Little by Little

Greetings, welcome to this practice little by little, working with tapas. Burning dedication, enthusiasm will be taking some of the skills we've learned in the previous practices and applying them into a flow. Let's start seated with some breaths. So as you inhale, just reach your arms forward and up. And as you exhale, let your eyes close, let your hands come down the midline like a cascade.

And once again, inhale circle the arms forward and up. Exhale, relax your shoulders, your body, your mind. And just start to connect to the breath. That's gonna be driving us through this whole practice, inhale to reach. As you exhale, let the hands cascade down and feel the tilt to the pelvis, let's do that one more time inhale reach forward and up. Exhale to rock back.

And then let's go ahead and just turn our feet towards the end of the mat. We'll stay with that same tilting in the pelvis, but just slightly change the orientation of the arm. So as you inhale, open up the arms wide, kinda like waves spreading across the ocean. And as you exhale, pull yourself back into that posterior tilt, belly draws in, inhale expand. X, I'll pull it in.

So now we've got this sense of a little more awareness in the back core as we sit tall, and the front core as we drop back, working with the tilt of the pelvis and the breath. To inform some of these Pilates mat exercises that refusing into the flow. So as you exhale and curl back, go ahead and extend the legs, extend the arms, keep the rounded scoop in the spine and go up and over the naval center, feeling this rounding in the back. Sit up tall, open up your wings. XL once again, pull back through the core as you reach forward through the arms and legs into a spine stretch forward.

Inhale sit tall. We'll work with the same action and feeling in the core as we move into crow pose. So pulling back as you reach forward. One more time, inhale. XL, think about stretching the back of the vertebra open in as you pull the belly in.

And then just drop this back into a little spinal roll. You can cross the feet and let them toss over your head, let it be playful, keep the spine rounded, and we'll start to refine this ball rolling a little bit as we move through the practice. But for now, just let the feet switch and toss over the head, and then we'll take the next one back and settle there, hug the knees into the chest, moving into the series of five, which we've worked with in previous practices. So single leg stretch inhaling for two, exhaling for two. Breezing through this inhale for two.

XL creating heat in the core. Let's turn this into double leg stretch. Both knees in and then exhale on the reach. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

XL try to keep the lower back anchored to the floor, bringing our energy right into the core, right out the gate of this practice. One more. Inhale. Exhale, pull it in, moving right into scissors, little double pulls as we extend one leg towards our forehead, the other leg towards the bottom of the mat. Breath is like a choo choo train. Two exhales on the pulse, quick inhale on the switch.

One more each side. And then pause. And right about here is where I'm feeling like some support from my head and neck would be great. So curling up with the hands behind the head. Little crisscross here, elbow to knee. And right away, feeling some heat and energy where we flow with it, We work with this concept of tapas. It's burning enthusiasm, dedication, and perseverance.

So we stay kind of in the fire here. We got five more breathing, connecting your breath to your movements. Last two. And then our very last exercise in this series is lowers. Take the legs straight up.

Let's turn it out today. Lower down without letting your back arch, pull it down, exhale lift the legs up. Inhale to lower, exhale. Inhale. Exhound. Typical pilates breathing, we breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth.

We can switch back and forth between our ujjayi breathing, ujjayi Praniyama, which is nose only. And with this pilates breathing of inhaling through the nose exhale through the mouth. Let's rock on it. Spin it around, come into your downward facing dog. And take a couple bicycle pedals.

And just working with this pace, keeping it steady and focused, kind of gaining rhythm as we start to walk our feet all the way up to the hands. Take the feet wide, turn the toes out. And sink down into Malasana yogic squat. And if your knees don't like to go solo, you can keep it a little bit higher. But otherwise, let your hips sink in into this opening as much as you can, opening up through the lower back, lift through the heart and take a deep breath in.

As you exhale, palms plant, heels spin wide forward fold. Inhale to lift the heart halfway. Engaging through the legs, exhale melt. Come all the way up to standing, inhale, circle the arms wide. We'll keep the feet wide.

Exhale hands to heart. Moving into Suri and Namaskar a within little variations. We inhale to reach up. As you exhale, come into melasana, so heels draw to the midline, sink down. As you inhale, straighten the legs, feet, feet, spin wide, lift the heart.

And then step right back to plank. Pause here for a moment. Just feel the core, feel the legs. And then let's lift the left leg. Draw the knee to the elbow so we feel that coiling.

Reach back. Set it down. Inhale the right leg up. XL knee to tricep. That's that coiling we feel in crow, reach it back.

Set it down. Shift forward. Either knees to the mat or legs straight, lower Chaturanga. Coming through to cobra, we call it swan in the Pilates mat, keeping the hips planted, exhale melt. Let's take two more like that. Inhale. Feeling the back core engaged, open the heart, exhale.

