Feel Good Reformer

Hi, everybody, it's girl time! Yay! Are you really enthusiastic about it, or are you making that up? Yes, it's been so, so long. It's really been way too long, and we don't have a lot of time, but we're really happy to be here. We're glad you're with us. And, just a reminder since it has been so long, girl time really is about Meri and I getting to come together, work out together and teach each other and hopefully inspire each other.

So you're invited in, and we're gonna just get moving, 'cause that's all we all have time for, I think. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, so I have my reformer set up. Same. So we're gonna go straight into foot and leg work.

I have three red and a blue. I believe she does too. So set yourself up. Off we go. Can we do a few pelvic curls first though?

Can we do a few pelvic curls? Yeah, you want the bar up? Yeah. Okay, pelvic curls first. That means put your head rest down most likely.

Heels on the bar, feet apart, find the back of your arms, find the connection to your bar, and try to keep the carriage still no matter how many springs you have on. Inhale. Don't go anywhere yet. Exhale, get heavy on your carriage. Just really sink into the carriage.

Try to let the leg bones sit in the sockets of the hips so that there's space maybe. Just a feeling, just checking in. I'll move on the next inhale. We start the exhale. We keep the feet pointed up as best we can, and we roll through the spine, using the breath as our guide.

When you feel you need more assistance, spread out the collarbones, use the back of the arms, peel your way up so that the ribs don't get ahead of the hips. Step into your heels, inhale. Find the back of your body. That will help you as you exhale and roll down, making those little micro-adjustments along the way so it feels smooth and looks good. Inhale at the bottom.

I'm going a little quicker than you're used to, Meri. Exhale, peel up. There's a subtle sense of me in my own body dragging the heels downward on the bar. They're not actually moving, but I need that extra help with the back of the legs. Inhale, fill up, but fill up through the whole front side of the body, not just the belly.

Exhale and roll down, melt down. You know what I've been playing with? Pushing, don't push the carriage, but push the bar away. Don't push the carriage, but push the bar away. Yeah, don't move the carriage, like, specifically on the down I've been doing it.

So it's kind of the same idea as we'll go again, yeah? It's similar idea of the drag, so I'm using it to find the back of my legs. It's just an interesting feeling, and I think about the drag more on the up, but recently on the down, I've been just pushing the heels forward. But not moving the carriage? Right. Oh, okay.

That's nice. Yeah, right? I moved the carriage a little, but I'll find it. Yeah, you don't get to be perfect at everything the first time you do it. (laughs) Really?

Will you cue the next one? Yeah, so pull down on the heels. You can pull down and push forward at the same time. Ah, oh, I might get a butt again, a good butt, not just a low wide. So you can pull down and push forward.

It's an energy thing. It's not a movie thing. Love it. So that's just my newest thing to think about. I love it.

Thank you. Yeah, sure. From there, when we get to the bottom, take your inhale, we're pushing straight out. Exhale all the way, pull yourself back in. I suppose that could also work here, right?

Somehow. Probably. Yeah, a subtle down and a subtle, obviously, pushing. And press out three, full extension, pulling yourself back in. Press out, four.

I still like to think of that sort of infinity symbol of movement so that even though at moments it looks like we're stopping, we're really not. Let's do four more. Allowing the hips to give way as you come in so you're not gripping so much. Last one, out and in. Both feet together, go down to the balls of the feet.

Lifting the heels slightly, push out so that you let the legs really just sit in the hip socket and roll as they need to. Pressing out. Allowing the dorsiflexion to happen at the ankle joint. Heels pretty still. Going five more from here.

Press out one and pull in. Press out two and in. The breath can help you. I'm gonna let you figure that out. And I just mean all of us.

One more, one more, and come in. Turn the legs out enough that you can press the heels together, and do that part strongly. Don't go so wide with the knees that it's an odd position in that your knees aren't lined up with your toes. And then this one, for me, I have to check, did I finish it or did I grip so much in my glutes that I didn't finish the knees? Also have to watch the toes.

Why? Well, because I'll roll out or in, but almost never in. I'm doing four more here. One, finish it, and pull in tighter through the heels. Two.

One more time, get way out there. Can we just swivel to the parallel feet? I think we did. Lower the heels. From here, this idea of almost pulling down and pushing like we talked about earlier but so that you have activity in the back of the legs and aren't just hyperextending.

Push up and lower. Push up. For me, I try not to do an overgrip of the toes. I did on the first one, but just 'cause it felt good. But, as I get going, I just want to relax the toes, connect to the back of the leg where possible, and then, of course, we'll work through the foot.

Let's do five more. Lift up one, stretch way under. Lift up two, three. Stay up, let the left heel go under. The right knee bends and hold.

