Spiral Lines

Greetings, friends. Welcome to this practice, spiral lines. Let's start on our backs. Roll down slowly. Feeling one vertebra at a time.

Make contact with the mat. And then once you're there, stretch out to a nice large, almost like a starfish shape, actually, as you reach through the arms and legs, take a deep breath in here. And as you exhale, gently soften the ribs, soften the chest, let the right leg swing across the body over towards the opposite foot and then just continue stretching through the right toes and reaching through the opposite right hand. So you, right away, go into that spiral line stretch across the body. And then swing the right leg back down like a pendulum all the way over to the opposite side of the mat. Let's do the same thing with the left leg.

Just lift it up and swing it across past the right, reaching into left toes, left fingertips, feeling that long diagonal line, and then exhale anchor down through the shoulder ribs hit. Let's do that one more time each side, a right leg swings across. The more you reach the gently pull your body, stretch your body into this twist and spiral, back of the right shoulder ankles, anchors, release, and then left leg comes across reaching, reaching, reaching. And then exhale back of the left shoulder. Draw the knees into the chest. Take a deep breath in here.

We'll go right into the fire and start out with the hundreds, which is a classic way to start Pilates mat. So deep inhale. As you exhale, feel that c curve in the spine, draw the chin to the chest and naval to the spine, reach the arms long. Extend the legs to the either the high diagonal or bent knees, and let's pulse the arms. Inhale two, three, four, five, exhale. Inhale to four or five curl up a little higher on the exhale. Keep the cadence. Two, three, four or five exhale.

Maybe extend one leg to four or five exhale curl up higher. Change legs. Two, three, four, five, exhale. Keep it sharp and crisp. Both legs extend. XL. Inhale.

Two. Four, five, exhale locking into the core. Inhale two, three, four, five exhale. Ben one knee in, two, four, five exhale curl up higher, switch legs, two, three, four, five exhale two. Four, five, both knees bend, two, three, four, five, exhale two. Four, five. Last set. Keep refreshing the shape. XL two, three, four, five.

Draw the knees in. It's a very efficient warm up. Bring the feet down to the mat. Let's move into dynamic bridge as we inhale. Exhale tuck the tail under, lift through the hips, roll through the spine, and then roll right back down.

And right now, we're working through the sagittal plane, just this kinda front back forward and backward range of motion as we lift and lower articulating through the spine, but we'll add on some diagonal spiral lines to our bridge. So we'll come on up, pause in your bridge, plant through the palms, bring the feet close together. Take the right leg to the sky. Classic Pilates might as we flex the foot and lower down and up, single leg kick inside a bridge. And you'll feel the back core engage and activate right away. And just take a few more of these.

Just a simple soccer kick over your head while you're in bridge, and then come up and point through the toe, reach it across the body just like we did in the beginning and then circle down and around and allow your hips to articulate. This is a little variation. Just feeling a little movement in the pelvis, bring it up and pause, and then lower down, right ankle left knee. Find your thread the needle. Hold this shape, but twisted over to the left. And feel that spiral line all the way through right hip up across the chest to the opposite shoulder.

Take a deep breath in. X, I'll bring it back to the center. Bring both feet back down, inhale as the arms reach over your head, exhale, sink of the tailbone down, lift the hips up, finding your single leg bridge on second side. The feet can shimmy a little closer together, and then the left leg reaches up. And just about six or so kicks down and up, shifting into the pilates breath, inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. Nice freedom in the hip and hamstring here.

Bring it up and pause, point the toe, spiral and circle. It's very asymmetrical and a little technical as we allow the hips to kinda shift and rotate as we press down through that bottom foot one more time. Little variation here. Across the ankle on the knee. Roll down and find your thread, the needle, which is feels fantastic after that last little bit of work there.

From here, rolling all the way to the right side. Pressing the left knee open, sinking down through the opposite left shoulder, right shoulder, and then come back to the center, hug the knees in, rock it on up. Let's revisit spine stretch forward for just a moment. Find that up and over, reaching forward as you pull back and in house sit tall. Do that again. Pull back through the core, reach forward. It's like a little tug of war.

Now let's add the spiral twist to that coming into the saw. So open up your arms, and I love to turn the palms up, lift the chest as you rotate to one side, flip the left palm down, and dive forward as you reach back to the opposite arm, and then come up and just flow it and spiral to the other side. Flip the right palm down. Reach forward. Come on up. So there's this little sawing action, oppositional stretch across the spiral line from the pinky toe all the way through that outer hip and spine. Through the midline of the body.

