Class #37

Romana's Mat Flow

50 min - Class
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Description

Monica teaches her Pilates class in the classical style of Romana's Pilates. Following the classical order, you will strengthen your core, develop a deeper understanding of your powerhouse, and even hear a little about how Joseph Pilates himself used to teach the class. A fun and informative workout.
What You'll Need: Mat

About This Video

Dec 29, 2009
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Good evening everyone. All right, so w we're going to do an intermediate pilates mat class today and I want you to start off looking down at your feet. Make sure there's just two to three inches between your toes and the heels are together. That's right. Want to create a nice strong foundation for your tower, having your feet in the Palati stance. I want you to take your, pull your powerhouse in and lean your weight forward onto the balls of your feet. Great. So your ankles should be just over your heels, knees just in front of your ankles, hips, just a tiny bit in front of your knees, the whole body leaning forward like the leaning tower of Pisa and you want to feel the powerhouse pull in and up so that I could slip the card underneath your heels. You're not having a lot of weight onto your heels. Just a just a little like connection powerhouses in and up as if the crown of the head is reaching for the ceiling.

Having that energy ready, preparing your body for a nice intermediate mat class. If you are able to lower yourself down in the platas sit where you can go ahead and join me. Otherwise, lower yourself to the mat any way you can try and to keep that in and up. Feeling the Palati sit. We're going to put one arm over the other like I dream of Jeannie. Try not to throw out the ribs or the shoulders back when you do that and keeping your way in and up.

Cross one foot in front of the other and gently lower yourself down to the mat without pushing your bottom out behind you. Put your hands back about the middle of the mat so you can lift your bottom back to the middle of the mat and stretch out long and lean on the mat line down completely. Very nice. I like to start off by reaching your arms behind you and stretch the arms nice and long behind you. Great. And feel the energy as if you have a horse on each arm and each foot and they're all pulling you completely apart and just let all that energy go out the fingertips and out the tips of your toes. And this'll be the only time, hopefully in my class that you will not feel all your energy in your powerhouse. So now I want you to take a good breath and exhale as you pull your navel to your spine and try to get your back flat.

Go ahead and inhale and lift your arms up to the ceiling and then exhale. Just bring your arms down by your side. The rest of the body remaining the same. Great. We're still want you to have your powerhouse in and ups it. Taking a big breath. Exhale. Our goal is to get the waistband completely sealed onto the mat.

I'll be talking about your waistband a lot in with the air and exhale also those ribs. So the Vertebra behind your rib cage are nice and straight and flat on the Mat. Take one more big breath, and as you exhale this time, use your powerhouse to draw the knees into your chest, giving yourself a hug and lifting the weight of your head to your powerhouse. Wonderful. Keeping the knees close to your chest. Extend the arms long by your side and extend the legs up to the ceiling.

Still thinking about that Pilati stance. Look at your navel, keep pulling it in and up as you bring your legs down to a comfortable, challenging level. And let's start with the a hundred in with the two, three, four, five. Exhale, three, four, five. Inhale, two, three, four, five, x out, two, three, four, five. Very nice trying to keep your frame still and all the energies in your powerhouse. We have long, loose legs. The bottom is tight. You're trying to lay, lengthen those legs, reaching out from the powerhouse. That's about 70 in with the air. XCL Pauline, those ribs in and up. And exhale, give me one last good breath and XL really engaging that stomach and as you exhale, lower the legs down and reach the arms all the way back lowering the head. Let's prepare for the roll up. Arms lift directly above the shoulders.

Your back is completely flat right now. Pull the powerhouse in to lift the weight of your head up to your chest and let's roll up one vertebra at a time. Wonderful. Reach for the ankles. Good. Create a letter c with your backend. Start Rolling back one vertebra at a time, trying to tighten the bottom length in your lower back, reaching up and back. We're going to do one more slow like that, so the arms lift, head to your chest, articulate, peeling up one vertebra at a time.

Beautiful job stretching forward and rolling back. One Vertebra time, lower back, middle back, upper back, and reaching back. Let's do five more up to tempo, arms head rolling up. Reach for the legs and pulling back with the powerhouse you want to see if you can keep it engaged the entire time. Up again here up and stretching everyone's forward. Let's try to pick up the tempo a little bit up in front so that our stomach does not get a break. It doesn't get a coffee break.

