I'm gonna end up in this straight back kind of very much.
You're never going to roll like anything if you're straight. So you have to have a rounded shape through the lower back with this upper body side, back feeling. When we take the one leg out, we may or may not get straight. It doesn't matter if the knees a little bit bent. All I want is for you to be able just to try to find this position. We're using the pressure of the leg to the hand in the hand against the, to maintain that strength. Again, if I go out to this and my only goal is to straighten my legs, yet I ended up here, I'm never gonna rock back up.
You've completely sabotaged yourself with that. So ladies, move your boxes out of the way and let's watch you. A lot of times open like rocker is just finding the position. You don't even have to actually add the rocking in. So isn't that nice to know? You don't have to rock like a rocker. You can just be a rocking chair.
You probably want to sit pretty close to the front of the Mat. You're probably, yeah, come forward a little bit more. Yeah, you just need some mat to roll back onto. And then if you remember my start position, I had my arms on the outside of the leg and so the whole arm is going to go to the outside. So wrap around there. Good. We've got a whole crew of long legged ladies here. We all know that makes a difference too, right? Y'All all are very familiar with the fact that that makes it hard.
Girls in front, take your heels much lower. Can you put your heels down on my hand? They're very nicely done. Yeah, that looks great. Yeah, you are. You're always just ready to get, make this position and exercise. All right, so think about those muscles. Let send the shoulders against the back ribs, but pull the rib cage and the waistline in so we have the rounded shape of the back. Begin helps you prepare. Decide which leg is your left and as you exhale, extend your left leg upward. Now, once you're there, press your leg against your hand and your pull your hand back against your leg to create this energy through the body. Then the knee down again, a rather the other leg please. Right like goes out. Good. Don't worry about the leg being high. I actually recommend you keep the like straight Michelle all she's tipping and bend it down. Okay, let's give that another shot. Left light goes out.
Think more forward with the leg. That's right. Plus push the foot towards the hand. We'll bend the knee down. Alright, other one again, more focus on the way that shoulder is working and bend the knee down. Let's see if we can find both legs. Let left. Leg goes. Beautiful. Bend them down. Okay, take a second. You're still doing bloodies shoulders, active and strong. Inhale, prepare.
The exhale is going to send the legs out. Press, feet, ankles to hands, enhanced two ankles. Then the knees down. Ladies, take a rest for just a moment before we actually add that rocking. I will demonstrate something really quickly. When we add the rocking. You want to start with this pressure of the hands to the legs. You'll rock back. A little release is sometimes really helpful because if you keep doing that pressing as you're going back, you'll keep pulling yourself over.
When you come up, regroup the press of the foot or the ankle into the hand and let that guide you up. Okay? It might take a second. It might just take a second to get the feeling in your body. The let's give it a shot. Okay, so you gotta. You can't just throw the feet up there. Let's all get into the start position. Set your body up for success did. That was so beautiful.
Now you're back into the faulty studio. Take a deep breath. Stay with another exhale. Just kind of get there. All right, let's do the left leg first. Lift it with an inhale. Do all of those things we just did. Take ownership of your own body. Inhale, prepare. Keep that leg straight. Take the other leg up. Exhale, take another breath in and another breath out. Just to press the legs to the hands and the hands to the legs. Ladies, breathe in, rocket back and then press into the hands to rocket up.
That's alright. There it is. Ready? Think about it. Go. Inhale, take it back and then progress and exhale. Bring it up. Beautiful. One more time. Inhale, take it back. You've got it. Stay with it. Strong through the whole body. And ladies just bend your knees into your chest. I would say anytime you pull off one open leg rocker, you're killing it.
And like I said, just finding that position is the exercise in itself. You know, the rolling is just the icing on the cake, but you can feel the exercise just holding it. Okay, that was beautiful. Thank you. Now we're going to look at our third key connection, which is connecting the front ribs to the pelvis or the pelvic bone specifically. So to Asi s um, ladies, we want to do this because again, we're trying to restore the natural curves of our spine. Now, as we've discussed with pretty much everything is there's two extremes of all of these things. Okay. So like we had two different kind of things that happened with the neck and with the shoulders, with this rib thing, um, there can be two things commonly. There's lots of things that can happen. The front ribs tend to displace. Okay.
So we will see kind of this arch in the back. But then with some of our postures that happen now, we're losing this natural curve. So we're seeing this kind of slumping posture here. And I really noticed this when it comes to like our technology here as well. So because we're not sitting at the desktop where this kind of thing used to happen, we're sitting on our sofas, um, curled up in a ball, looking at our gadgets or even having the laptops in our laps.
So it can, again, it just tends to bring this out and causes us to have some back pain at times. Um, so in the spirit of restoring the natural curves of the spine, let's look at just breathing on the mat. All right, so ladies, if you'll lie down for me please. All right, so as your in this position, just before we begin, think about the way that we stood with the roller against the back. Jean, will you scoot down this way more so we have your head fully supported on your map and think about if the roller was behind your head, behind your shoulders. This is a great example though of when we have some skin that sometimes that adjusts the way it feels, but you're going to try to find that link through the body.
Take a nice long breath in for me and as you let your breasts out, just try to relax for a moment. Don't do too any, don't do anything too exciting yet. And again, ladies filled the body up with air and as you exhale this time, allow your sternum to soften down and your front ribs to slide down underneath your skin as if you're going to take the very tips of your rib cage and put them down on your pelvic bones. Find another breath. Inhale. And as you exhale, just slide the sternum down. Soften the ribs down. Don't try too hard because we don't want to like to do it. We want to Ha to do it or cough. You take another nice long breath in and this exhale is going to last for six, five, four, three, two, and one. Okay, now that we have your rib cage area where we want it, I want you to bring awareness to your pelvis and drop into a more neutral position.