Let it be elegant as you twist. Big exhale as you float. We'll do this standing a little bit later in this practice one more time. Exhale, and then come back up. Bring the legs together.

Bend your knees. Let's swivel around to our downward facing dog. Bicycle pedal through your knees. And really allow your hips to swivel. So we're looking for these kind of spiral, circular curvy figure eight articulations wherever we can in this practice, and this is no exception here.

As you start to walk your feet forward, let the hips wag a little bit. Getting some nice range through the outer hips. Slowly come into your forward fold. Relax your head and neck. Let's bend the knees and round up through the spine.

One vertebrae. It's time. And then inhale to come up to stand, reach up. Exit, bring the hands back to the heart. We're gonna move into what's called, utkatasana vinyasa as our no mascara this practice. So let's circle the arms out and up Take hold of your left wrist with the right hand stretch up and side bend over.

Feeling into that whole left side of the body, take a deep inhale as you lengthen. Bend your knees continue to side bend all the way down. And then let's drop off the right hand. You can place a block here or stay on the mat. Keep the right knee bent and open up the left side of the body. So I have a nice strong, straight left leg.

That hip is pressed back. Heart is reaching forward asymmetrical forward fold, deep inhale, exhale the back arm circles down, and then forward and up, here's our utkatasana exhale forward fold, And then roll up the spine. You can soften the knees, draw the navel in, circle out a net, catch the right wrist, stretch up, and over feeling into that right sideline. Deep inhale as you lengthen. Pull on the arm a bit here, exhale, bend your knees side bend all the way down, drop off left hand, straighten the right leg, open the right half of the body.

Take a deep inhale as you look up, exhale the top arm circles back and down. Bend your knees. Here's our utkatasana. Exhale forward fold, uttanasana. Inhale. Let's take a flying r to uttanasana lifting up, and then exhale back to plank, pause, feeling into the strong arms, chest, core legs, front of the body, supporting the back body.

Little bit of a different vinyasa here. Come to the tops of the feet. Keep the legs strong as you lower the hips and open the heart. Right into up dog now soften the elbows and plant your thighs, your pelvis, naval ribs, heart, forehead, curl the toes under, engage and lift the knees. You're welcome to press directly to plank or hands and knees.

Downward facing dog. Even it out. Take a breath or two. Inhale to the toes, bend your knees step or hop, top of the mat. Lift the heart halfway, come up to that flying art at uttanasana, exhale, release, soften the knees, roll up the spine.

Circle out in that. Let's put it all together. Grab the left wrist, stretch up and over. Big inhale. Exhale bend your knees side bend all the way down.

Leave the right hand on the mat. Open the left half of the body. Inhale as you extend, exhale, circle the top arm back and down, bend your knees, utkatasana, exhale, forward, full. Lift up high flying out of uttanasana, exhale. Release.

Soften the knees, roll it on a inhale expand. Take the right wrist up and over. Deep inhale as you lengthen. Exhale soften, come all the way down. Open up right half of the body.

Deep inhale here. Exhale circle, back arm down. Catch your utkatasana. Exhale forward fold. Flying out of Uttanasen, working with all these concepts now. Step back to plank.

Flip over the tops of the feet. Keep the legs strong as you allow the hips to relax the heart to open. Soften the elbows, thighs, hips, and naval ribs. Press either to plank or hands and knees. It's like an inverse vinyasa downward facing dog.

Couple breaths right here. Let's step the feet close together. Inhale, take the right leg to the sky, open your hip, bend your knee, and then step it all the way through setting up for warrior one, inhaled or rise. Take the left hand to the nape of the neck, grab onto the tip of the elbow, open up your tricep here a bit, open up the shoulder, and just keep spiraling that left shoulder forward. Little bit of a backbend as you inhale, keeping the Foundations in place, sealing the outer edge of the back foot and keeping that hip rotating forward.

Now, sweep it forward and open up into warrior two. Adjust your feet. So you have that nice heel to arch alignment. Take a deep inhale here. Stay for the exhale. Reverse your warrior. Pivot the back heel in, bend the back knee.

We have a low skandasana option or feet parallel high skandasana. I'm gonna stay high on this first range as we go back and forth, shifting your weight from left to right. And then we come back to the center, finding our processor database. And here's where we'll put into play that saw action that we experienced earlier. So open up your arms, float the spine parallel to the floor, and then take the left hand across to the right toe and open up.