You want to just keep it engaged and keep it working. Two more. Rolling up articulating. Make sure that stomach is pulling in and up, lengthening between each vertebra. One more time, arms and head and reaching. As you roll down, make sure you're maintaining that Pilati stance. Lower back goes down, middle and upper. If you have slid in it off your mat, make sure you take the full length of your mat and we'll just work on those bottom muscles a little bit next time, go ahead and hug your right knee into your chest. Again, we're focusing on the naval, pulling to your spine, pulling in and up and that back extremely flat. Extend the right leg up to the ceiling and give yourself a little stretch by putting the hands either behind your thigh or behind your calf, but definitely not behind your knee and pull it towards you. Wonderful. Your hips should be square and you should be able to see your inner thigh on this right leg. If you're not able to turn it out a little bit to see your right, your inner thigh, you might need to lower the leg a little bit.

If you're unable to bring the leg towards you past 90 degree angle, you might try to bend the bottom leg a little bit so that you feel really nice and flat. Either way. You know your flexibility. Press the arms into the mat by your side. Make sure every vertebra is sealed onto the mat. And the most important part here is to pull that leg with your powerhouse up to your nose. How high can you get it to your nose? Cross over to that left shoulder. This is really important. How high?

Up to that left shoulder. And now enjoy stretching it down, around and up and cross around up. Concentrate on the up and around and cross around. One more in this direction. Crust around and Holt. Reverse down, around and up to the nose, down, getting the left shoulders. You come up three more. If you can open without moving those hips, go for it. But otherwise, try to keep the motion of little smaller. That's enough.

Hug the knee into your chest. Bring the right leg down the middle of your body as you reach it down on the mat. Hug the left knee, anterior chest, very nice. And again, while you're enjoying this stretch, make sure that back is completely flat. Extend that left leg up to the ceiling and stretch the leg towards you either behind the thigh or the calf, not the knee. Still making sure those ribs are not popping out and we're going to press your arms down by your side. One nice and slow pulling with the powerhouses high up to your nose as high to that right shoulder and crusts around. Four more.

Cross around. Beautiful. Pooling the powerhouse in two more cross. The leg is long and loose. Reaching for the ceiling. Last one and reverse down a rant and up. Keeping that lower back.

That waistband never leaves the mat pressing down so you can reach long through that leg. Nice. Two more reaching around. Last time. Bullion, that's what I wanted to see. Navigate in your knee to your chest. Wonderful. The next exercise is rolling like a ball on both legs are long on the mat to start and just like the roll up, you're going to roll up one vertebra at a time. Place your hands by your hips and lift your seat all the way forward.

If you have a bad back or bad knees, you might want to leave this exercise out or any exercise that feels uncomfortable. Let's start off by balancing with your hands on your ankles in a nice c, curved position. Pretty Nice. Bringing the head as close between the knees as you can Aaron, go ahead and separate those knees just a little bit and the feet stay together. Good. Now keeping your powerhouse in and up. See if you can keep that beautiful round, lower back, why you bring your head just a little bit more in Nice job every time you come up, try to balance without locking the lower back forwards.

Try to hold that powerhouse supporting you instead of your lower back. Relax the shoulders just a little bit. Wonderful. We're going to inhale to roll back and exhale. Roll right on up and hold. Pooling in the stomach a little bit more features than inch off the floor for me here and there. Rico. Inhale, roll back. Exhale, pulling in.

Wonderful. Let's do four more in with the air. Remember, this is a massage for your spine and rolling back. Really feel each vertebra go down one by one and try to take the tension out of your neck and shoulders. One more time, rolling back and feel that powerhouse really scoop into your back and come on up and we're going to lower down your feet. Place your hands behind you and Luiz. Use those strong arms to lift your bottom back. As we roll down, we're going to prepare for the single leg stretch, so you're going to start the series of five by bringing the right knee into your chest. Right hand is on your ankle, left hand is on your knee. If you have bad knees, you can put your hands underneath your knee just above your thigh instead of putting too much pressure. All right, the back is completely flat on the Mat and I want you to use your powerhouse to lift the weight of your head up. Elbows are lifted up, shoulders are relaxed, and I want you to lift the left leg up about a foot off the mat nice and long down the middle of your body. It's being held by your bottom, by your Tush, not by the quad. All right, using the powerhouse.

Let's switch to the left and to the right. Nice. And to the left. Good and to the right and left, pulling in at right and left and right, but Dino's elbows left and right all the way to the ear. If you can really give it a good stretch. Let's do one more set, a right and a left. Grab both ankles, double leg stretch. Inhale, reach the arms and legs in opposite directions. Exhale, pull it in. How region hold up there is you. Watch your tummy gets smaller and tighter and smaller and exhale, pull in that looked a little better. And inhale, reach and those feeder and polite stance cause you're using your bottom.