Okay, now go beyond that neutral, so actually stick your butt out, tailbone down, create space between your back and the mat. Now just relax and kind of fall back into wherever you fall back into. Okay? Do it again. Go into the arched position where your bottom is down, but your low back is lifted and then exhale and relax down into it. All right? Find your neutral where the pelvic bones and the pubic bone are on the same plane.
Now we're going to add Curlin into this position and helps you prepare. First thing is going to be drawing the chin down into the neck. You're going to curl. Look forward to your thighs, lifting your head on your shoulders, off the mat. Look down at your pelvis. See if your pubic bone is pushing up between your thigh bones.
Take your tail, drop it down into that exaggerated arch. Just the little bit more. Ladies, stay there with an inhale now, heavy your sternum and send your rib cage to your pelvis, not your pelvis to your ribs, your ribs to your pelvis. Rest down and relax. Okay, so as we mentioned earlier, Meredith, perfect. Did you to notice though, as you looked at your pelvis, did you see show that tailbone was poke poke right up? So one of the tools I use when I teach is looking for creases in my students clothing. Okay, I talked about that a little bit earlier, but when the knees are bent in, the feet are flat.
I want to see little wrinkles right where their body meets their legs. Okay, so let's practice it again. Take a nice long breath in for me. Just lay here with your first exhale. Your back against the roller. You're softening through the ribs. No, not a lot of force. Just let it fall ladies free. Then again, fill the body up with hair. We'll draw the chin downward, lift the head in the shoulders, reach forward and already look at the pelvis.
All right, I've got two Tuckie butts in the room. Drop the tailbone down almost to the point that you feel annoyed with me. Like you're thinking I'm arching my back and I don't like it. Stick your butt out. Stick it out right there. Breathe in. Watch your thighs and your butt. Don't let them move.
Curl higher by sliding your rib cage closer to your pelvis and then release down. So it tends to happen often. Is that when we curl, okay, we get people, get the tucky button and I call it talking about, because clients don't know what posterior tilt means. So I just say Tucky, but um, I'll just show when I curl, the tendency here is for that button bottom to lift. So all the creases in the front of my pants kind of went away. As I encourage my students to drop their tailbone down, they get a little annoyed because they freak and they're like, I'm arching my back and I don't like it. The way we fix that is not by going boom, but by going.
So when I get this connection that fills in that space between my back and the mat, that freaks me out. I'm more connected here, but my pelvis is actually neutral. My lumbar spine is actually neutral so that then I'm feeling less of that flattening of the back into the net and I am restoring the natural curves of the spine just like we're trying to do with all of these connections. Ladies, do you like, would you like to try it again? Okay, one more time. Just think about it already. What if you already arched your back a little more than you want and then just like a little bit more and Michelle A. Little bit more. Thank you. Are you looking a little bit annoyed? Okay, good.
That's where I want you. Okay. Nice. Long breath and as you exhale, curl chin to chest, reach the arms, watch for it. Pause. It's okay. You feel it though. You're gathering information, right? Hold. Let's all lower the tail of wee bit more and then slide the rib cage and get closer to the pelvis. My goodness. That is beautiful and release all the way down.
Okay. That was very, very nicely done. Ladies, why don't you hug your knees into your test for just a moment. We're going to look at the exercise bridge next and place your feet flat on the Mat and let spring. Will both of you walk your feet closer to your seat? Not too much, but yeah, more. Yeah. Perfect. Alright. As you're laying there, you [inaudible] okay, you're on your roller again. Give me a little pressure of your hands into the mat that just helps you to activate the back of the body a little bit. Take a long breath in as we breathe out today.
Come up into a f a bridge with a flat back. So non articulating. Just just push right up. Okay. Can you do the same thing we just did with your bottom down here? Find an inhale and as you exhale, send your rib cage to your pelvis without necessarily changing your pelvis.
Pick your bum up another inch. Undo your tuck. I know it makes you so mad. Hold their, breathe in. And as you exhale, sternum heavies and these ribs slide down and you just keep your bum up without so much talk. Let's articulate down. Because if I don't let Michelle articulate, she's gonna get really mad at me. So it's hard. We all have these different postures. Couple of things tend to happen on this. If you're a super tuckie, but person, you get up here and you get stuck, you can't actually get up to your Highbridge because you're not allowing this natural curve to happen here. So for Michelle, for you, that is really gonna feel. It feels like you're going to do this. Yes. Okay. I promise you're not like, I mean, I really promise you're not.
I dare you to do that. How's that? So once you're up there, look at how this, this changes. So when I've got more of a neutral, I've got pubic bone and pelvic bones, they're on the same plane, but that plains on a diagonal, right? So I've got this little thing happened in here. Ah, without forcing it, without freaking out over it. I'm just sending my rib cage this way, which immediately fires up that heiny in a whole different way. Okay. Are you going to take me up on my dare? Okay, cool. All right. Can we do it one more time? Nice and helped you prepare. Exhale, flat back lift.
