Day 7: Efficiency

Wow. Day seven, here we are. So today we're going to speak about efficiency. And we're going to speak about all the other things. Breath, balance, concentration, control. All the things.

They matter all the time. And I'm going to try to keep my creative juices flowing so that we all stick together until the very last class. We just have a few more to go. Stay with me. Today, I couldn't think of a better way to be efficient in a 30 minute movement workout than by adding weights to make it harder.

Might as well make it harder. Nah, just something different. Something else. So what I want us to do is just come into a Pilates V, no let's go parallel and I'll turn. And we'll just do two roll downs. So here with the weights in our hands as we roll down we can allow the weights to pull us.

So if we use our imagination, which is nice to do sometimes for me. I like to use my imagination. You could think that the weights are heavy. They're pulling and they're going to give us a bigger stretch than we could get on our own. And then we're going to inhale down there.

We're going to exhale and we're going to let the weights be heavy in the hands so we just do our roll up and we pull up against the resistance. They're not truly heavy. I've got two pound weights in my hands, I should've said that earlier. If you don't have two pound weights, you can use cans of beans or water bottles. Imagination.

So you go down again, drawing the chin into the chest. Reaching down. And breathing in. And breathing out as you lift up. Up. Up.

Articulating the spine. Until we come all the way up to standing. And then we're gonna bring the feet into a Pilates V position and then we're going to touch the weights together right in the front of the body. We're gonna zip the weights up. So inhale. Lift the weights.

Feel the abdominals rising or pulling back and rising, create some energy, rising energy. And then push down. And then inhale, zip up the front of the body. And exhale, push down. Let's do that two more times.

So zip up. Push down. One more. Zip up, abdominals in. You're zip- imagine that you're zipping from your heel through your inner thighs, through your waist line.

Right up to your chest. And then you keep all that zipped up. Now we're going to add some movement. We're gonna lift the heels, you might wobble a little on your feet. I might wobble a little on my feet.

We're gonna bend the knees. Zip the weights up the body. Press down. Oh, little wobbly for me. Inhale, bend, lift.

Exhale, press down. Inhale, bend, lift. Exhale, press down. Just one more like that. Inhale, bend, lift.

Heels together. Exhale, press down. Lower the feet, separate the arms. Take the right arm up. Let the left arm slide down the body.

I'm pressing my left arm into my body and I'm letting the weights pull me into my stretch. Gonna lift that arm up, bring it to the side. Lift the left arm up like a windmill, kind of. Reach over, lifting the ribs. Letting the weight slide down the leg.

Lift up. Reach up and over. Picking up all the pieces. Can we feel the stabilization from our center? Can we feel the focus on our breath?

Can we allow the weight to pull us in that- direction? And then up. And then down. And we'll come to the mat. Sitting on the mat.

Not sitting on the weight, that's what just happened to me. So we're gonna just take the weights and they're gonna rest down on the shins. We're gonna inhale here, I've got my lower arm outside of my knee. Push down into your shin bone and lift your spine and inhale. And exhale.

Roll down. Let the weights slide. So they're gonna slide over the tops of the knees, they're gonna slide down the thighs. Inhale. Now push the weights up hill.

Roll up, reach over the fronts of the knees, push into the thighs and lift. Inhale- those aren't thighs, those are shins. I get a little confused with my body parts sometimes. I'm not ashamed. Just happens. So we go back and you can push down into your hands.

But then as you come back up you kinda have to not push down so much so you can get some- you don't wanna hold yourself back is what I'm suggesting. And then lift up. And again, inhale. And again exhale, round- so you can feel here as you're initially rounding, you're trying to push your weight down. Like down towards your ankles, down.

And then roll back and then what I mean by pushing down here is like into the thighs push. And inhale. And exhale. Lift up, we're gonna do one more. Hope you're excited cause I am.

Lift up. And roll down. And back. And now I just want you to hold that position. Just at the shoulder blades, just at the shoulder blades.

We're gonna lift the left arm, bring it back as far as you can and bring it down. Keep your curl. Lift the right arm. And bring it down. Now take the left arm out to the side.

Oh what does that do to the center of your body? Makes it harder to hold stable. Now take the right arm out to the side. And back. Left arm up.

Reach the right arm forward. And down. Right arm up. Reach the left arm forward. And down.