Watch that hyperextension if you tend to do that and that you hopefully didn't hike the hip. Push up through the left foot to let the right foot go down. Take the stretch there. And then, because we haven't warmed up a whole lot, although maybe you did in other activities, we'll go a little quicker and not over-exaggerate the stretch. So here we go, we're up.

It's left down, up right, up, down. Up, down, up, and now try to find your rhythm for yourself that allows you to do about 10 more. One, one, two, two. Full range. Did I say 10?

I think so. And I counted like you. Oh dear. About four more. One, one and two, two, three.

You can always slow those down and not do as many. That would be fine, but, otherwise, we're up, and I'm just coming down. So why don't you take it, Meri, for what you want next. Okay, so let's roll to our side, help ourselves up. Remove some springs.

So we're setting up to do some abs. And then probably straight into hip work. So I would do maybe a red and a blue. Red and a blue. Two reds maximum, one light, one medium.

One light, one full or two fulls. Lie down. Got a lot of choices. Taking the straps in your hands, just keep it simple, arms just forward of the shoulders. Lift one leg, lift the other leg, inhale.

Lift the head and chest, reach the arms towards the pelvis, past the pelvis to the foot bar. Keep the height of the body, and lift the arms. Reach forward with the body as your arms are coming up, and then, at the last minute, let the head come down. Exhale, bring the head and chest up, reach past the legs. So keep reaching forward with your arms as they're lifting up, and then bring the head down and back.

And again, exhale, lift up, stretch through. Reach forward and lower down. One more like that, and then we'll make a change. So lift up and down. And now, we're gonna lift the head and chest, stretch the legs out.

Exhale, bring both legs up. Inhale, press the legs away. Exhale, pull from the center of the body, and press away. We'll do three more. And two more.

One more. Bend, reach forward and lower. And exhale, head and chest up. Stretch the legs out straight. One leg up, one leg down, pull-push.

Are you pushing on the bar? I'm pushing down, uh huh. The other one's pulling. We're gonna do three more repetitions on both sides. That's one, two, two.

Last time. Both legs up, knees bend, and rest. Ooh, I'm warm. Yeah, me too. Your turn, hip work?

Yeah, hip work, push out. Same springs, of course, or, if you need more, take it now. We're just stepping right into it. And starting with the frog. So, again, which is letting the femurs drop into the hip socket.

Really fold in deeper today than normal maybe. And then, from the back of the legs, press out, extend. It's not real heavy, so you get to create some of the resistance, but, at the same time, I like to think of it almost as lubrication. If you sit a lot, which I do more than I have, (laughs) it's kind of important it turns out. So when you tell your clients that we are lubricating your joints, whether it's true or not, it certainly feels like it, and it really does help.

So this'll be the last one. Go out, keep the legs straight. Let them come up to about 90. I do have them turned out still. I'm lowering 'em down.

I'm making the circle. I'm gonna go wider than I usually do for the same purposes of I want to. I like it. I also want to. Just, you know, of course, we have, I guess, rules, just be controlled, but you're allowed to feel good in your body.

And this feels really good. I'm just doing two more, down. Maybe we should make our own rules. Well, you know we will, either way. Hold it down.

Go the other way. Lift up. If I had any-- At least just for right now. Yeah, my rule is go as wide as you can without hurting yourself. No, just, you know, a modicum of control is the right thing to do as a Pilates teacher.

Every now and again anyway. I'm gonna do one more after this one. So we're up. Oh, it does feel good though, doesn't it? And around.

Come back up after you finish that. Go parallel and get close to 90 degrees if you can without rounding your back. Then, for the hamstring, imagine it were heavier. I like to sometimes put my hands on my thighs, so I don't want my knees to come in towards me. Rather, just flex at the knee.

Sort of this, talk about control, and then back to straight. And then bend, so the carriage will move. It's just, you don't want the thighs traveling in space so much. Once again, trying to reconnect to the back, because of what we're gonna head into shortly. One more time there.

That sounds ominous. No, it's all good. It's all good, right? Okay, go back to straight. Lower the legs down to, I don't know, 45 or so.

Let's do some opening, so we turn out from the hip. Before you start to just open, imagine shooting your legs out even further so there's already space. Open out. You can flex or not. I sometimes like to.

It allows me to press the arches into the strap a little more, and, somehow, I tend to feel that. So we're doing our best to stay on the same line and long. If you don't push down or let the legs rise up, you'll feel those inner thighs. Only two more, so look for those precise movements. One more.

Can we go into a shorter long spine, Meri? Let's do short spine, if I had my preference. Go for it. Why don't you take it? So bend the knees.

