tight lats or things that anyway, at least try for straight. If your straight arm is way out here, that's cool. But start thinking about what would it take to get my arm closer to my head without dropping my head into my arm?

Just the thought and then stretch over. That's where that traditional mermaid really get some good breathing stuff in. Oh, okay. Now flex your other side. Just flip the legs around, back in the figure four again, holding onto the knee. I could give you more tips.

I do have my foot flexed. I am kinda using it 'cause I wanna to know where I am so I can know where I can go. Alright, here we go. Harder to sit on the hip here, but that's okay. I'll try. So will you reach out?

Let the hand softly land, it's just your rib cage rotate. Sorry. That was a joyful moment for me. Sorry, let that one out open and lift up. Grab on just to get the arm up there and start getting the idea of the bicep near or close to the head.

Take the stretch, but think up more than over back to the T, reach it out and give the lower body, rotate. Remember the eye thing and really you should check it out. It's really cool that when you look a certain way and I can't say any more than that, other than have you watch those videos and that sounds weird. So up, make a stretch. Here we go, lats out.

Land softly, rotate, rotate, rotate. Find the room you need, right? And then draw the chest forward. Look forward if it, if it feels right, but not up, just like, what do you need to feel that same sense of pride or proud that maybe felt earlier. And then we actually pushed again into the match and draw the pelvis back and round.

And then do it one more time now that we're there, it's a sense. I guess it's more of a dragging of hands to the legs as we go forward, but don't pull the pelvis with you. Push the pelvis back, find neutral ground. If you have to adjust your hands, you're gonna do that. And then we just reopen.

Lift up. Reach over. And then come up. We need some good back extension. This is not technically Pilates.

Stay with me. It's so nice and it will help. So I'm gonna just say that now. Let's go face down. Well actually, before you go face down, when I say goalposts, no offense.

I mean, you probably know what a goal post looks like, but I'm going 90-90 off the shoulders. What I'm saying, I'm gonna do a little external rotation. It'll give to our backs. We've already done a little back and we'll end with a balance and that's that. So stay with me last four or five weeks, four or five repetitions. Here we go.

Lie down. Your forehead would be on the floor. Maybe not gonna do that with the mic, but anyway, forehead on the floor, elbows just off your shoulders. And then maybe more importantly, and this is the part that changes is your wrist off your elbows, you straight up off your elbows, 'cause you'll wanna climb inwards or outwards. You usually inwards.

All right. Here we go. So tops of the feet are on the floor. The belly, your belly, your abdominals are drawn up and maybe fill the full length of your legs. This is not gonna be high of a lift or anything like that.

All we're doing with our foreheads rested is to lift the wrists and the forearms. Leave the elbows down. What do you have? And now did they climb inwards? Try to keep them straight off your elbows. From there, you lift your elbows.

Your forehead is still down. Okay? Say that. Now take a quick peek. Try to make your wrist and elbow level.

Look over it. You have to look. You think you know we, and you might, but anyway, from there, you hover the head and chest in by however, that's all I mean. Then extend your arms maybe to a little bit of a wide V, but try not even straight ahead. A little bit of a wide V. Rebend the elbows, to that same spot, check them out.

Did you drop or raise anything in the form? Are they level? forehead goes down, forehead down. Here's the fun part. Elbows go down, but not the hands. Oh, did you hear that?

And then the wrist, all right, little quicker. You don't, we don't have to do any. We lift the wrists in the hands. Then we lift the elbows and we know that they're level with the other. We hover the head and chest.

We reach the arms and we draw the abdominals in only where we need to. Did you get your arms straight? You can go wider. Rebend the elbows to 90 degrees. Forehead down.

Elbows down. Oh my goodness, hands down. We only need two more, but we can do two of anything. So here we go. Hands up, elbows up. Things are level, overhead chest.

Stretch the arms the more you stretch your arms, stretch your legs back of the legs help here. I promise you rebend to 90, forehead down, elbows down, hands down. My goodness you're gonna thank me. I swear. Or maybe hands up. This is it, this is it. Sort of elbows, overhead chest.

Straighten them, straighten them, straighten them, straighten them. Do your best. You don't have to be high. Look at the floor. You're fine.

Bring it back to 90 at the elbows. Forehead down. How's your upper back? Elbows, hands. Okay.

Just rest there for a second. Maybe shimmy your hips side to side. Just in case you got into your low back. I hope it didn't. It really doesn't have to and when you feel ready, put your hands by your shoulders, and help yourself into a rest or child's pose position.

So you help stuff up. You round fat. Oh my goodness. I'm so close to the end. Look what I did for myself. Right.

Scoot enough forward to just get your toes underneath you. That's a good stretch at the feet matter. Right? Set them the heels down. You're parallel. Just gonna walk forward and feel parallel. Heavy head. I have my knees bent. Have my knees done.

I'm starting to go right on sister Christie. You got it. He did and not only, not just for the fact that my body's different, I feel a little different. I hope you take inventory of that. If it feels worse, let me know. We'll talk about that too.

But I think there's a chance that you get to change things in less than an hour. Hang your head. Okay. We're gonna roll ourselves up just like we did in the beginning. You know what to do.

Just roll yourself up. Feel grounded, find your ground, find your alignment, get to the top. Find your bearings. And I wanna finish class with that last or that what we did in the beginning. I'm moving off my mat still for the standing balance.

So, what did I start with? I'm gonna start with my left leg forward this time opposite of what I did before. If you remember, try to do the same, not a big deal. Alright, that's what is the one that's propelling me forward. Feel that I feel all five toes and I'm connected or I'm trying to be through the pelvis all the way up to let the arms hang heavy hinge at the hips.

You'll you'll come to a point soon where the leg just floats. If that's all you do, stay there, finish with success for yourself and hinge as much as you want. As much as you want. I'm so happy with the change in this hamstring, but what, what do you need? I'm also not gonna push this side cause I'm happy.

I like to end happy, happy ending. Oh, darn. I shouldn't have said that. Alright. Stand tall, whatever. Switch sides. You're up. You feel the back of your leg. You're propelling. You're ready to go.

Even as you wobble hinge forward, hinge forward, I think you saw the, maybe you didn't see the full expression and you can go into a full scissor. Probably a little more yoga than Pilates, but, hey, find it. If you want to go to level, try. If you want more, you take your arms down In front of you. And when you're ready. You'll come up and you shake off anything you need to because we did it.

You came. That was the hardest part. I appreciate it. I'm gonna take one more deep breath with feet wide and just collect some energy and air inhale. Take what is yours and exhale. And thank you for sharing it with me.

I appreciate it. See you next time.