Left arm wide. And back. Right arm wide and back. Both arms up. Stay here.

Reach up through the chest. Open the arms out to the side. Hold them here. And now curl, five, four, yeah it's hard. I'm with you.

Three, and two, hang in there, this is it. One. Lay the body down, bring the arms next to your sides. Scoot in toward your feet and scoot your feet in toward your body. Rest the, take the weights, just as long as your arms are- and you're gonna just rest the heels of your hands or the palms of your hands maybe, wherever it's comfortable for you but I want you to hold them with your fingers.

I want you to just have a flat hand on the weight and we're gonna inhale. Now as we exhale I want you to imagine that you can roll the weights away from you, actually can. They won't move much but you can create that energy. Inhale. As your spine is being laid down, we're rolling the weights away, rolling the weights away. Yeah. And then drop the tail.

Inhale, oh yeah that rhymed. And exhale roll up. Stabilizing, standing equally on your feet. So what do we need for efficiency? We need to pick- we need to check in with all our pieces.

Is there energy in the legs? Yeah. For sure. Hi train. Energy, in the arms. Yeah, for sure, that forward energy.

And now, what? Energy in the center of the body. Breath, awareness. We need awareness to find all of those things. And we come down.

And now we're gonna go up again, but when we get there we're actually gonna take the weights in our hands so get ready for that, or do it now. So from here, we're gonna go right arm, left leg. Right arm goes all the way back. Leg goes down, arm goes down. So the hard part is as you're switching, so as you switch from one side to the other, can you maintain control?

That's what's tricky for me. Reach back. And home. And reach back. And home.

And lifting the hips. And down. We'll just do one more. Lifting the hips. And down.

Last time. And down. And then want you to unhandle, unhold, rest on the weights and just begin rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling down. At the bottom we're gonna lift one leg. Then the other.

Take the weights off the floor. Bring them over your shoulders, bring them up overhead and inhale. Now as we exhale, we're gonna lift the weights, we're gonna lift the head and chest, we're gonna reach forward, pushing the weights forward. And then reach up. Start the lay the body down.

Control through the shoulders, I'm just letting the weights kind of rest in my hands, exhale. Head and chest come up, up, up. And inhale. And exhale. Roll down, down, down. One more times.

Inhale. I don't know how we got to number seven in this series of ten classes without doing the hundred, but we did and we're about to change that. So let's take the legs out straight and inhale. And then push, two, three, four, five and inhale. And exhale. Two, three, four, five.

Feel that the weights are pulling you forward. And three, two, three, four, and inhale. And four, two, three, four, five, and inhale. Let's bend the knees, reach forward, five. And reach the legs and stay up.

And bend the knees and reach forward, six. And stretch the legs, you could also just put the weights on the ground. That's actually quite nice, try it. Push the weights forward as you bend your knees in, still using that five count breath. I like that better actually.

Two more. And back. One more. And bring the knees into the chest. Keeping the arms as they are, I'm gonna stretch the legs out, lift the legs up.

Press down into the weights with your hands. And roll over. Flex the feet. Separate the legs. Roll down.

Push the weights away, point the feet, circle down and together, inhale and exhale. Roll up. And flex and separate and roll down. Weights reaching away. Reach down and together.

Let's do one more. Lift up. Flex. Separate. Roll down.

This time- as the legs come together, lift the weights up off the floor lift the head up. Roll up. Roll up. Roll up. And bend the knees.

Reorganize so that you're sitting tall. So if the weights are too heavy for you, at any point, just put them down. No big deal. So we're gonna inhale. And exhale.

Round down. Allow the weights to come down toward the shins. Keep them in your hands. So you don't wanna roll them, but you're gonna lift your back out, let the weights slide back. So there's a gentle pressure, we're looking for a long back.

Reach the weights out in front of you, pull the weights back, lift the spine up, send the arms out, twist, center. Oh that's a lot of choreography. Do you think I can remember? I'm gonna try. Bend, push, exhale to round.

Round, round, weights come down, they slide. Spine elongates, get that nice flat back, bring the arms up, we bend, lift, stretch, and twist. Center. Twist. Center.