We're not going to articulate today. We're just coming right up to it. Very good. So inhale there. Your perfect pelvis and thighs are perfect. Exhale, heavy. The sternum. Breathe out. You've got a brief. There you go. And breathe out. Good. All right, we're going to breathe again. Inhale. I'm not even looking at you. You just let the breath out. Me. There you go, girl. There you go. Now we got more movement like for everyone to stay.
I've got to get back away from her so I can really see. I'm really happy. Exhale. Once again, give me a heavier start on slide the rib cage to the pelvis. Keep breathing, keep breathing out. Keep breathing out. Keep breathing out. Keep breathing out. Roll all the way down. That was beautiful. Good. How'd you do over here? Okay, good, good. All right. That's a really nice place to play with that. I used to always teach articulating shoulder bridges because everybody's posture 20 years ago was so forced like this that looked like a dinosaur. So forced like this, but I'm seeing a lot less of that hyper extended lumbar spine seems so much more flection and just kind of this hanging in the bat.
So I play around a little bit more with doing flat back bridging up and down rather than articulating all of the time. Okay. All right, so again, you've got to look at the body that's in front of you and apply the information to them, but again, this is how you stay excited about your work. I hope as you're watching this you're even thinking, oh my gosh, that's what I need to do for that client and aren't you excited to go to work and do it? Nicely done ladies, you can hug your knees into your test for just a moment. The next exercise we'll do is the mermaid, and this is a great example of an exercise where you need to look at the body from all the angles. So sit up for me and I'm going to demonstrate with my body here and I'm just going to do this version of the mermaid today. Um, so if I'm here and you're looking at me from the front, I look pretty perfect, don't I? Okay. You can't really see you see that I've got good bending from side to side, but you can't really see how the body is looking from the side view.
I'm going to turn my position so that you can see me and I'm going to show you exactly what I was doing. I was here and moving and coming up. Okay. Rib Cage completely displaced from my body here moving forward. So in this position, I'm not going to go into this huge tuck and fix it thing. I'm just going to take my popel this, leave it pretty much where it is and pull my sternum back and set that rib cage over the pelvis a little bit more. All right. As I go over, I try to maintain that.
If I get stuck, I don't get to lose it and just flop over to the side. I figured out where that range can be and maintain it. All right, so ladies, go ahead and send your legs over to follow Meredith's lead. Sorry. Go that way. Okay. And just bring your hand down onto your son. We'll just do this version and this arm can go up. So anytime the arm goes up over the head, that's especially going to put you in the position where you may lose it.
So breathe in right there. And as you exhale, start to side bend over. Very good. Good. And come up again. Inhale. I must've done such a fantastic demonstration that you all already have it. Exhale. Take it over. Yeah, you're slightly displaced for it.
So just in the air you get. Now, what if you look straight out instead of downward, and you kept your head on the foam roller and you come up, let the breath in. Yeah. And go over once again. I'm gonna draw your Chin in just a little. There you go. I'm gonna pull on your hair now. There you go. Lean that out. There you go. Now come up. Nice. Inhale. Good ladies. Spin your legs the other way.
Let's see if it feels a little different on the other side. It may or may not. All right, arm floats up nicely. Inhale. Good. Now just think about it. The information you just gathered from the first side and the feedback I gave you from the first side. Take ownership of your position here. Good. Give me a nice long inhale and begin to bend with your exhale. Very good. Inhale, come up.
Let's make sure beautiful that the head is on the roller and go again. Exhale. So if I were just looking at Michelle from the front, she is someone I love to talk to. I would be very likely to ask her what she did last night, but instead I'm going to give her her money's worth, right? People pay a lot of money to come see us. You'll do one more. So you get your money's worth. So bend over. Um, you know, so you just, you have to give them, even when our clients become really close, friends come up and relax.
You just have to make sure to take ownership of the work or to take ownership of your teaching and to make sure that they're getting what they're coming to see you. Okay? Now we're going to go to the reformer and look at a couple of exercises where this connection applies as well.
Chapter 9
We're going to look at footwork for this connection here of getting the pelvis where it needs to be and possibly compensating for the arch of the back that make, that makes people grumpy. Um, so Michelle, come up for me. Um, this is a footwork, especially if we take someone and load up those springs and get it really heavy is very difficult to get some of our students to drop out of that huge Tucky butt position. So this is a little trick that I've learned. Okay.
How does your head, neck and shoulders look? They're good. That's it. Let that main fall. All right, so I'm not going to look at her. You Deploy These v with your feet. Okay. And you're just gonna go do like three of them here. Good. And again, um, let's, let's pause for a second. Let me pull this gear in.
Hug your knees into your chest. All right. Try that for me. Alright. Yeah, so we've got our knees a little closer to being over her hips here. Then we had them. All right. Now do like three and just normal kind of movement out and in and out and do one more and hold at the top for me. Right? So in this position, as I stepped away, I was seeing that there was a little bit of Tuck here.
Now she's learned a lot today, so she wasn't in an extreme pluck. But when we have that big lift at the bottom, this is a great tool. You don't have to hit them with it. You just spring it right underneath. She's going to place it directly under her fingertips, so not under your hand. So I want that bar to be originally where her thighs aren't touching.
Now, long inhale, keep your knees straight and place your thigh bones on the bar. Oh yeah. Don't lose your feet. There you go. Your heels will probably lower a little though. Okay. Does it tell you that it's touching? Okay, it's touching. Do you feel grumpy because your back is arching? Yes.