Inhale use the back core to float, exhale, bring the right hand across towards left toe. Inhale open. Lot of back core strong legs as we reach across, keep it active, inhale open. Exhale, bring it across. From here, both hands moving in this figure eight pattern softening the knees.

This is why we don't have to think about too much. It's not such a linear shape, but if we just draw a figure eight in front of us, Our body naturally starts to move with it, the ribcage, the hips. So just take about three more of these from side to side. One last one. Take it back to the top of the mat, come into a simple twist.

Right arm is high, adjust your feet. And then let's sneak the left knee to the outer right heel. Have a seat. Simple twist. Some of us feel fine with both knees bent. Some of us will straighten that bottom leg to even out the hips and just sitting tall.

Classic spiral line right here. So sit up nice and tall as you inhale. Exhale, turn into the twist as much as it feels appropriate for you. We don't have to go too deep for this to be super effective. I just gotta look nice little pop in the back there. So slowly release, and I'd love to teach you or share with you a little twisting teaser.

So we're familiar with our Navasana boat pose teaser. We've experienced this in some of the other practices, but this is a little adaptation. So as we come out of the twist, just leave that left ankle casually on top of the right. Slide your left hand down, either onto your rug or floor, and you'll roll to that outer hip just a little bit. And then pull back through the spiral line through your right ribs. You can bend your knees, come up and just top the toe there.

And then extend it back out. It's a nice little massage for the outer left hip as we go from asymmetrical as we come down. You might do a straight leg as you come up towards symmetrical. Working on this diagonal rotation. Right? One more here. We're having a conversation, and then cross and make your way back to downward dog.

And take a little bicycle pedal, figure a through the hips. Mhmm. From here, take the left leg to the sky, open up your hip, bend your knee. Hips are asymmetrical, while the shoulders stay a little more symmetrical. Stretch it out, step it all the way through into virabhadrasana. One, set the feet.

So we've got that nice foundation. Front foot straight ahead, back foot on a steep diagonal. Right hand finds the nape of the neck, grab the tip of the elbow so we feel that extension all the way from the outer edge of the back foot to the right ribs rotating forward. Hard is lifting. You can collect the front rooms in a little bit here, sinking into your lunge. And just feeling all the beautiful benefits of this particular shape.

We'll reach up and circle it down adjusting to your warrior two, sinking into the lunge, finding that heel to arch alignment, and then inhale reverse your wire. Back heel comes in. The front toes turn in. This time, I'm gonna go low road. It's low skandhasana side to side, or you can stay in that high skandhasana range, opening up through the hips.

Feels really amazing. Let's meet up in that floating high proserita open up extend, exhale right hand towards left pinky toe, inhale, float it, exhale opposite direction. Inhale. XL release the crown of the head. Remember the top arm, the one that's reaching back into the space above you.

Keep it active. Inhale up. And then let's find those figure eights. Initiating from right to left, lifting the gaze, lifting your chest, feeling the shoulders and ribs come into play. There's this natural transition of weight from left to right. We'll take three more initiating from the right to the left, to the right, and then let it evolve into your simple twist. Coming into that lunge, aligning hand under the shoulder, knee under hip, take a deep breath in, as you exhale, sneak the right knee forward.

Have a seat. You can keep this orientation of the legs for your twist, or it's nice to just extend that leg, reaching up. Exhale, elbow, hand, whatever you can hold on to here, turning the spine. A little goes a long way as we lift, exhale, spiral. Inhale lift, exhale.

A little massage on the internal organs, ringing out the digestion, bringing circulation into the spine. Twists are also this great opportunity to look in at your path, the past, and just say thank you. Everyone, everything that's brought you up to this point, slowly unwind. Slide the leg. I'm gonna switch. So our right ankle's on top.

And then take that hand off the mat, roll to your right hip, slide down, pulling back through the left ribs and hips, slide up, feeling the beginning of twisting teesers, you bend your knees, reach them back out, rolling out a right hip, and then coming up. And we're just experiencing a mellow version of this. Kind of the very beginning of it. And as you come up, maybe try straightening the legs and then keeping them wrapped together as you reach and slowly come on up. One more time, working with this dynamic integration as you lift and then relax.