And exhale, pull in and inhale, reach long arms a little narrower for me here and there we go. And exhale. One more like that. Inhale Long. All the energy is going out your fingertips and toes and exhale right leg up to the ceiling. Left leg straight forward and a single straight leg. Here we go. Switching left, right. This is a quick tempo. It's left right, left, right, left. The legs are flying through the air because they are. Wait, list all the energies in your powerhouse last set and both legs up to the ceiling. Hands one over the other, behind your head.

Use your powerhouse in your bottom as you lower the legs down and quickly up. Nice Dash and elbows wide down to three, up to more. Stretched down, down, down, up. Again. Let me see that belly disappear. Pull it up and hold the legs there. Then the right knee into your chest and try to take your left shoulder up to that right knee. Bring it up, up, up. Pull back that right elbow even further and switch.

Bringing your right shoulder up to the left knee. Bring that left elbow all the way back onto the mat. You can do it. Yes, and switch. Pulling in the left leg is down the middle of your body being held by your bottom end switch coming up. Let's use that powerhouse to bring that knee and just a little deeper. Thank you. One more set up over here. We're going to keep pulling in, relaxing this thought to bring it in. And the last one up to here, pull back your left elbow and hug both knees in, rest your head down.

Beautiful job. Those are never fun but great, great abdominal work. Go ahead and sit up. Let's work on your posture for spine stretch forward and if your back started a work at all in any of those exercises, this is a great way to relax. So legs are straight in front of you. Open a little wider than your shoulders. Your feet actually should be kind of off the mat just to give yourself a good lower back stretch. If you can sit up tall without bending, your knees do so.

But if they are tight, go ahead and bend your knees a little bit. Most important thing is like Aaron is doing is stacking those vertebral one on top of the other with crowded ahead, reaching to the ceiling, arms at shoulder height, reaching in front of you. Good. Pull the belly in and up. Lift off your bottom. Give me the most height you can give me and then peel off an imaginary wall as you bring your head to your chest and rolling forward the next road over the next Vertebra. Try to keep your hipbones right over your sit bones. Let's stay here for one moment and take a breath and I want you to exhale and pull your belly in and get in. Go down even lower. Next ones, we will not do that extra stretch and inhale all the way up.

One Vertebra at a time. Nice. Keep lifting into that tall or taller. Good and a little relax. Now we're going to inhale and exhale all the way down, down. Exhaling all that air when he can't exhale anymore. I want you to inhale and roll all the way up one vertebra at a time.

When you can't inhale anymore, I want you to exhale to go down, down, down, so the exercise should go with your breath. We can't exhale. Go ahead and pull back in with your always using that powerhouse. Lifting in and up and exhale down. Dan arms reaching still at shoulder height, not too close to the floor and inhaling up. Let's do one more time and exhale down. Head to your chest, pull your ribs in, squeezing the air out of your lungs, arms reaching away and inhale, rolling up and relax.

Those arms are at, we are going to work on our balance for open leg rocker. Aaron, you might want to scoot forward a little bit. Good. Um, maybe everyone, just a tiny bit. Bring your feet together and knees apart. Wonderful. Those of us who are very flexible can keep their hands on your ankles. If you are challenged a little bit in flexibility, put your hands underneath your knees. It's debt and that is fine.

Balance with the feet, just an inch off the floor and make sure you're doing that with your powerhouse and not by popping your lower back forward. I bet you you could scoop just a little bit more. We're going to pull back just a tiny bit. Yes, and bounds with the feet up holding that wonderful, very good. And holding it here. I want you to keep your plays. Frame your box perfectly still. If I was just looking at your frame, I wouldn't know anything was happening.

As you extend the right leg open just a little bit, hold it there and go ahead and bend it down. Nice job and the stomach pulls in even more as you extend the left hold and bring it down. Let's do that one more time. The right leg, the is pulling into your back. It's pulling up and down and the left scooping in and up and down. Now we're going to go for both legs up and extend both legs, hold and bend and extend both legs. Wonderful. Aaron, you can go ahead and keep your legs up exactly, but crawl up behind the calf.

Now Joseph flies used to sit like this and teach an entire class. Then on top of his desk, he would sit in the open like rocker position, but we're going to continue it with the open leg rocker, so why to focus on something in front of you because it's all about coming back up and not about going backwards and we're going to inhale, roll back and come right back up to what you focused on. A little bit more energy on the up. We're going to inhale, roll back. Come right on up. Try not to hang back. So long. Inhale, roll back through the Vertebra. Exhale better and two more. Inhale, roll back. Exhale up, pulling in the powerhouse to support you.