How are we going to fix that? I don't know. I'm the teacher, aren't I? So what's going to happen is we're going to breathe it and you are going to keep pushing these thighs onto this stick. Push on. Push on. Good. All right. How about another breath? N. All right. Let your sternum softened down and don't work too hard. Just relax. I know. I hate it when people tell me not to work too hard. Inhale again.
Good. And exhale and keep pressing. Aha. Do you feel like you filled in some of the space between the back ribs? Just a little bit. All right. Do again. Nice long inhale. And as you let that breath out, keep the stick under the legs. All right, now bend your knees, Michelle. And as you bend your knees, your thighs are going to come off the stick, but I want you to pretend that you're keeping them down so you bend. Good. Okay. Does this, that funny? Straighten again?
Where's that stick there? Oh, just feel how much you came out of it. Yeah. So when she came in, she went full right up into that big tucky button. When you bend your knees this time, try again and think, I know the thighs have to come off the bar, but Ben did the knee creases here and just think about nothing other than bending your knees. Just bend your knees. Good. Stay right there. I'm going to give you a push.
You're going to let the thigh bones drop into your hip. Yes. We stay like this for the rest of the day. Don't giggle and talk. All right. Ready? Do you feel it there? Yes. Okay. Big Inhale, prepare. Exhale. Go ahead and take it to the top thigh bones to stick. Thigh bones to stick. Hmm. Oh Dang it. Where is it there?
Bend your knees. She hadn't thinking about anything other than Palladia is right now. We are not as best friends going to talk about what she did last night. We are talking about Polonius. Right, and we can't do, I cannot help her restore the natural curves of her spine without having this. Okay. That is one tool that can work.
We're going to try one more take. I'll take the stick for you. This is, feels so much like breaking the rules. I can't even tell you. So don't tell anyone I told you to do this. Okay. This is going behind her lower back. Oh, I'm gonna let you put it there and I want it to make you a little grumpy and it, and what I like about it is even though it's in that big shape, once her body weight goes onto it, it flattens out a little bit. So it's not as exaggerated as the pill. It makes it look. So think Beyonce. Okay, I want you to, that's what, okay, now stay there. Keep your Beyonce, but, but exhale your ribs down. Yes.
So those visualizations are sometimes good. That made sense. That clicked and she went and that's what I want initially. But now we're going to straighten the legs and you're going to keep it. Keep your butt on this side of the cushion. Keep it on this side. Keep it on this side.
Hold then to come in and keep your butt on this side. Oh my gosh. That was so fantastic. Do it again. It's Beyonce footwork. Straighten your legs. So stay on this side of the cushion. Yep. See we got giggly and we lost it so we got to come back to it. Ready then the knees. Yes. Girl, you got it.
I'm going to ask you just to do two more cause I'm too excited to stop. Good. Straighten. Okay. The pillow support is actually probably working a lot better for her too than the stick. I highly encourage you to try that though. The pillow support for her is also filling in that space a little bit better.
That can make someone feel grumpy when you're trying to get them there. I'm so excited about that. Go back and watch the reformer class that relates to this exercise. You will see your eye is going to see the difference that I was going for. We worked really hard in the reformer. You're shaking, relaxing.
I go to your mat or actually stay right here. I'm gonna use you for something else cause she can sit up or, I mean just don't do [inaudible]. Okay. Yeah. Don't just play. But anyways, I was really excited to help her and we had these little moments where we got it, but she was having a hard time retaining it. That's what I needed to do. So it just, you got to play, you've got to figure out things. And again, that's what's so exciting is just trying, figuring out what you're gonna do that's gonna help them be successful. Okay, let's look at hug a tree now. So come up, I'll take that back. But you're going to pretend it's there forever for the rest of your life. You're all, you're against the foam roller with this behind your back.
I'm going to have you do this kneeling today. Kneeling shows a more exaggerated form of this. And really that's what I'm going for. I just want for you to feel it and for the viewer to be able to see it as well. So we are going to go, let's do this blue.
Okay, I got it. All right, I'll hold you stable while you do that. And will you turn and face this direction and put your feet against the shoulder rest for hug a tree. Come on up onto your knees and just bring your arms forward. Just like we were on the foam roller case. So we're doing the same. Yeah, let's do that fingers together. So we're on the foam roller again. You're getting that same serratus anterior feeling.
This is working out really cool. You're like doing all these things that work well together. All right. Did you say the spring felt light? Yes. Isn't that fun? It's not going to feel light for long, but what I love is it's a little lighter than she thinks it should be.
She wants it heavier because she likes to work hard. I'm reeling her in and we're going to figure out how she can work her whole body and not just make it an arm exercise. Okay. Can you be on say your back for me? Yes. Okay. I know that was uncomfortable, but will you just hold there and breathe in? Keep this and just send your ribs down and your heart forward. All right. Lean a little more into it now. Take your elbows, straighten them a little more and send them that way. Hands this way. I'm sorry.
Not Elbows. Hands. All right, ready? Now we're going to open the arms. Stable shoulders. Pause. Will exhale to close the arms today. So breathe out. Keep your pelvis. Yes. All right. I know it's very uncomfortable. Open your arms. She's going to start to feel some exercise here in her back.
Close your arms with an exhale, Michelle. And that's okay. She needs to develop some strength back here. Open the arms. Inhale. Good. Now I'm right up on top of her. So after she closes her arms, I'm going to walk around. Just look at her a little bit away. Alright. Stick your heinie out a little bit more. Yes. Now breathe from the sternum in the ribs. Send that down. Keep this butt out.