And bend, and reach, and exhale, round. Hands to the shins, lengthen out, find your flat back, arms up, let the weights pull you forward, bend, open, lift, twist, center, twist, center, bend. Are your arms tired? Mine are, let's do one more. Round.

And reach. And lengthen. And arms up. Bend, open, lift, twist, center, twist, center. Let's just take the arms straight down there.

Bend your knees. Scoot a little forward, so we're getting into the rolling like a ball position. The way we're going to do it is we're just going to touch the ends of the weights together. That'll give you actually a little freedom, and let's keep the knees a little wider so knees reaching out to the elbows, drawing in, lifting the feet up, we're gonna rock, baby. So we inhale.

And whoa! So there's what's fun. The weights make you heavy, right? Should've warned you before that. So let's do it again. Inhale, back.

Now control, the weights will pull you up, you gotta pull back against them. And inhale. Back. And exhale, roll up. We're going to do three more. Inhale, back.

Exhale roll up. And two more. And roll up. Last time. Okay, you ready for something fun?

Here it comes. Knees together, weights reaching in front. We're gonna bicycle, bicycle. As you bicycle your legs, you're lowering your body down. Lowering your body down.

Oh, now we have to come back up, and up, and up, and up. And keep the bicycle, and now we go downhill, and downhill, and downhill, and downhill. And push the weights forward, biking uphill. We're gonna do that one more time. Bicycle, pulling in with the heel as you lay down, in with the heel, and then would you hate me if I made us reverse?

Go ahead. So we reverse the legs. It's a little brain teaser. Bicycling in the opposite direction, and now we're coming up. Up, oh yeah, it's hard. And up.

And push the weights away, down, down, down, and up, up, up, up and one more. Down, down, down, and up, up, up, up. And bend, put the weights down. Let's leave them down for just a minute. Come out into a diamond shape with your legs.

Bring the hands behind the head. So we're gonna rotate the spine. And take the same side elbow towards the same side knee, so I'm side bending, so you reach down, taking a stretch through that upper waist heavy at the hip that you're rotating away from. Lift back up and come into the middle. And then inhale twist, and exhale reach over.

And inhale, lengthen up. And exhale center, and inhale lift and rotate. Exhale reach up and over. Inhale lift up. And center.

And inhale. And up and over. And back up. And center. Last time, twist.

And dive. And lift. And center. And twist. And dive.

And lift. And center. Hands come down, bring your weights with you. Come down onto your side. So we'll just take the weights in front of us.

And just put the hand down on one. So lining up the legs. And maybe you could use both, I could line them up and just rest your hand on them, what you could do is you could feel like- I'm falling over. That way pull, a pull towards the hips with the shoulder blade with the arm as you lift your body, or your legs. And down. And now lift the legs. And down.

And lift the legs, pulling down just to give some feedback, not too, too much. You don't want to strain your neck doing it, and we'll just do one more. So here's a fun, fun thing. Pick up one of the weights, send it out along the thigh, inhale. Can you reach the weight down the side of your body and lift into a side stretch?

And then down. And reach the weight. So if it's hard you can keep your arm down, you can use your arm to help you. And down. And reach.

And down. Just two more. Reach. And down. Last time.

Reach. And down. Externally rotate the legs, put the weight back down, hands back on both weights, bend that top leg and bring it in, kick it up, flex it down. Bend, knee into the shoulder, reach and pull down. In, up, flex.

Two. Kick, flex. One. Kick, flex. Let's reverse it- flex through the heel as you lift, bend your knee, toe to the knee, squeeze the legs together. Kick back. Bend, down and stretch.

And kick, bend, down and stretch. And two, pull, down and stretch. And kick, and down and stretch. Probably wasn't my most spectacular cuing but I'll try and do better on the other side. Let's bend the knees, come up.

Swing the legs around, and come down onto the other side. Let's reorganize your weights as necessary. Okay, so they're just resting where your hand can rest on them. We're reminding ourselves to pull down and back, we're going to send the legs out and up. And down.

And out and up. So what are we thinking? Can we bring awareness to our breath to find our center? Concentrating on working from the right place? Two more.

How deep can you go in your own body? One more time. Reach out. Go down. Pick up one of the weights, send it out along the thigh.

Take a breath, legs was just floating here. And now we- oh. I don't know if I can do it on this side, oh yes I can, but oh it's much different. Lifting up and going down. And lifting up, that surprised me.