One more time. Inhale, roll back. Exhale left. Then hold it there. Wonderful. If you want an extra challenge, we're going to transition into corkscrew from here. Otherwise you can just lie down on your back. We're going to bring your legs together into a nice Pilati stance. Get a little less dependent on your hands is kind of like a preview to your future teaser and start rolling down one vertebra at a time away from your legs.

Legs go directly up to the ceiling and head is down. Very nice. Go ahead and bend your knees for a moment though. Your thighs might be getting a little tired or now give him a hug. We're going to go into corks group. Very important that your neck and every vertebra, especially your waistband, is going to stay sealed onto the mat.

And I want you to now extend your legs up, press your arms into the mat and give me a nice Pilati stance, working from your hips, working from your bottom to seal your legs together as if their one leg pulling your belly in. I want you to go ahead and let the legs fall a little bit to the right and then pull your stomach in and make them come center. Just center. Now we're going to go to the left, just a little pre corkscrew here to the left and then bring him senator. Let's do that one more time. Kind of like a drop to the right and center and to the left so you can really feel your abdominals here centered.

Now let them drop down a little bit away from you, so towards the floor and pull them center. Let's do that one more time without your boss, your belly puffing out and without your back coming up off the mat. Nice. Now let's do a full circle by going a little right down a little bit. As you go to the left and pull them center, reversing that left down a little bit to your right and center. Hold it here. Let's look at those feet. How are they applauding stance?

You holding them from the bottom? Are you working? I'm like one leg. There we go. And do that. Are right around, down and left and center to the lefts down. Oh and one more set. Making it as large as you can control it and from your powerhouse and to the left, sweeping the floor if you wanted to and enough, I want you to sit up immediately from this position. Nice job. Right on up. Yes, exactly. So obedient. Very nice.

And we're going to open the legs again, a little wider than your shoulders. And this one is saw where we are going to twist our spine and not our hips. So I want your arms reaching out in peripheral vision but straight out to the side. Nice work. So feel both cheeks are on the mat and I want you to keep both cheeks on the mat as you twist your spine to the right using your stomach and exhale as you reach your pinky past your baby toe. Are both cheeks still on the mat and inhaling up, twist the spine to your left and exhale past your baby toe if you can and reach a little higher so it's not your uh, arch. And inhaling up, there we go. Twist to the right and exhale down, down, down there. Turn the hand like so and inhaling up.

Twist to your left fully in the powerhouse to really keep both cheeks sitting down. Beautiful and inhaling up and twisting to the right. Exhale. Let's see if we can get that back. Pinky towards the ceiling. Inhaling up and careful with the shoulder. As you twist to the left and exhale using the back of the arm that tried set to lift to the ceiling. Inhale up and as your center you should feel your powerhouse lifting in and up and tall and relax your arms. Bring your legs together, flip over onto your belly without losing any of your powerhouse. Anyway, very nice hands are going to be directly underneath your shoulders, elbows pointing back. If you have a stiff back though, you will want to bring your hands about three inches forward and about three inches out to this side. Okay?

Only if you feel you have a very flexible spine. Do I want you to keep your hands right under your shoulders and I still actually, Wendy, want you to come just a little forward. There we go. All right. We're still being very aware of our powerhouse and the alignment of our spine here. I want to see if you can pull your belly a little bit up off the mat and then so it's pulling real deep into your back and pull it up towards your head. So you should still keep this feeling of the powerhouse pulling in and up.

I want you to squeeze your bottom so that is holding and supporting your lower back as well. And now I want you to use your hands like suction cups. Pretend their suction cups stuck to the Mat and as your powerhouse is pulling in and up, pretend those suction cups are pulling the mat behind you. Really lengthening the spine and we're going to start coming up with our head and our chest and you can come up all the way to straight arms if it feels good on your spine and you're able to keep supporting your lower back with your powerhouse. Stop where you feel comfortable. Look over your right shoulder without moving your frame. Circle the head down to your left and then look forward.

Very nice looking left and circle down and right and look forward. I love that Mindy has not crunched in her neck, so it'd be very careful that you don't take your head too far back when you look forward and you're going to come down with the powerhouse and still pulling that mat behind you as you lengthen your spine down. Let's do that one more set. Well in the powerhouse in and up. We're going to pull that mat behind us as we lengthen the spine. Careful with the neck, and we're going to start over the left shoulder, this time down to your chest, around to your right and look forward.

