Practice: Basic Pilates Mat Class

Jenna Zaffino [00:00:05]:

Hi everyone. I'm Jenna. Welcome to your Pilates mat class. Now this class is designed to meet the needs of people who have been mobile and are involved in a bit of exercise already. It's not a starting point. However, it could be a starting point for you to learn more about Pilates and to just start to integrate some more core work, flexibility, and spinal mobility in general into your weekly movement routine. So come in with an open mind, a bit of willingness, courage, and curiosity will be here for just about 20 minutes. And we're going to go through a number of exercises that are designed to help you feel better after you do them. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:00:49]:

So let's begin arriving in a equally weighted standing position. So find that equal weight on both feet as much as you can. Release your arms down and just let your weight drop as much as is possible. Unlock your knees. Allow your chest to widen a bit. Feel as if your head is just kind of floating above your shoulders. Lots of length in your throat and your torso. Let's start to reach the arms out to the side. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:01:24]:

Expanding, maybe petting your plants just a little bit. And then bring them all the way down. With each reach out that you do, imagine that you're just expanding your ability to open up your chest, your side body, and your back. If it feels good for you to breathe in as you reach out, I'll invite you to take that breath. If you just need to temper your breath, however, it's going to be supportive for you, then, of course, that is the best choice you can make. Let's keep the arms out to a t this time. Gonna bring the right arm down as we reach the left arm up and find that opposition. One arm stretching for the sky, the other stretching for the earth. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:02:16]:

Let's bend and shift and stretch in opposition. Maybe you start to feel your side body lengthening as you stretch up. And one more time, reaching through all the way to the top. Let's go back to the first side, pressing your right arm into your leg, take a side bend over, letting your spine bend over to the right, pressing down evenly into both legs and lengthening back to center, pushing through your feet to reach up through your opposite hand and then lengthening all the way over And coming back to center, let's do it one more time over to the right. Bring it all the way up. Now, this time, we're going to circle the arm down, bend your knees, and land your hands on your knees here. See if you can find a round spine, and then from here, we're going to lengthen the spine out, feeling that energy reaching between your head and your tail in opposition, maybe even lifting your chest a little bit. Let's go back and forth between a round spine, opening up your lower back, and a lengthened spine, reaching out nice and long. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:03:41]:

We'll go one more round spine. Pause in your round spine. Take your right arm over to the left and find your left side bend. And come all the way up through center and lower down. Let's try the other side. Going to the left first, reaching that right arm up. Side bend over, and then round forward, hands on the knees. Find your round spine here, stretch your back out. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:04:11]:

Lengthen and reach through your chest, through your tail. Again, round through your spine and just enjoy this movement for a moment, yes? And lengthen out through your tail. We'll go one more rounded spine and then reach your left arm over to your side bend. Coming all the way up through center, let's take your hands to the backs of your legs as best you can. Press your legs forward, open your chest, look up to the sky, feel that backbend, and come back to center one more time like this. Reach, big stretch, and come back to center. Alright, let's take it to the end of the mat and we'll come down into a hands and knees position, but we're gonna use that spinal mobility to get there. So, legs still balanced, hip width distance apart. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:05:04]:

Start to nod your chin towards your throat and just slowly let your spine ripple down towards the ground until your fingertips touch. If you need to bend your knees to get there, that's fine, and then we're gonna walk ourselves out to a hands and knees position. Let's bring our hands underneath your shoulders, knees underneath your hips, and just like we did a moment a moment ago, we'll just make a round spine, this time pressing through your shins and your palms, finding space between the shoulder blades. And then a lengthened spine reaching through your chest and your tail, finding length on your front body. Let's cycle through that just a couple more times, once again rounding, and then reaching, last time for each. Rounding, and reaching. All right. So the first thing we're going to try here is spinal balance, which means we wanna bring our spine into that long lengthened position, and we're going to take the first level, let's say, of this exercise. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:06:16]:

Press your left shin bone down. Take your right foot back. Try not to move anything else. So this is the 1st level and it might feel super easy. If we wanna go to the 2nd level, we're gonna remove if your right leg is back, your left arm is reaching out shoulder height, and now you can feel that it's a little more challenging to your center to maintain that long spine while keeping your arm and leg extended. If you feel really good here, you can add a little more challenge by hovering the leg up to hip height and we'll stay here for 8, 7, breathing and supporting ourselves, 5, 4, 3, gets challenging towards the end, 2, building a little heat, and 1. Good. Let's lower the foot down if it's up, the hand down if it's up, and then we're gonna take that same leg out to the side, doing the best you can to reach it out from your hip. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:07:19]:

From here, we're gonna take a little inner thigh stretch by sitting back towards your heel. That should bring some length into that inner thigh. And then as you come forward, you can come back to your starting position, or if it feels great for you, you can press your hip open a little bit. These are some gentle mobility exercises and you get to really temper how far back or forward you go. So let this exercise be yours and of course, if this one isn't working for you, then you can always choose something that will, even if that's taking a few moments for a rest. Honestly, the more you attend to the needs of your body, the better your body will help to signal you with what it needs. Let's go one more back and forward, and bring it all the way through, and then let's bend that extended leg, come back onto hands and knees, and set up for our spinal balance on the other side. Let's round the spine, feeling the stretch first. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:08:30]:

Extend your spine, feeling the length on the front body, and then come back to a centered position. Feeling that long, lengthened spine, we'll shift the opposite leg back first. And I like to just check-in, is everything supported and where I need it to be before I add the arm? And then if everything feels supported, you can add that leg to hip height. Our objective here is to keep a sense of strength and support throughout the back, Definitely support throughout the front and length from fingers to toes or heels. We're here for 3, 2, and 1. Bring the arm down, bring your leg down, and then out to the side, and let's take that stretch back on the other side. Reaching your hip to your heel, big stretching back, and then pressing forward all the way forward. Big stretch back, nice and far, and then reaching through. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:09:40]:

So your body will look for the path of least resistance, which is kind of a great thing about the way that we're built and the way that we move. But also, sometimes we have to challenge it by really making a the shape of the movement and finding a strategy to move through that shape even if it's a little uncomfortable. We're never working for pain or punishment, but discomfort sometimes can teach us a new way to move our body, so it's kind of like dancing a little bit with discomfort. Good. Let's come all the way up, come back onto hands and knees, and then we'll come off your hands and knees, and come on down to sit for a moment. Just take your hands together, a few little meatballs, and then maybe some spaghetti noodles. Those always feel nice to do after being on your hands and knees. Go one more time. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:10:37]:

Excellent. Alright. Let's swivel around to face the end of your mat mat and then we're gonna begin to roll down through your spine. Take your hands behind your legs, peel back rounding back through your pelvis and find that lowest point on your sacrum, on your pelvis here. Seeing if you can just feel a sense of almost pressure through the back of your body, and then slowly take it down all the way to the mat. If you flopped down there, not to worry too much. We'll bring our knees into, the face of the ceiling, and then our heels are close to our sits bones. And then from here, let's just rock your pelvis back, so your lower back gets flat, and then roll your pelvis forward, so there's lots of space underneath. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:11:25]:

Similar to exactly what we were doing when the hands and knees position was happening. So, rolling forward and rocking back. Sometimes it's nice to take your hands on your abdomen to kinda feel what's happening. Let's go one more time forward and back, and then just rest your pelvis and see where it wants to land for you. And we'll call this a centered place. From here, let's take the arms down by the side. Very simply, let's bring your left knee into your chest, and then lower down, and then bring your right knee in. So super simple until we add a little focus. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:12:07]:

As you start to march from one knee to the other, see if you can maintain that centered place with your pelvis. So you're not actively arching your back away from the floor, and you're also not actively flattening it away from the floor. You're just keeping it still. Let's go one more each side, allowing your weight to connect with the mat. And then let's bring your left knee into the chest. And this time, we're just gonna switch legs in the air. A nice easy tap with the same objective. Can you keep your pelvis relatively still as you move your legs? Good. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:12:53]:

Then, from here, can we start to just tap a toe a little farther away? You'll know when it's far enough because your back will start to elevate off of the mat. If you can start to tap it a little farther, if you wanna test drive it. Excellent. Sometimes we can tap it all the way to the edge of the mat. Always keeping that pelvis really quiet and still. You might find a little more effort is needed here. You also might find that you start to brace a little bit more. Think of dropping your weight. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:13:34]:

We'll be here for 4, 3, 2, and 1. Bring your knees in towards your torso and just give them a hug or rock side to side. And then we're gonna place the feet a little wider than your hips so that you have a lot of space between your legs, and let's go into a spinal bridge. So, we'll rock the hips back, pressing through the back of your body, and then begin to peel up through your spine, opening your hips, pressing your pelvis and your chest towards the sky, and really feeling that your arms are pressing down actively into the mat. It's almost like the more you press through your feet and your arms, the higher and more open your front body can get. As you roll down, start to feel your back getting wider. You wanna imagine that your rib cage could expand to either side of the mat, giving you so much space across the back body. And then release. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:14:44]:

Let's go again. Rolling backward, pressing through the spine, peeling up. Sometimes I like to think of my back giving the mat a massage, which is a little different than the mat massaging my back. It feels like it's just words, but if I really concentrate on pressing down through my back and making it wider and more connected to the mat, I get a lot more action through my spine. Let's go one more time. Peeling back, reaching up. And now from here, you have the choice of staying lifted and just pausing here and working the endurance, or let's start taking your right arm back overhead, and then bringing it back down. Then the other arm overhead, Everything's staying still, bringing it back down, and then both arms come back overhead. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:15:48]:

If you can reach them and keep them there as you roll down through your spine. Hopefully, this helps to get a little bit of stretch through your back, maybe through your chest. This is one of my favorites for opening up. Bending your elbows, bringing them all the way back down. Good. Let's walk our feet a little closer together, and then move your feet a little closer to the edge of the mat, so your feet are still touching. We're going to begin curling forward, taking your hands to your legs. Use your arms to come up. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:16:27]:

If you need to push up to get up, that's okay. That's really common, especially in the beginning of Pilates. Come up to your knees and just stretch over your legs, again opening up your back. And then either with your hands forward or behind your legs, let's start to roll back. We're going through each bone of the spine as controlled and slow as possible, but take your time and definitely use help. I've been doing this a very long time. It's my literal job, and I like to remind people of that because when I first started Pilates, I could not do this, and I had to work at it. I had to work at opening up my back, and I had to work at really engaging my trunk muscles. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:17:11]:

It reminds me of a couple of my plants. I like to propagate different leaves. We'll do 2 more of these. And some of these plants come from my mother's house, but she lives in a tropical climate. Subtropical, she likes to say. So the trip to Chicago from and just figure out what they needed. So and just figure out what they needed. So they were just surviving for a while, and now I've noticed as I've kept attending to them, last one to come up, what ends up happening is they start to get stronger and now there's more leaves that are coming up. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:18:00]:

And I love just the metaphor that nature provides us in terms of everything that we're trying to do in terms of strengthening our body. Sometimes we need that adaptation time and just that, like, making it through the exercise before we really understand how to grow within it. Okay. Speaking of which, we're gonna see if we can grow within an exercise called rolling like a ball. So let's bring our heels together, toes apart. You're in a nice tight shape, and the hands go on the knees or on the ankles. And first, we're just gonna try to find a little balance. So, we rock backward and then hover your feet off the mat. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:18:39]:

This might be enough for you. You might feel a little quiver. That's okay. That's exactly where you should be. If you feel confident here or at least curious, you're gonna take a little rock backward towards your lower back without falling and then come forward back to your balance point. So we're just testing the edge of our rock and roll back and forth, and you'll probably feel very shortly that this is indeed an exercise for your torso, for your abdomen, for your hips, maybe even for your brain. Good. So that might be enough for you today. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:19:20]:

And if it is, stay right there and do a couple more If you'd like to try to roll this shape, we're going to roll back to the shoulder blades and come up and find the balance, keeping your feet off the mat. We wanna keep our head in, so we don't bop the back of the head against the mat. It's just to the top of the shoulder blades. Let's try 6 of them. And if you're just rocking and rolling, a okay. Here we go. Tilt your pelvis. Come find your balance. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:19:49]:

That's 1. Rock back, and I think of lifting my seat towards the ceiling as I get back there. Lift, and then I can just roll, hopefully. 3 more. Good. And 2, and 1 more. Good. Come on all the way up. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:20:14]:

Open your legs to a diamond and just take a stretch forward all the way over. Alright. Bring your legs together. We're gonna come back down onto your back, and bring your right knee into your chest. Both hands on top of that knee to keep it simple for today. From here, let's press into the knee, curl forward. And if you need to leave your head down for this one, you can absolutely do it with your head down. So, if we're curling forward, we're gonna think about that knee really aiming right for your right eye, and then extend your left leg in a place that helps you keep that pelvis really centered like we worked on earlier. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:20:54]:

Now from here, everything stays centered as we switch legs. If you were lying on a raft in the water, you'd want there to be no ripples. So nice and still in the torso and easy in the legs. Now, you may have done an exercise like this that goes 3 times as fast. This one is just really working on your hip mechanics, stabilizing through your center. Certainly using your breath to support you, and of course, your abdominals. Yes, let's go 4, 3, 2, and 1. Bring both knees into your chest, and let's rock all the way up to the top. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:21:37]:

Excellent. Alright. Let's come on over onto your stomach. We're going to take a triangle shape with your hands and place it on the mat. Now, if you're feeling very mobile and like you can press up pretty high into a backbend, maybe you'll start with your hands a little closer into you. If you feel like you need to progress it slowly and take a few more steps, then you can start with your hands a little farther away. Focus down, reach your legs long, shoulders on your back, and then begin by pressing into your palms and lift up. Looking forward, finding something interesting to look at, feeling the stretch in your belly, and then come on down. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:22:22]:

You can choose to stay in the same place. I'm gonna move my hands in a little closer so we can get a bit more stretch. You know, pouring the weight down into your hands. And when I say shoulders on your back, it's just a matter of feeling that those blades are part of the support system of your upper back versus supporting your neck. And then let's lower down. We already know how to do that. Support the neck. Right? Far too much if you ask me. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:22:49]:

I'm really good at it. So we're always working on a free and open neck. Lifting up, pulling all the way down, and one more lifting up. Good. Now let's make a decision and choose a placement that you maybe can sustain for just a moment or 2. So we're gonna press up. We'll find that position, shift if you need to. We're gonna pour your weight into your left hand, and just circle the right arm back towards your thigh, and then bring it back. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:23:30]:

Pour the weight into the right hand, circle the left arm back, replace it, lift a little higher through your chest, and lower all the way down. Let's do that one more time. Pressing up. And this time, we'll start with the left hand just to keep it interesting. Reach through, shift into the right hand, we go. Left reaches back, come forward, right reaches back, come forward, lift a little higher, and all the way down. Good. Let's take our hands under our shoulders. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:24:06]:

Shift back into a rest pose, knees nice and wide, arms reaching for the edge of the mat. Just taking a slow, easy breath. From here, we'll take our arms over to the right side of the mat and shift the hips to the left, opening up that side and then let's go to the other side. And, of course, you can always come back to any of these exercises or stretches and take more if you need them. We're gonna tuck the toes under and come back into a standing position like we did at the beginning of class, feeling that balanced weight on either foot. When you're ready, start to drop your tailbone down and roll up through your spine, Thinking length and energy up through the front side of the body and down your shoulders, down your back, down your legs, down through your heels. Good. We'll come back to face each other. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:25:17]:

Let's just finish with some simple, easy breaths, never pushing our breath farther than we really feel is supportive in this moment. So we'll take an inhale as you lift your arms any amount, and then exhale. Breathe easily all the way down. Let's try 2 more of those. Deep breath in. Feeling how it feels to be grounded into both feet, evenly weighted. Last big breath in and release. Wonderful work. 

Jenna Zaffino [00:25:59]:

If you like the way you feel as you move throughout the day, chances are your spine and your body is responding to getting a little bit more movement and mobility throughout the joints of your spine. So it will be a wonderful idea to consider doing some of these movements again this week, or perhaps repeating this class in its entirety. You can look forward to more classes coming in the future that are gonna build on some of the exercises we explored today. Or if it was too much for your ability level today, you can always go back to find one of our chair classes that will offer you a bit more support with a little easier pacing and dynamic. In the meantime, remember you are strong and resilient, and the small moments matter. Great work today, and I'll see you soon.