I think I've got it under control now. You could always just leave the arm down, we talked about that, hi, but don't pull up with the head. The top of the head reaching out. We'll just do two more. Out and up.

And down. And one more. Out and up. And down. So here's my second chance at cuing.

So we're going to externally rotate. Gonna bend the knee, bring the toe to the knee, knee to the shoulder, stretch, flex, and pull. Bend the knee, knee to the shoulder, flex and pull. Knee bends, knee to shoulder, kick, flex, pull. Two more.

Knee bends, knee to shoulder, kick, flex, pull. Check your shoulder, last one. Knee to shoulder, kick. That was as much for me as anyone else. Keep the foot flexed, kick up, bend, pull the knee behind the shoulders, stretch out.

Kick up, bend. Knee behind the shoulder, toe to knee, and stretch long. And kick, bend, push out. And kick, bend, and push out. We've got two more.

Kick, bend, and reach out. One more time. Kick, bend, and reach out. Bring your weights with you, turn onto your abdominals. Okay so what I want us to do is just to organize so that you can have the heels or even maybe like closer to the wrist, right at the pads of the hand, but closer to the wrist than the actual hand.

Resting on the tops of the weights. My weights are a little bit oblong so they'll be strange but if you have round weights this will work really nicely. So thinking about lifting up through the center of the body first. Abdominals in, energy through the backs of the legs. I'm going to start to roll the weights towards us.

Yeah, roll the towards you to lift your back up. And then roll the weights away as you lower yourself down. And again, roll the weights towards you to lift your back up. Feel it nice, lifted sternum. And then roll the weights down.

And again. Reach, reach, reach. And forward, we're going to do just two more like that. Should feel nice. You don't have to bear down on the weights, you just wanna feel the scapulas sliding down the back as you lift your spine and lift your eyes a little.

And down. And just one more. Reach out. And down. So now we're going to take the arms out to the side.

Mine are gonna- just for the sake of not having to hold my hands in space the entire time, when we come down I'm gonna allow my elbows to bend and drape. But if you're on the floor, your arms will just rest on the ground. Okay? So what we do here, is we take the arms, remember arms are straight, we just pick just the arms off the floor, with the arms will come the head. It's hard enough, it's not very big.

We're gonna take the right arm, and reach down towards the right thigh and bring your body with you. And then come back out to center. Take the left arm down towards the left thigh, the right arm just reaches out to the side. Come back to center. And bring the arms and the body down.

Let's do that again, we'll do three. So getting prepared, abdominals and energy through the legs. Lift the arms up. Right arm pulls to the right side of the body, the left arm is lifted and energized. Come to center.

Inhale, bring the arm across to some lateral side bending. And back. And- lower down, and just one more. Arms. Right. Oh, my leg just decided it had a mind of its own.

Wanted to come too. And then back. And then all the way done. And that is enough. So let's just put the weights down.

Let them be there. We're gonna press up and we're gonna sit back on the heels. Stretch through. Maybe roll up halfway, just get the neck to get a stretch. And then come onto your hands and knees.

And take the arms, see this one that's closest to me so you can see. We're gonna take it and we're gonna thread it underneath the other arm, the other arm will bend. We're just gonna lay that shoulder and lay that head down onto the mat. The arm that's still on the mat you can use to help you create just a little bit more of rotation so we stretch the shoulder and that side of the neck. The arm that's on the mat, or the arm that's bent pushes, both arms come down.

The other arm reaches. So there we are, rotating the body. And then press. And then let's tuck the tail under and do a big round spine. And then let's undulate through the spine.

Don't hold back today, just go for it. Let the whole spine move, look up, tail to the back of the head. And then tuck under, rippling through. Rippling through. And then undulate back.

Let's do one more. Round, just feel the spine move like a wave. Feeling a little ease. That's pretty intense for me. I hope it wasn't too intense for you.

I hope you looked after yourself and, so yeah just coming to center and resting. Hope that you were able to look after yourself and if it was too hard, my arms will be sore tomorrow. That is a guarantee. So piece by piece, is day by day, pick up a piece of soreness. But we just keep going.

We just keep showing up. I hope you'll show up with me. I will certainly show up for you. So until next time, when we talk about flow. That'll be fun.