Look to the right around to your left and look forward and hold it there. Ideally, one day our legs can be squeezing together while we're doing this, but we're going to work towards that and keep pulling the map behind us as we use our powerhouse to lower ourselves down to the mat. Wonderful. In a nice seat curve. I want you to go ahead and push off that mat and sit back onto your heels for a stretch. So give me a good c curve by pulling the tailbone underneath you, sitting onto your heels and crawling your hands away in the opposite direction and lifting the belly of course off of the thighs. Yes, very nice job. We'll do this stretch again in just a moment after we do single and double leg kick. Very good. So when we go into single leg, kick the transition, let's see if Helen, if we can lift a little bit and just go like that doesn't need, I don't want you to hurt the knees at all, but just lifting into a nice curve.

Now when we go back onto our stomach, keep your powerhouse in mind. Don't just let it hang onto the floor. Let's go into single leg kick shoot back out. And I want you to put your two. Now you're both make your hands into fists and put your knuckles together.

Pull your elbows onto the mat for me. There you go. Nice. And imagine you're holding a big physio ball right underneath here. So we're not sinking into that. Our chest here, but we're pulling up cause we got to fit a big physio ball. Push those knuckles against each other. Use Your underarm muscles, use all of this. Or if you want to think, I could see a movie projected onto your chest powerhouses in and up, and let's squeeze those hips together so those legs come together. Good. Lift both legs up just a little bit, reaching them long out of the hips and let's start with that right leg kicking.

Two pulses in one, two left to right to left to one legs kicking to your bottom, but one legs reaching long out of the hip. So the one that goes down doesn't relax. One, two, one, two, last left, two and legs are down. Let's bring our right cheekbone onto the mat and hands come together as high up behind your back as you can. Try not to interlace them actually, but to clasp them together. Pull them up as high as you can and the ones they can't come up any higher. Press your elbows down into the mat.

Powerhouses are in and up and you're going to squeeze your hips together to lift both legs up off the mat, straight, straight, and lift. Nice. Feel how your pelvis is securely on the mat. Keep there as you use the back of your thighs for three pulses to pull the heels in. One, two, three. The legs go down, lift your chest, stretching. Two, three, switch, cheekbones and pulse. One, two, three legs. Go down and lift Belize. Lifting up your body nice and switched. Cheekbones and kick to three and lift.

Lift using your powerhouse. One more set, trying to press your pelvis down a little bit while those knees come up and stretch higher, higher, and relax. Go ahead and push back onto the mat. Sitting onto your heels again, again in that nice c curve. Very, very good. Good job. Nice. We never have our bellies hanging on our thighs. All right, so that's enough relaxation. We're going to flip on it over onto our backs and get ready for the next pool. Go ahead and lie on out. Legs are hip width apart.

Feet. Our toes are flex to the ceiling. Good and we're going to build this one up actually in stages. I want your hands to start off by your sides, God. Alright. And only advance it if you feel like that you really are able to advance it. Don't, don't skip it.

Skip to the next step just because you want challenge yourself cause you'll get a lot stronger if you keep it where it's the safest for you. So your hands are just going to be crawling up the side of your legs as we roll up one vertebra at a time, starting with our head, using our powerhouse to roll up one vertebra at a time as our hands reach all the way to our feet. And exhale as you basically kiss your knees. Inhale, use your powerhouse. This roll up as tall as you can, squeezing up off your seat, pushing your heels away with your bottom and go ahead and roll down from here. Nice one vertebra at a time. Beautiful.

Don't forget we're pushing our heels away with that seat and in hell. Head to your chest. Exhale. We're going to do one more like this. Still pushing our heels away with our seat as we kiss our knees. Inhale, use your powerhouses. Sit Up, tall, bottoms, tie, and it's pushing your heels away as you exhale. Roll downs, pushing your heels far, far away from you. Nice job. And we're going to put our hands now one over the other behind our head. But you can allow your elbows to come almost together as if they're going to kiss. Okay, so go ahead and bring your elbows closer together.

Bring it hell and bring your legs. Just yes. Wonderful. Not, not all the way together, but hip with their wake up. And when I say hip width, I mean hip bone, not silhouette hips. So just hit with, all right, so we're going to bring our elbows together using our power houses. A little harder to have it sink down in hell as you roll up. Exhale all the way to your knees.

I might've left y'all a little down there, a little too long. Inhale, sit up tall here. I want you to open your elbows and lift off that seat. And now exhale, roll down the rest and do that again. Inhale, rolling up. Those elbows can stay tight. Exhale all the way to your knees. Inhale, sitting up tall off that seat, pushing those heels away. Annex hair rolling down. If that felt challenging enough, keep it there. If you want more challenge, keep those elbows way behind your ears as we come up in with the air.