One more time, inhale to rise. Exhale pulling down and back into hands and knees, meeting in downward dog. And just take a breath here. Check-in. Notice how you feel. Relax your head and neck.

Come back to that rhythm of jive breathing. And then let's get ready for the next cycle, inhale to the toes. Bend your knees. You can walk or take a light hop with the feet wide. Landing in that yoga squat. We'll feed this, kind of, fuse this into our flow.

Go ahead and straighten the legs parallel the feet. Inhale lift the heart. Come up kinda high like we did in a flying Arta Uttanasan, exhale, release, let it go. Lift your head, lead with your heart, come all the way up to stand, exhale hands to the heart. Let's do it again.

Inhale circle out and up. This time, pull the heels in, sink down into your malasana. Place the palms flat, straighten the legs, hips, lift, inhale lift the heart halfway. Maybe you like to hop back to Chaturanga or step back. Open the heart upward facing dog.

Exhale. Downward dog. So kinda mixing these different vinyasa patterns, flow patterns. Let's go ahead and inhale to the toes. We'll keep our pace, bend the knees, hop the feet wide. Sink down into your malasana, open the heart, exhale straighten the legs, spin the heels wide.

Come up to that high Arta uttanasana flying, exhale release, let it go. Inhale lift the head, lead with the heart, all the way up, exhale, hands to the heart, step the feet together. Let's add some details, circle out and up full body breath in. Exhale forward. Full. This time, open up the knees wide like a diamond.

So it's a different version of Malasana. We were here in one of the previous practices. Big toes touch, hands walk forward. And you can hang out right here for a moment. This is the preparation for Bakasana. We'll take the same shape and just roll it onto your back, which we already practiced. So that should feel familiar.

And just feel this bakasana shape on your back. The big toes touch, the knees are touching your outer triceps. And we have a couple little pulses here, rising up, reaching your palms towards the roof, towards the blue sky. Got a beautiful day here in Ohio. And this is the feeling, this coiling in, that spine stretch forward feeling in action that we use in our bakasana. So just take a few more here.

Exhaling as you come up. And then hold and release it into happy baby, holding on to either big toes, outer edges of the feet, heels. And it's cool to remember that all coiled arm balances are hip openers. So we feel this shape and the low back and hips. And this actually has a preparation pose for bakasana.

Let's release the feet, cross the ankles, rock on it. This time, keep the toes together. We'll take a couple classic rolling like a ball rolls here. So the knees are bent. We're holding the shins rock back. And try to keep your back as rounded as you can.

I've got a little flat spot in my back. Many of us do, and we just try my best to round through it. And find a balance this time when you come up. Rock back to the shoulders, balance on the sit bones one more time, keeping the core engaged. When we come up, we'll find our navasana, just like teaser and Pilates. Extending through the legs, lifting through the heart. Let your feet separate and come to the mat, find that spine stretch forward feeling, coiling, and then sit up tall.

Open the arms. Across the legs. Let's make our way back to down dog. We're moving bicycle pedal through the feet and knees. And finishing up that namaskar cycle that's inhale to our toes, bend the knees, look forward, hop the feet together.

To your hands. Let the knees open like a diamond. So let's put all these skills together. Walk your hands forward a bit so that you have a right angle from the shoulder down to the elbow and forward. Notice the knees can kinda squeeze into the triceps here, keep that squeeze, and then lift, shift, look forward, pour the weight into your hands, and then sink back.

So we have a little, kinda, almost like a formula here, squeeze lift and shift, and notice my gaze is forward, not down. And then rock back. Let's do that again. Squeeze, lift, shift, maybe tuck one heel in. And then rock back. Last one, squeeze, lift, shift, tuck the other heel, maybe both feet lift, and you have this moment of bakasana. Feet come down, straighten the legs, and relax your head neck and shoulders, give it a little sway, maybe even slip the hands underneath the feet.

So we get a nice padahastasana. And I like to take this Wides stance variation for padahastasana and shift the hips and shoulders a little. It's a nice kind of adaptation. Look forward on the inhale, exhale, bend the elbows. Relax here. Drop in.

And then release your hands. Let's soften the knees slowly roll up like a rag doll. Draw the naval in. Fill that udiana bandalite tailbone descends, and then stand tall. Roll the shoulders back and bring the hands together with the heart feet together.

Take a deep inhale, lift your chest, engage your legs. And as you exhale, release your hands, feel your feet really planted into the mat about moving into a balance here, lift your left knee up to your chest. And then turn the knee open. And let's take our bottom foot. It can either land at your ankle with the toe on the mat, the calf or the upper inner thigh.