Stretch out, point your feet. Fold all the way in half until you feel the carriage come into the stopper. Roll up through the spine, keeping the carriage still on the stopper. Bend the knees. Leave the feet as they are, roll the spine down, but, as the knees open just a little bit, start dropping the thigh bones down towards the body.

Flex the feet. Bring that entire shape in a hinge over the top, and then press up. Point the feet and arms long. Fold in half. Exhale, roll up.

Stay lifted and focused on the center of the body as the knees bend and then articulate the spine down. Allow the thigh bones to start to drop down towards the front of the body. Flex the feet. Across the top and down. Want to do one more?

Um hmm. And then lifting and bending. And then go down. And then let's, from the bottom, take ahold of the straps with your hands, and just put your elbows on the insides of your knees. And soles of the feet reaching up towards the ceiling, we're gonna push out on the knees with out elbows and pull down on the straps.

Kristi, I need to do more stretching in my life. A lot more. Yeah I feel ya. I need to do a lot more too. Okay, with that in mind, take your feet out of the straps.

Come in, get up. So there's this stretch that I learned from Anthony Lett. We learned from Anthony Lett, maybe. I'm not very good at it, but it's hard, so let's do it. Okay.

So go to one red spring. And so what you want to do. I'm quite tight, but we'll see what happens. You want to get the knee right up against the shoulder block, so the shin's actually straight up. And then hold your foot.

Yeah, you need to get way back there. Hold your foot, and keep holding your foot as you go down. Don't look at your foot, just hold it. (Kristi laughs) And then reach down. Wait.

Anthony! I know. Are you pulling it towards you, Yeah, I am. or just holding it? I'm pulling it. And then you could try to keep going.

It's a big stretch. To push, yeah, it's huge. To push down, like, try to get the top of the thigh down on the reformer. (laughing) A little distracted? And come in.

I thought my pants were on inside out for a second. Switch. So the knee's gotta go almost like you're going over the top of your knee toward your quad. Oh, this is. Then you hold on.

I know, it's gnarly. And then you go. Thank you, Anthony. Thank you, Anthony. Okay, that's enough of that.

Right? Mm hmm. So I think we should do a little bit of long stretch slash pushup, since we don't have a whole lotta time. All right, let's do it. All right.

Do you usually use one? Yup. Just one? I like one. You like one, so we're gonna leave it on one, but you might want 1 1/2 or even more.

I think not more. Probably, it would depend on how heavy you are. Okay, so we're keeping it where we just were for the stretch, one red. Stepping up, we're gonna go into the feet and the shoulder rest, straight into long stretch. Just back and forth, no pushup.

Just back, ooh, that feels light to me and forward. So we'll bring it all the way in. Maybe you won't bring it all the way in when we go to the pushup, which will come after two more of these. Just getting a sense of things, this idea of pressing the heels into the shoulder blocks. Then, when you get your chest over the bar, either fully grip, or you can have all five fingers together.

I'm gonna go all five fingers together, and lower down for three. Press up one, two, keeping it relatively still. Three, up hold, press back. Come forward, keep those heels pressing in. Three again.

Down up one, down up two. The strength of your legs help. Three up, back and forth, just one more. Back to pull forward. Back, oops, sorry, to pull forward.

That's all right. We got one extra in there. Three pushups. One push, two push, three get up there. Bring the carriage into the stopper.

Lower to your knees. Adjust so that your feet are right up against it for down stretch. Again, you can put more weight on if you'd like. Otherwise, you press back, and, as you come forward, keep the soles of the feet pushing into the shoulder blocks. And two.

Are you inhaling or exhaling here now? I'm exhaling up right now in my experience. Okay. That's what I was doing too. You're asking me what the rules are, the breathing rules?

(laughs) I think it's the opposite in the rule book. It is In our rule book. the opposite in our rule book. So let's just take a free breath and do it, you know. Exhaling out.

I think our real point is do it however you want. Stay on this one. Up to the fingertips. Both arms up and around. Madam.

Yeah, turn around. Up against the shoulder blocks with the knees. Reach for the straps. Hold on just above the buckles, straight arms. So we'll go chest expansion, go back and down.

And forward and down. So the down is the operative idea there. Both directions. Both directions, back and down, forward and down. We'll do four.

Would it offend you if you knew I was doing shark hunting right now? Are you looking for sharks? (laughs) I am, I can't help it. I'm obsessed. I'm jealous.

I haven't seen any sharks. Only Kristi sees the sharks. They don't come out for me. Okay, so now we're gonna go, Kristi, changing. We're gonna go back, push down with your arms and go into thoracic extension.

So I'm not leaning back, I'm going forward. Come back to neutral, arms come forward. Oh, that's not easy. I didn't say it was easy, I just said this is what's happening. I think I found the shark. (laughs) And pull back.