Those elbows stay wide for more challenge. Exhale forward. Inhale, roll up with those elbows still wide and don't arch the back. Stay nice and tall and then roll down. We're going to do one more like that. Elbows wide if you want or stay at the previous level in with the air. Exhale to your knees. Good. Inhale, sit up tall. Exhale, rolling down. Who? One bone at a time. Pushing those heels away. Great.

Two more times at any level. We're going to add one more step if you can. Inhale, rolling up elbows wide. Exhale to your knees. Inhale, sit up tall and now with your stomach into your back. Stay super straight and tall as you go back, pulling with your hands on your neck, powerhouse in and up and now curl the rest down. One more time like that in with the air. Head to your chest. Exhale all the way forward, kissing your knees. Inhale, roll up using your powerhouse. And if you can, squeeze off your bottom and go hinge back. Keeping a very straight back, no arch. And then curl the rest down. Nice job. That's the end of neck pull.

We're going to prepare for sidekicks. Lie On your right side, everyone. Take the back edge of the mat and face this way. Let's make a straight line. Don't have your legs forward yet. Have your right elbow on the back edge. Have your legs on the back edge. Wonderful.

So in the beginning of [inaudible] we keep everything flat on your back. Everything's able to keep square, but as you get more advanced we start putting you on your belly. We part put you on your side and it's kind of hard to keep this alignment going and the powerhouse continuing to pull into your back that um, the arm on the mat. If you don't have a bad neck, I'd prefer you to bend the elbow and almost be like a beauty queen here. Resting your head on your hand. Later on, we're going to want you to be pushing your strong neck into the back of your hand, but if you need it to be a little bit of a rest right now, that's fine. The left hand is like a kickstand in front of your belly.

Bring it a little tighter into you. There we go. If those of you who can't see, we don't want it to be forward but almost touching your stomach, it's a good reminder that when we're swinging that leg around that we're not pushing our belly or our ribs onto that hand. Okay, so are powerhouses into your back of course, but also lifting up your legs should feel really, really long pushing in the opposite direction of your head. I want you to wrap and squeeze those legs and use your power house to lift both legs up a little bit and pull them forward to the front edge of your mat a little bit more for me. There we go. Good. And then lower them down. Wonderful. Little forward more at Helen. Nice, very good. And rest them down. So we have one shoulder trying to stay over another shoulder, one hip over another shoulder, and the stomach and ribs of course are in supporting your back. Let's lift the left leg about hip level. Again, the hip bone, and you should turn the leg out a little bit so I can always see your inner thigh.

I don't want you to hide that inner thigh keeping it exactly at this level. Let's do a couple slow ones pulling that like all the way towards your nose and then take it as far back as you can. Let's hold that leg there. Actually keeping the hips stacked, one on top of the other. Let's use the back of the leg and the seat to take that leg back a little further so you feel that those muscles working. There we go. One more slow and use the powerhouse to put up two as far up to your nose as you can without hiding that inner thigh.

Turn out that leg so we're not hiding that inner thigh and then use the back of your leg to go back back without losing that alignment of the hips. Beautiful. Now. Keep those things in mind while we go to tempo forward and take it back and take it forward and taking it back good and forward and taking it back. Imagine that you have a tea cup right here on top of your shoulder and you don't want to spill any of that hot tea. You want to keep nice and still and back. Let's do one more forward and back and now legs together.

Still keeping that perfect box alignment. We're going to take that top leg and push it up to the ceiling and squeeze down nice and pushing it up and as you go down, pool the power house in and up so you really lengthening in both directions and up and squeezing down a thousand pounds and pushing it up and squeezing mom down. One more time. Don't let me miss your inner thigh. I want to see a little more inner thigh there. There we go. Now hold that leg down long and working powerhouses in and up. Lengthening the crown of your head that way. Wonderful posture, and we're going to do five little circles here and one, two, three, four, five. Let's try that again. And I say that because we're, as we get older, going back, we always forget to go back. We do everything forward ahead of us.

So when you do even your little circles, we want to make sure it goes forward and a little bit back. All right, keep that full range of motion. So here we go with the powerhouse in and up. We're going to do five circles. What? That's it, two, three, four, five reverses. Don't hide that inner thigh and you'll be great. That's great. Two, one. And relax. Nice job everybody. Let's squeeze those legs together. Lift them up, and you're going to bring them back as you roll onto your bill, that onto your belly, making a small pillow for your forehead. You should be right down the middle of your mat.