Yes. And Open. It's so much to fix. Why don't you relax and I'll take these. There you go. All right. And you can actually get off of there. Yeah. Um, yeah. So just stand there. Stand up straight. Good. Turn and face me. Yep. Alright. Just stand right there. Alright, let's do the arms down. Shoulders up, back and down. Take that pelvis, tailbone back. Now, big breath in and heavy here and here instead of this stay still.
That goes down. Beautiful. I'm happy. Are you happy? Hello. That was beautiful. Okay, we're going to look at one more arm exercise. I want to demonstrate with my body here. This is an exercise that, again, we often look out from the front. I'm going to show you my arm up and over here. Actually let me walk my knees a little bit. Okay, so I've got to do my serratus pushup thing. So shoulder doesn't start up here.
I'm gonna pull it down and because this arm is bent, I can do it here. So I should be able to do it here, right? I don't need to do that. So I get over. Let's start here. Then I go up and bend. So from the front I don't look like I'm losing anything but from the side this way I was here. Okay. So again, it's just making sure that you change that perspective of where you are.
We just showed it beautifully from the side with Michelle taking the rib cage and bringing it back without letting the pelvis shift around or maintaining neutral rather. So keep that in mind for any of these side arm exercises, mermaid, all of those things really makes a difference to look at it from the side and make sure people are where you want them. It's now time to move on to our fourth key connection, which is going to be figuring out how to engage the external rotators, the inner thighs, and the hamstrings without overly grabbing through your glutes.
Chapter 10
The fourth key connection that we're going to look at is inner thighs, external rotators, and the hamstrings. Try not to overly grip and grab it through the glutes, which is what can tend to happen when we cue that this area. So one of the reasons that this is important is so that the whole leg gets exercise and we're not just firing from the quads, particularly in exercises like footwork.
And we're actually gonna start by getting the feeling by standing up and just doing a very simple, um, I know this is a polities. Um, fundamental. You're gonna stand in your polities viz stance with your feet and you can just rest your arms down beside you. Michelle, I'm gonna ask you to narrow your polities be a little bit, all right? Yeah, that's okay. I Know Ballerina Habits die hard on thing. So in this position, bring awareness to your whole body actually. So just kind of look out. Think about the way that your toes, ankles, and feet are positioned, and be aware of whether you're gripping and grabbing in your glutes or if your inner thighs are overly working or not working at all. Now think of lifting up through your arches just a little bit and drawing your heels together. But as you press your heels together, place a little more weight on the outside edges of your heels rather than the inside edges. Feel the arches lift up in there.
It goes right up into the inner thighs. Now without moving your feet at all, think of turning your legs out. So think of the muscles that would turn you into Ballerina turnout, but you're moving your feet. Okay? And now we're going to just bend the knees like one inch. Okay? So as a reminder, we're still pulling up through the arches.
We're still thinking Ballerina turnout without moving our feet. Ask Your calves to draw up towards your bum. So think of the muscles of the calves going and pulling all the way up. We're using that to get our hamstrings to wake up now. Just straight in your legs. Put all of it together. Okay, so this is the feeling that I'm going to ask you to return to for a few exercises that we're going to do on the reformer. All right, so you guys sit down, Janie, you come over here to me.
Just lie down on your back for me. Feet up on the foot bar. So this is um, similar to what I had Michelle do for footwork, but we're going to look at the heel, lower lift portion of footwork. As you are standing on your feet in this position, try to create all of the feelings that we had standing. So I know your heels aren't on a surface, but what if you kind of pushed into the outside edge of the heel, a little lifted up through the arch.
And then think of attracting the inner thighs slightly more. Almost like you have a magic circle between your knees. Okay? To find the external rotators, kind of the sides of the hips. Keep your magic circle between your knees. Now pretend you have one coming across here and you're pushing out against the circle if your legs were through it.
So you gotta do all the things and that's a lot to do, but aren't you? You feel like you're doing floods right now, don't you? Yeah. And you're just standing there. All right. So now go ahead and straighten your legs and use all of that to get you to the top. Alright, beautifully done. Stay in this position. Now that your legs are straight, I'm just going to cue your little toe instead of the outside edge of your foot, outside edge of your heel, just because you're on the balls of the feet.
So think send your little toe down. Lift up through the arch. You could straighten your knees just a little more beautiful right there. Alright. Thank ballerinas are out from your thighs. Good. Alright, now we're going to breathe in and as you breathe out, send your heels downward. Only as far as you can go with out letting those heels jam together and raise up. I use the wrong word and that without her ankle bones jammy together where you do it again and you go down. So as you get down, I have my finger tips right between her ankle bones.
So instead of them collapsing in, she's pulling up and it's limiting the range a little bit. Heels go down. Yes. And you're lifting and that's probably it. And rise up. You stay there. You're going to pretend that the stick is underneath your thighs. Can you push into that stick? There's her hamstrings.
Now go down. Keep the ankle bones apart. Push your stick. You're not on it anymore. Now rise up. Good. Okay. Yeah. All right. This is kind of fun because once I got all of this, we got all of this, but it's a great example. So this is where like I'm thinking as I come to work, I've got to work with her again today. She never listens well. She's not listening cause I'm not telling her to do anything. All right, so here's what's gonna happen. Keep this, send it up through here.
All you'll do is take a nice long inhale. Don't change anything, just soften. Ah, give me another breath. And once again, just let all the breath out. That's it. Make a noise. Let it out, let the start the hair. It goes, there it goes. Now breathe. And again, this exhale is going to send the heels under the bar. Try to do all those things and Po incen the rib cage to the pelvis. Yes. Rise up. Breathe in. And we're just going to do it one more time. Good.