Push down with your arms. Think of the chest going up and forward. It's a small bend, but it's a lot of sensation. Come back and arms forward, three more. So you get a little bit of back work, a little bit of arm work, chest, chest, chest, chest.

And back and forward, two more. Stall, I just stalled. Just in case you wanted to too. Hmm? Oh, I was just telling you that I stalled for a minute, 'cause I was feeling tired.

Last time. (laughs) Okay, I didn't hear you with the stalling. Okay, and then sit down on your feet. Lean forward a little. Same hold? Yup.

And just straighten your arms down, holding the shoulders back. Holding the shoulders back. Let's do four. Three. So I'm thinking forward to the next movement.

I'm curious if you like to do sideovers more or if you like to do the mermaid more. The mermaid. Okay, let's do it. So we sit down. Me, you?

You. Me, good. So shin, ankle right up against it. The arm near middle but maybe slightly forward, and we're as upright as we can be. What was that cue you gave me?

I think it was under and forward. Okay, so just try to be relatively straight, and notice that each side will be different. Check it out. So we're gonna use the depression of the arm to send the whole body out to that nice long leg. Then, keep the carriage still, rotate. rotate, rotate.

And this is where, I really like to press the shin into the shoulder blocks, and sort of what you did in the last class that we did together on the mat is to extend your spine. So I'm just gonna come up with it a little bit. You can adjust the arm. Go right back out where you just were, and find that point of contact with the shin. It makes it a whole different experience.

Reopen, and up we come. I'll do the stretch at the end. So again, slide yourself out. Feel the contact points of the shin and the arm on the bar, rotate. If you need to adjust, do, otherwise, just think of that scaplua depression, but more than that, you're just lifting the spine.

That'll move the carriage in. Push it back out. You can go as far as you want. Maybe maximum, I suppose, ear's in line with the arm and up. I'm only doing one more.

I'm looking, for sure. Three and three, push out. Oh, it feels good. Rotate around, that little downward depression of the shoulders, but, more than that, an upward lift of the heart, the chest, the eyes. And push out, arms are straight the whole time.

Reopen. Come on back in. Find the hand that was free to the shoulder block. Adjust hips if needed. Arm right next to your ear, lifting up to take that stretch over.

And, if you'd like, go ahead and rotate. You can even drop the arm. I'm just gonna rotate a little bit, and then open. And let's just switch sides. I'm not gonna shark hunt.

I'm just gonna pay attention to my mermaid. So everything is in contact, the hand, the shin with the shoulder blocks. We press out. Just be mindful of that shoulder, that arm that's on the bar. That it doesn't creep up on you.

Rotate, this is where you hold that carriage away from you. Find some room on your bar for both hands, and then start to look forward, lift forward, still resisting the carriage with that shin as you push away. Go back down. I like that, it feels good. Yeah, reopen.

And then it's almost like you just allow yourself to levitate back in with just that little bit of control it takes. Go out again. Everything working together, holding your carriage out as you rotate, and then look forward, lift forward, make the back muscles do a little bit of this. Bringing the spring back in. Push it back out.

Reopen, in and up. One more time. Quick check of the hips. Do your best to keep 'em relatively even. They don't have to be totally flat down.

Rotate. Get a little more out of it. Stretch the spring like you want your spine to be stretched. Come in and up. Same thing here, even as the spring recoils, you're lifting up and away in a different way with your spine.

Push back out. Open. Find that contact with your shin, 'cause it's easy to let that go, and then as you come in, you're still kinda pushing it away so that gives you that little stretch through the hip and thigh. Arm goes up. You're holding the shoulder block, and we stretch up and over.

It's optional rotation, if that feels good to you, do it now. Come on back, and free yourself up. Any grand finales in your mind? Yeah, let's just stand up. Let's do some cat stretches or a cat stretch.

One cat stretch. A few cat stretches. A few repetitions of the same cat stretch. Got it. Take your bar down.

Okay, butt to butt. So inhale, exhale round down, reach for the carriage. Now, lengthen the spine out, so we lift the pelvis up. We send the body down and long. Aw. Mm hmm.

Can this be all we did? Inhale. And exhale round, and you push the carriage away from you, just with your energy, with your intention. Rounding back in and then inhale, tailbone reaches up, reach out long. Shoulder blades reaching down and around to the front of the body.

They're not pulling together. And curl, and resisting the pull of the springs. Let's just do one more. Reach out. And inhale.

And round back in. And inhale. And exhale. Rolling up all the way to standing. Reach the arms up.

Turn around. Hug your friend, hug yourself. Nice to see you again. Give thanks for what you have to give thanks for. Yes, very thankful.