And I want you to have your belly pulling in and up. Of course, supporting your back. And now use your bottom and inner thighs to lift those legs up off the mat. Make sure when you lift the legs up that you're not taking it in your lower back, that those lower back muscles are not strained. Open the legs about the width of your mat and now think about those inner thighs and use them to squeeze all the light away from the inner thigh in between your legs. Squeeze them completely together for me, Helen. Bring them to all the video. There we go.

Open about the width of the mat and that's, think about those inner thighs again and squeeze all the way together as well as lengthening and long away from your hips. Now let's take it to tempo and one, two, three, four, five, six. Keep lengthening from your lower back. Keep squeezing away all the light between your inner thighs. Five, four, three, two. Hold them together and turn onto your left side as you roll over.

Nice. Again, start off nice and long from your bent elbow. You're bent, left elbow all the way to your toes. Helen, I want you to scoot back until you're all the way on the back edge of my mat. There you go. Nice. That way. We don't have any injuries right here and over here. All right. Then we're gonna squeeze those legs together. Always supported by our powerhouse in and up.

Lift those legs up a little bit and bring them forward to the front edge of your mat. Good. If Han lower them down. If you find that it's a little difficult to do it with the legs here, you could make it a little easier by bringing them a little forward off the mat. And if you want to challenge yourself a little bit more, you can actually pull them back just about a couple inches. Either way. Now we're going to lift that right leg about hip level. Beautiful. Turning it out. So that's hip height.

Make sure it's only as high as this bone. So right here, show a little inner thigh. Great. How then relax those toes and pretend that you can make your top leg longer than your bottom leg. Nice. So you really feel that length. And the powerhouse of course, is point in and up with the crown of the head, reaching in the opposite direction. So using that stomach. We're going to do two slow ones here. Use that belly to pull the leg as high up to your nose as you can without hiding the inner thigh. And then we're going to take it back, holding it here.

Let's keep those hips stacked and see if we can use the back of your leg and bombed. Take it back just a few more inches. Nice. One more slow like that forward. Don't hide the inner thigh and back as you go back and make sure it stays at hip level. Nice. Take your hip a little forward, more. Good. And now to tempo. Kick it forward and taking it back. Nice job. Cross foe and back again. Don't hide your inner thigh.

Use your powerhouse to pull in and up. And that leg is trying to stay longer than your bottom leg the whole time. Let's do two more. Kicking it forward with the power of school. Easy in the seat. One more forward and back and legs are together, but it's still working. It didn't get a chance to relax and we're going to push up a thousand pounds and we're gonna squeeze down a thousand more nice powerhouse in and really lengthen your spine as you reach the leg and pull it up and squeeze down two more, pulling it up. Don't hide that inner thigh as you go down.

Use that bottom of last time up and reaching again. The leg is down. It's going to stay down, but it's not relaxing. We're gonna do those five little circles, remembering to go back as well. So we're going to go forward. One, two, three, four. Don't hide your inner thigh and reverse. Make that leg longer than your bottom.

One, two, one. And relax. Wonderful. Go ahead and lie on your back. Bend your knees into your chest and everybody gets to throw a little tantrum. So we're going to bend your knees in and you want to extend the legs up to the ceiling. Aaron's like, what? And I want you to shake your legs because I want those thigh muscles to shake off the bone so that they're not going to be too tight when we do our teasers right now. So we're going to hug in those needs again.

Go ahead and we're gonna work them, work into amps. We're going to actually do quite an extensive teaser set today, but I want you to go ahead and sit up just what you always wanted, right? Go ahead and sit up, make sure your bottoms right in the middle of the mat, um, both lengthwise and with y. So scoot back just a little bit. There we go. Your knees are bent and feet on the mat. Good hands right underneath your knees and have underneath your knees in it right there. Good, right? And pulling in.

Put your hands right underneath too. Great. So everyone's sitting up tall right now, but I actually want you to really round your back. Okay? Give me the best see curve you can, looking at your abdominals. Pull that belly in and up as much as you can. Try not to take that tension in the shoulders.

I want everyone to make it look like this, the easiest thing ever. And we're going to leave our legs there and we're just going to roll down one vertebrae at a time. Rolling down your waistband, the bottom of your shoulder blades, and that finally your head. And when your head touches, come on up, bring the head up. Rolling up. Let's see how long you can keep your waistband on the mat and holding it right there from you, Wendy. Very good. And one more like that. Squeeze your bottom together.

Roll down using your powerhouse head touches and the marina. Come right back up. Inhale ribs. Pull in middle, keeping the waistband down as long as you can. Now don't get too close to your thighs. Come a little bit away. Imagine that you are in a teaser and what did the distance that you have the relationship between your shoulders and your thighs. Okay, your back should look your body to look like a perfect v if your legs were extended. So come back just a little bit for me, Aaron. There you go. But not with your shoulders. More with your powerhouse rolled back. There we go.