So she's still doing all of this, but this was a great moment just to catch this little thing. Separate your heels, bend your knees, come all the way in and relax. Felt the whole body there. Didn't, yeah. Yeah. That was really good in how I eat. I mean, we'll look at running next with this too. It's very, very similar. Um, so it's two exercises that tend to be kind of throwaways in my opinion, the heel, lower lift and running. Running's a great example of an exercise where we talk about our weekend. Okay, so your Carol l now can you do all of the things you did in plays veto?
So the, the idea is there's a magic circle here. You gotta to push against that. Good. I'm going to put my fist between her knees. She's got a magic circle between her knees. Hug me. Yeah. All right. Ready? Active artist ankles and feet. Straighten your legs. Press to the top. All right, you're going to bend one knee.
The other heel is going down just to beneath the black bar right there. That's it. Ready? Pick the heels up. This heel goes down just a little and come up and want it even smaller press as if it's an exercise lift as if it's an exercise. That's it. Good. Both heels up for me. Pause five bones to the stick. Okay.
Now the big question is can you run and keep your [inaudible] one of the thigh bones on the stick. So go. Yeah, let's give it a go. And you go. Good. Try to work a little on that high. You've got it now. Good. Let that breath out. Exhale for like four of them. Breathe in and exhale for eight of them. Breathe. Breathe. So breaking the rules is a good idea. Sometimes both heals up. Bend your knees, come in and relax. Good girl. It was beautiful. Very well done. Thank you.
We'll look at leg circles here now. So we need to get your feet in the straps. Awful noise. Okay. Oh, sorry sweetie. Here it is. All right. There you go. Hold strong in that leg. Other foot comes on. All right, so it gets a little more complicated here. Extend the legs out to me. Try to regroup the [inaudible] position. All right, so yet again, it's my experience that this is another exercise that once your client really knows that it's like circles and you're probably going to do five to eight, something like that, we lose some of the focus to prepare for the exercise.
She's already doing the things cause things are shaking. So go ahead and bring your feet up over your hips. Pause there, lower your legs down. Okay, so that's going to be our range. Repeat it. The legs come up and you're going to keep all of that external rotators, inner thighs and hamstrings. Push down into your stops. Now is your feet come up this time. Think, push your feet into the streps feet, into the straps, feet into the straps to keep the energy and then obviously push your feet into the straps to go down. So you're resisting this job.
You're resisting the straps, but just telling some someone to resist the straps doesn't always make sense. We need to tell them how to resist the straps. How often do we say use resistance, but we've never taught them what that means, right? And they're too embarrassed to say, I don't know how to do that. You are working so hard, it's amazing. But can you like chill through all of that? Yes.
Let's take this into a circle now. So, oh, vanilla eggs. All right, let's keep it within the width of the or for the equipment or the, yeah, just for today. So press your feet down, your legs come together and for me today, we're going to hold for a minute. Get all the stuff in case you lost it. Start to lift your feet, feed into straps, feed into straps, feed into straps open, and then press the feet into the straps and bring it together. Okay, for the reverse, we'll bring the feet up over the hips. First pause there. Just in case you lost anything, take a moment, regroup. Anything you may have lost you doing okay? Okay. To reverse. We'll go down through the middle. Hold. Thoughtfully.
Open your feet as your feet come back. You've got to think. Feed into straps. Feed into straps. Feed into straps. Feed into straps together. Hold. Make all the connections. One more time. Press down. You're doing great. Open. Let this go. If you can and think feed into straps. Feed into straps, feet come together, bend your knees and you can relax. Good girl. Very nice.
You may take your feet out of there. Very good work. Yes, feet up nice and high. Your bar is always a little higher than you think it's going to be. Good girl, I'll take these for you. So it's another one of those examples where once you teach the connection, I got her there in the beginning doing something pretty simple. And then as we moved into an exercise doing the leg circles that still had to cue it. But as silly as it sounds, and you may have different words, you can just say do all those things and then you just don't have to keep using all of the words. Not everyone likes people to talk as much as I do, so you can kind of reel it in a little bit. I'm definitely a teacher that gives a lot of cues, but it could always be simplified with just a simple do those things or get your connection. Okay, Jane, you can go ahead and stand up and get back to your mat.
Meredith, I'm going to bring you up for the next exercise. Another great exercise to really drive this point home and to help people find this connection are just hamstring curls on the box here. So lie down for me and just bend your knees a little bit. Please. Second place these on your feet. All right, so you can cross your hands in front of you and your preference right now for how you hold your upper body. If you feel like you need to release and hang your shoulders and head, you're welcome to do that. Bend your knees for me to where you catch the tension.
Can you scoot forward a couple more inches? Yeah, it does that to feel like you're flying off the box here. Okay. All right. I'm just going to shorten them a little bit more. Great. How are we doing? Is it about even, okay. Do you [inaudible] be stance with your feet for the first one?
So this is mimicking a little bit more of that standing like alignment where we were in Palladia Zvi same concept here that I gave Jane. It's like you've got the magic circle on the outside. You've got some form of magic circle on the inside. The heels are thinking of pulling up the calves up all the way to the Heinie. So she's, are you already doing an exercise? Okay, cool.