And I always like to grab my ankle and scoot it on up there and squeeze the foot and thigh together, the hips stay even as the knee opens, finding your tree pose, draw the hands together at the heart, press the palms together, and then extend your arms over your head, and Even if and when, I'll say you fall out of the pose, because it happens, can you mentally stay in it? Can you stay connected to your practice, to your focus, working with this concept of tapas perseverance, recognizing that We do fall, and then we just get back on the horse. Keep showing up to it. Keep showing up to the challenge again and again. Now from here, we'll start to disengage the foot from the standing leg. Soften the standing leg reach the left foot back and see if you can feel your way into warrior one.

It's a bit of a technical transition, but adjust your feet so that you find your virabhadrasana one base. Make sure you're not on a tight rope, but that your the right foot rules the right side of the mat, the left foot rules the left side of the mat, and then extend up from here. Maybe touch the palms if that looks good. Or feels good. We know it looks good. And then open up your arms, spin on the ball of the back foot coming into crescent.

If it feels a little too wide, you can adjust. And then find that for us to answer is this Martha Graham contraction. We saw in the back knee, pull the naval into the spine as we reach forward, but keep the chest open. And then inhale, open up your ocean arms, extend through the back legs. We get that backbend.

Exit, maybe straight in the front leg. There's that spine stretch forward scale. Inhale. So feeling this cat cow, this nod to our beloved martha gram, as we open up through the chest and feel that dynamic between the pelvis, the ribs, the power and the sin of our body, right at the third chakra, exhale, draw in, but stay open and present. Open the chest. Exhale pull in.

From here, lace the wrist. I'm gonna go right on top of left, bend your front knee, come into a nice high crescent with a shoulder opener, and then tip forward. We're coming into full vera badrasana threes. So we pull the front ribs in a bit. Shorten the stance, and then tip forward, lifting through the back leg, finding that long line of energy super powerful pose, soften the standing leg, stand tall, Take a forward fold.

Rinse it out. Shake out your head, neck, and shoulders. Inhale lift the heart halfway. Perhaps walk the feet back, and then guess what? There's another opportunity right here to come up, use all those skills.

Squeeze lift. There's that Martha Graham contraction. Look forward. Shift forward. Maybe one foot lifts Maybe both coiling up, up, up, you're welcome to step back to plank or float back.

Chaturanga, inhale, open the chest, exhale, rinse it out. Deep breath in here. XL completely collect your awareness, gather yourself. Let's prepare for enjoying the second side. So take a deep breath in, come up on your toes.

As you exhale, look forward nice and light, lift up through the hips and land, top of the mat. Inhale, lift the heart. Let's come up nice and high, flying Artotanosin. Exhale. Let it go. Enjoy a deep forward fold.

Lift your hud. Lift your heart come all the way up. Exhale. Center your focus. Center your awareness. Let's come into tree pose on the second side.

Keep the focus. It's one of our Pilates principles as well. It's a very, important concept as we open the knee and find our footing for our tree pose. We work with this concept of Darna and the yoga philosophy, the eight limbs, which also means concentration. So it's that shared yoga principle with the Pilates principle. Extend your branches and just stay focused on a single task for a sustained period of time. This is a good skill to have in a world of distractions.

So just sustain your focus, breathe. You know, this beautiful moment of stillness emits a lot of actions. We'll move into the next cycle here, take your foot off the leg, soften left leg, reach back into the space behind you, reach back farther than you think it is, and then land in the warrior one. Adjust your feet. So we have that right foot to right hip, left foot to left hip alignment, sinking down nice and deep and then look up. And it's like the cherry on top.

We touch the fingertips for a moment, exhale, open up our wings, spin on the ball of the back foot, find that coiling martha graham contraction. Inhale. Open up. I'm sure it's not technically correct, but it's a it's a nod in that direction as we pull the naval to the spine and then open the chest. Feel that beautiful relationship through the legs. It's a little bit of a balance here.

Exhale coil, inhale open. And then bring your arms in front of you. This time left wrist on top, flip the palms where you go behind the head if you can lengthen nice big backbend here. And then tip it forward. Collect the front ribs in.

Let's shorten the stance. And then with great focus concentration, warrior three. Slowly come all the way up to standing, reach up, exhale, rinse it off, forward fold, rinse it off. Let it go. And then settle into your forward fold. Inhale to lift the heart, come up high on the fingertips.

Exhale. Ben one more time. Ben the knees open like a diamond, walk it back a little. These postures are worth interacting with more than once. They need they need frequent love.

So we squeeze our knees into the triceps. We've activated all this coiling up through the core high on the toes shift forward. Try to get the knees as high up the triceps as you can. One heel might lift. You might be right on the perch there and hanging out.