Excellent. Squeeze those legs together. No light between your thighs. Feet are still on the mat. Feet pressing down and extend just the right leg. Again, your knees and thighs are still together, but we have our right leg up and we're going to roll away from our right leg. We're gonna roll down your lower back, middle. Good. Hence the head touches.

We're gonna roll right back up in with the exhale as you come up with the scooped in belly round. There we go. One more rolling down, lower back, middle, great head to chest and scooping in. Good, good. And staying right there with the body. Again, if I was just looking at your frame a window, anything is happening as you switch legs, right leg goes down, left leg comes up and we'll do that again. Pulling in your powerhouse. Roll down away from that left leg, that left legs reaching away and head to your chest to come up scooping in. Use your bottom to help support that. And one more time. Rolling down, lower back, middle back. Good and head to your chest. And really feeling that belly pulling in. Great.

Now extend both legs up and we're in our teaser position in a Palani stance, being supported by your hips, not your top of your thighs, and you're going to roll away from your legs. Good. If you want, your arms can go back overhead and you can use them a little from momentum as you come on up. Definitely not chain. Beautiful Work and rolling away. This is the last one we're going to do like this and coming right on up. Hold the arms, reaching for your toes and teaser to where we lower the legs just a little bit. Pull them up with the lower belly down. Pull them up with the lower button.

Let me see that Polanyi stands up there. One more time. Downs you're holding. What? The hips hold, teaser three, roll everything down. Lower back, middle back, arms reaching up and back and roll everything up from your powerhouse. Bowlin beautiful and rolling away. Lengthening. Add one more time. Up, up and rolling away. Opening like a flower. Now we're going to come right on up for the last time.

I don't want you to transition into seal from here, so using that power has bend those knees out, slip those hands underneath those ankles. Wonderful. The feet are just a little bit off the floor. Excellent head is relaxed and into your chest. Nice looking at your stomach. Again, another willing exercise that is a massage for your spine, not a calf cramp, but a massage for your spine. So we're going to clap here. Clapping. One, two, three, rolling back, clap two, three. Exhale, lift two, three.

Use that powerhouse to roll on through and exhaling. Got Good at. Roll it back to three an exhale and two more. Inhaling back and exhale. We'll do one more. You can roll to a standing position if you are able to otherwise just come up anyway you can. Wonderful. And I want you to go ahead and turn around and face this way. Great.

We end our intermediate Polonius mat with two sets of five pushups. When we do a [inaudible] pushup, you want to make sure that your hands are only shoulder width apart and that when you bend your elbows, they don't bend out to the side. But that they graze your rips. Okay? All right. So I want you to reach your arms up to the ceiling. We should have a beautiful Palati stands is two to three inches apart with those toes. Good. The weight is a little bit forward.

If there was a hurricane coming at you, you wouldn't be blown over cause your solid powerhouses in and up. Great. Peel yourself off an imaginary wall, rolling down one vertebra at a time. If you need to bend the knees to put your hands on the floor, that's fine. As you walk your hands out to a pushup position to avoid waving your hips back and forth, use that powerhouse. All right, squeeze yourself into a solid piece of steel. When you go ahead and lower your bottom just a few inches.

Wonderful energy out the crown of your head. And here we go. Bending those elbows back. Five and four. Good and three. Nice work two and last one. And now as if there's a string around your belly, lift from your powerhouse and walk your hands back to your feet and stay there for just a moment. Try to keep your weight more on the balls of your feet.

Then on your heels, try not to push your bottom out to the person behind you. As you roll up back against that majoritarian wall, one vertebrae at a time, keeping your bottom variety over the balls of your feet. Arms lift all the way to the ceiling. One more set, and we're going to inhale, roll forward all the way down. Try not to push that bottom back too far and rock walking out, controlling the waving of your hips. Strong pieces of steel, and we're going to go down for five and four. Good elbow straight back. Two more nice work and lifting from your powerhouse.

Walk on back to your feet again. We're going to keep the weight on the balls of your feet and we're going to roll up using our power house, sending that tailbone down. And now I want you to inhale and bring your arms up to the ceiling. Go ahead and exhale for a second. Turn your palms out. Powerhouses in and up, right? So we're going to now take a breath as we inhale and push the earth down as we lift ourselves, even taught. Inhale, inhale, inhale, and exhale here.

Nice job, everyone. Very, very wonderful.

Comments

Good, solid intermediate session with lots of direction, good cueing, and good corrections. Nice Monica!
Excellent Workout!!

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