So now she's going to pull her heels. Then Dean at the knee, drawing the heels towards the bottom pause and then just slowly move the feet away. Good. And then she'll do it again. Keep working the heels together and then move the feet away. So again, we're just trying to create a really strong connection so that even when we did an egg, if we did an exercise like footwork, she would be able to locate the muscles of the back of the leg, even though something like foot work feels like it's the front of the leg and move it away. I'm going to give her one more variation on this. She's going to do it parallel heels apart, but you don't have to squeeze your knees together. Okay, so yeah, Lake a pretty much like that as she pushes her feet. Yeah, she's, she's got it. And pull the good. She's doing a great job of not grabbing and her toes. Usually we see the toes want to work [inaudible] and she pulls.
So this one's kind of fun. This gets a little more, we lose some of the external rotation or rotators, but you're going to try to keep them, keep the inner thighs, which is a little bit easier here. Good. And take it one more time, Meredith, pull and move it away and you can relax. Let your feet slide out. Nicely done. So that's a really nice exaggerated way to get those hamstrings to fire up. That was beautifully done. You can come off of there. The final key connection is ankles, knees and feet.
Chapter 11
And the reason that this is important is again, it can help people get a little bit more, more work through the whole leg.
So in some ways we addressed it by talking about the heels a moment ago in the hamstring, external rotators and inner thigh connection. The other thing that this does though is it helps people to actually exercise their ankles and feet. I'm really passionate about this connection because our ankles and feet tend to lose a lot of their strength, especially as we're growing up. So to illustrate kind of these exercises, we're going to use the box and set it up. Kind of like you're doing stomach massage in a way. Um, Michelle, will you come up here for me? I'm only using two sprays.
I don't want this to be super, super heavy. I'm, all she's going to do is sit with her back against the box. Yeah. And then your feet are, Ooh, I need to bring that bar down a little bit. Yeah, he just went from really tall to really short. Okay. Let's try that setting. What I like about this though is it gives you the opportunity to see what your feet would be doing in footwork. So sometimes it's just nice to be able to look. Um, yeah. All we're going to do is straighten the legs and then once you're back, they're so just straighten them. Didn't get comfortable. Yeah, there you go.
Yeah. I'm going to give this little push cause it lifted just a bit. Okay. So, oh, I love that we're doing this with you because as no, you have no problems. You have no problems. But I do remember from our reformer workout that your feet like to do things. So we're going to zip your heels together, lift up through the artist. Just like I was encouraging Jane to do when she lowered her heels.
I want you to try not to let these little ankle bones pop together, which may mean your range of small. Go ahead and lower your heels down. Think lift up through here. Yes. Think of the back of the heel coming together. The backs of yes. So now you've got your little butt. Yeah, you got that. Okay. Go ahead and continue going down maybe towards me. All right.
I believe in you. I think you can separate that part of your feet. Yes. Now lift them up. All right, so as you go down it's like there's a little string pulling up through your arches as you lower back of my legs are. Oh, awesome. Raise the heels. All right, so we're, look, we looked at how the footwork, I mean the plot is v position of footwork with look, let's look at the bird feet position. So go to parallel and we won't do like wrap the toes over the bar today. I'll, we'll ask you to bring your feet a little closer together though. Welcome in. All right, so now you watch your ankles press down and just notice.
Yeah, so she's already learned a lot and raise the heels up. So it was the heels go down on this one. The tendency is for those ankle bones to drop in really closely together. This is also another one that's nice to look out for running. It's that same lift and pull up from the inside of the leg.
Go ahead and press it down again. Good. And then raise the heels up. All right, we'll move on to putting your heels on the bar. So this is one that I really get excited about because yeah, do what you're doing. So look at this gorgeous movement of her toes, ankles, but it is not her ankles. So there are no creases where her foot meets her leg. So I can tell you that you're going to want to walk your heels up a little higher. Okay. Just a little. Okay.
So now pull back. This is where we are losing a lot of our strength as we grow up. And so if you think you can relax for a second while I do my, Oh, does it? Great. Um, so if you think about like maybe your aunt or your grandmother or maybe even your mother, as they go to step up on the curb, as they get older, they tend to trip over their toes. Okay. So we all have someone in our life that's done that often.
It's because they're losing that ability to pull their toes up, the strength through the ankles and the front of the Shin. So I'm really, really passionate about making sure that people are really moving these toes backs. And now the really fun part is bend your knees, come to me and keep pulling back and keep the creases. Then when you go back, Michelle, take them with you right away. So it makes people pretty grumpy because there's shins really start to burn. But one of the things that's nice about that is that means that they're getting stronger, their press back, they're creating some strength and you're going to be less likely to trip when you step up on the curb in 60 years. Not that far. You can relax. That was really good. Okay, so in the spirit of looking at the ankles, knees and feet, I want to look at an exercise that's a little more athletic where the feet and ankles start to get a little fancy. So stand up on the floor.
You can come off of there. And Meredith, why don't you come up for this for me, we're doing the long stretch, step up onto the reformer step the same way that Michelle did. One Hand, one foot, and then you're already there doing the connections through the shoulders, through the pelvis that we already talked about. The ankles and the feet are going to work just like they are pressed back and you're going to try to stabilize these ankles just where they are, letting the breaths in and then let the breath out and come forward. Very good. So Meredith is doing this quite perfectly. As she's pressing back her ankles and heels are not moving at all. Sometimes what happens if you'll show it, Meredith, push with the balls of the feet as you go back.