The other foot might lift. Maybe if you've been practicing longer, you can straighten the arms or keep the arms bent. And then step or float back through your vinyasa. Feels like an accomplishment because it is. So enjoy that. Any variation, whether your feet got off the ground or not, just interacting with that shape.

And that sustained focus is it's challenging. Let's inhale to our toes. Ben the knees look forward. This time, we'll hop the feet wide. Sync down into Malasana.

Feel how much maybe more open it is. A little more accessible now. We've been in in and out of these hip openers. So let's just have a seat. And you can sit right down or you can take one arm behind you, maybe both.

And let your seat find the mat and come in right into our friend teaser. We call it in the Pilates repertoire, Navasana boat pose. Any variation, feet down, 90 degrees, extend the legs. It's all fair game, reaching through the toes. And then from here, bend your knees. Let's roll like a ball around your spine, drop your head.

Enjoy the trip back. Enjoy it up balancing. And this is a foundational Pilates Met exercise. It ends up moving into all kinds of cool variations with straight legs, open leg rocker. I went a little too far back. Bend knees with criss crossing and rolling forward.

But for now, let's just work on this simple foundation of rounding and rolling the spine. The next time we go back, we'll go all the way up and over into supported plow. So we'll move into shoulder bridge series, which is very similar. If we come into our shoulder stand, classic yoga asana, extending the legs up to the sky, and trying to get the hips a little more vertical if we were holding shoulders down. But for shoulder bridge, we actually allow a little flexion at the front of the hip.

So it's more of a kind of a comfortable inversion here. Still get the same benefits, but we'll take a little bit of leg choreography starting with some simple scissors, holding this inversion, getting a nice stimulation to thyroid, Pineal pituitary gland, great for hormonal balancing when we go upside down. It's also great for core strengthening and shoulder opening. So we keep the kind of action in the cord and the spine. And radiate through the legs so that we don't have floppy legs in space, but we're very activated.

Almost like we're moving through honey. And then from here, bicycle petal draw the right knee to the nose, left leg extends away from you, extend from your right knee so you get this nice open stretch. And then exhale bicycle pedal second side, the left knee comes in, the right leg reaches away from you, extend the left knee over your head extend long and then change. Knee extend change. Knee extend change.

Knee, extend, one more knee, extend. Both legs over your head. Finding plow, lace your fingers, walk the outer shoulders in a little bit, kinda snuggle them underneath you. Keep the legs active, maybe point through the toes, and see if you can rock back a little further than you normally do. And hang out.

Sholders draw away from the ears. Lakes are active. One more breath. Release your hands. And draw the knees to the chest.

One of my favorite parts about that posture is coming out of it and just this wash of blood flow and release through the body. So take a breath here, enjoy that. Let's go ahead and take the hands behind the knees, round the spine, rock it on up, turn so that you're facing the long edge of the mat. Let's open up for a nice wide Upa Vishta Konasana. You're welcome to elevate your hips up on a bolster, a pillow, a couple blocks.

That helps your pelvis tilt forward. Sometimes if our how strings and adductors are tight. It's really helpful to elevate the hips. And then from here, walking forward any amount, wherever you feel that edge of like, okay. This posture has my attention, then hang out there.

And for some of us, we go a little deeper. Some of us, we stay a little higher. We're just looking for sensation. So dropping into that place for you, you're welcome to take the hands wide. We were in the classic variation.

Our chest and chin would be on the mat. We'd be holding the big toes. Just breathe. And this carpet is so clean. It's actually lovely to be close to it.

Draw the hands in and then lift the chest. Come all the way up. Swing your legs to the back of the mat. Separate the feet about hips width apart, sit up nice and tall, feel this spine stretch forward one more time, and notice that it's this invitation. If we let that core engagement win, this invitation right into a roll down into Shavasana. Separate the feet wide. Let the palms turn open.

Rock the head a little side to side. Let yourself settle in. Enjoy really the fruit of your practice. All the tools that we use, the tools of breath, asana, concentration, immersion, turning our attention towards one task. Working with all of this, our tapas, our perseverance.

These are the tools we use. And then this feeling of integration, kind of a blissfulness. This is what we get to enjoy. This is what happens to us. So enjoy it. Let it sweep over you.

Take a couple moments here and silence with your breath. Slowly bring your awareness back into your body. Send a little bit of movement to your fingers and your toes. And then reach your arms over your head, reach out to your full length, big breath in. As you exhale, hug your knees into your chest, rock on up, find a comfortable seated position.

Bringing the hands together at the heart. And then feeling the sense of accomplishment as you release your hands, take one big breath, arms reach forward. And as you exhale hands come down the midline, Congratulations. Beautiful work, beautiful practice. Thank you so much for joining me today.

We'll see you in the next one. Namaste.