You're out of there, swing the legs around, facing the opposite direction towards the back of the mat, and let's revisit this really nice feel good spinal curve of spine stretch forward, bringing it back up, bringing it into saw, turn, dive down. And then let's add on one more element as you come out of that dive, bend that same knee, that foot you were just touching, sweep the left hand around, and what? Oh, I think we should flip the dog here. So outer edge of the left foot turns, We drive down through the ball of the right foot to lift the hips up and feel this beautiful arcing asymmetrical backbend as you exhale, bring it back down. Open up. Spine stretch forward, curving, there's that Martha Graham contraction, inhale, lift, and extend, twist to the left, find your saw. As you come up, bend left knee, spiral around, rotate through the outer edge as you lift the hips, finding that back bend.

Allegantly come down. Let's do this again. Let's enjoy this inhale. Exhale, spine, stretch forward, inhale sit tall, spiral to the right, moving into your saw, bend right knee, roll to the outer left hip, come up, into your flip dog. Release it back down one more time. Inhale.

Exhale. Pull the navel in. Sit up nice and tall. Rotate to the left. Find your saw.

Moving with elegance. Bend your left knee rolling to the right, just connecting the dots from these forward folds, twists, extensions, and then have a seat. Yeah. Stretch the legs out in front of you. Take a forward fold here.

Pashima tenasana. Three deep breaths. Last breath. Slowly rolling back tuck at the tail ender, let yourself just descend, bend your knees and land, and we'll take our final three bridge, three visits to a nice easy backbend. So coil the tailbone under, float the hips up.

Adjust your feet so they're parallel. It's coming to a classic yoga bridge here. So lace your fingers or take a strap. If your shoulders are tight, it's worth it to take that strap behind your back with the palms face up. Otherwise, if it works for you to lace your fingers, scoot the outer shoulders in underneath you, and this feels amazing to open up the chest, heart center, front of the shoulders, keep that posterior tilt as best you can in the posture. So we feel this bridge connection between the lower ribs, and the frontal hip bones. And just hang out here.

It's a very active pose. Even though it might look subtle, we wanna keep the heels drawing towards us. Keep that posterior tilt so the back body is working. While the front body is opening. Separate your hands, nice and wide, and then roll it down.

And let's take a nice windshield wiper of the knees before we go to round two. Coming back to center, tuck the tail under, lift the hips. Once again, lace the fingers behind your back, walk the shoulders underneath you feet together this time, coming up into a held ekopata, which means one foot, Saitubanda, Sarbungasana. That's the name for bridge. Believe it or not.

It's a long name. It's a mouthful. And lift up through the heart. As you exhale, lower that leg down. Draw it in.

Separate your hands, roll down. Take a little windshield wiper. Last one, draw the tailbone under, find that sweet posterior to lift and float the hips. Lace the fingers. Maybe the opposite finger on top this time. It's the one that feels weird.

Walk the shoulders in. Close the gap between the feet, float the left leg up and radiate through the ball of the foot, through the toes as you lift through the hips. One more breath. Lower that leg down. Find your feet, separate the hands this time all the way over your head.

Roll down the spine. Great. Just a couple windshield wipers here. We wrap the left knee over the right open up the arms like a t and then just drop the knees off to the right side. Take deep inhale. XL back to the center and change sides.

Changing the crossing of the legs, dropping the knees to the left. In hell here. Exale, come back to the center, hug the knees into your chest. Let's move into happy baby. One last asana before we come into our final resting pose, draw the knees down, anchor the sacrum, chin to chest to let it here.

Try to get as much of your spine in contact with the floor specifically at the back of the head, shoulders, the mid upper back. And the sacrum. There's gonna be a natural little curve in the lumbar spine. And for some of us, it anchors him, but try to get the tailbone down. Also a natural curve at the back of the neck. Bring the soles of the feet together for a moment, and then stretch the legs out, lower them down with strength, finding your shavasana.

Flex and point the feet a couple times, see if you can give yourself a little shake here. And then relax, let the legs shake from internal to external rotation. Relax, reach your arms up, take a couple circles through the wrist, easing open through the palms, and then open up the arms nice and wide. But if a low v, relax the shoulders, close your eyes. Shavasana.

Slowly bring your awareness back into your body. Send a little movement to your fingers and your toes. Reach your arms over your head, stretch out to your full length, and then exhale draw the knees into the chest. Rock on over to one side. Come on up to a comfortable seated position, bringing the hands together at your heart.

Deep breath in is feel into that deep, quiet space, stillness inside. It's always here inside of us. Gotta make a little space and spiral our way to it. Have a great rest of your day, namaste.