Because what happens is when we do that, it sends the body forward just a little bit and it helps people feel like they're creating a greater range of motion. And then usually they fix it at the front. So push with the feet again, Meredith. Yep. And then come forward and she fixes it. This is a much more challenging way to work through the ankles and the feet, but to also challenged the whole body and come on forward. Go ahead and bring your knees down and you can rest. We're going to look at the ankles, knees and feet.
And one other way doing side splits. So you can go ahead and go to your mat and Jane, come on up for me and I'm going to grab a little sticky pad for her feet. I'm just going to put her about in the, maybe a little greater than the middle. Um, and alright, I'll stabilize your carriage for you as you step up to the inside of the pad there. Perfect. Right foot over to the side and then left foot right there.
Alright, so for the exercise, why don't you just do hands to hips so we don't have to think about them too much. Um, and I'm going to let go. You're in control of the springs. Go ahead and press the carriage out. And when it gets out there, we're going to do a three second hold. One hold two, hold three. Go ahead and bring it in. Good. Do it again. That's okay. That's okay. Slide it out. Good. Good. And you hold one. Hold to hold three and bring it in. Alright, so now let's look at the ankles, knees, and feet.
First thing we'll do is lift up a little bit through the arches. Keep the arches slightly lifted and push down into your big toe there. So we don't necessarily want to sag into the arches, but we need to have a little bit of energy into the outside edge of the foot. But the big toes going to heavy down as well and you're doing that on both legs. Next, next, bend your knees about two inches. Very good. Look out straight.
Good. Do all of the connections from head down. Beautiful. I'm going to get out of the way here and press the carriage out. Keep that little bit of weight into the big toe here because of the heavy springs, we tend to want to roll out to the outside edge of the feet. Common for me. Hold there and now roll it out. Another three second. Hold one.
Hold to hold three and bring it in. All right. We've got all of this. Yeah, I know. Yeah, a little side. Heiny so we've got all of this, but it's really fun. Especially here because we're at the end of the whole key connections workout to look at the body from the top down. Yes. Okay. That is not where your head was when I looked at that way.
So we're back on your foam roller. All right. Why don't you take your arms out to the side? I changed my mind because it was really Jack and her shoulders up, so she's just going to, yeah, let's turn the palms up for today first. Okay. Now the other thing that's happened here is we're getting that little bit of displacement of the rib cage. Yeah, so why don't you breathe in and just breathe out and think about being on the roller and send the sternum down and heavy the ribs. God, I want you to keep your eyes open as you look straight out. That's going to help your balance a little. One more exhale. That's it.
Let the sternum heavy and the ribs heavy. Okay. That is gorgeous. I'm moving out of your way. Roll the carriage out. Three inches. Hold what? Drop your tail under. Pull your rib cage to your pelvis and now bring it in.
Good. Alright. This time you're going to smile. You're like really lady. I'm like, do you know how hard this is? All right, ready? So we put it all together again. I want to just make the setup and exercise the heads on the roller. We're sending the rib cage down towards the pelvis. Let's breathe out to get that. All right.
Take it out and keep that connection of the ribcage to the pelvis. Think lean to the camera. Just a little hold one, drop your tail under slightly to hold three and bring it in. Okay. I'm gonna ask you to do one more thing he had. Do you need a break? Are you okay? Okay, so we're gonna lighten the spring up again. I had two red springs before on the balanced body reformers.
I'm going to take it down to one red now I like for the spring to be lighter, but I don't want to kill her on this, so okay. There. All right, so I'll hold it stable for her and she is going to get on her foam roller. All right, so that start position is lovely. Make sure you're thinking about your ankles, knees, and feet. So not locking back just the teensiest. TNCs yes. Perfect. Now I'll take my foot away. Hold it still because it's light.
It's going to want to slip out from underneath you. Yes. Now go ahead and slide it. Carriage rolls to me. Let the breath in. Perfect. Right there. Exhale, bring it in and think, lift up with your arches. Come in like you're going to your little toes towards each other with your arches lifted. Isn't that weird? Go out again. Inhale. Good. Exhale. So the arches lift, that's it.
It's like the little toes are gonna pull up an under and you find the stopper. Now hold there. Keep your eyes open for me as you look out. That's okay. That's okay. And now do it once again and do all of the things on the foam. Roller ribs. Slide down. Yes. Now come in.
Yes, find the stopper. Pull closer. One, two, three. And you can relax. I'll take your hand. Step over to me and down to the floor. Good girl. All right, so it's really fun to pull all of the concepts back together, especially at the end of the workout so that it just helps the whole workout come around full circle. Now that you've gone through all of these key connections with me, I really encourage you to go back and watch my private session with Michelle where you can see me teach a session that applies these connections. But makes it happen a little more, not so chopped up. The other thing I really want to encourage you to do is to at even as you're sitting at home and maybe thinking about your teaching tomorrow, think about the bodies in front of you. Even if it's a group class.
How nice would it be to try to get everyone to quit talking to each other about what they're doing, you know, over the weekend or what they did last night. Ask them to get really focused. A lot of times, a way that I tried to get away with that is I just say very honestly, I'm going to be really bossy right now, so let me get everyone's attention and then we can say something in a little bit or you can have a little conversation in a moment. Sometimes if you start that way, it can carry out longer in the workout, so I just try to be really honest about I'm going to be bossy and tell you what to do so that it kind of clears up that I'm taking control over the session. If you have any questions or want to ask any questions about the session in the workshop or my session with Michelle, please you can email me or make comments in the comment section. Thank you so much for joining us today. We'll see you next time.
