This is an extra but one of my favorite exercises to help with posture and core control.

Lower body foam rolling.  You can do this, and you'll be happy you did

These exercises are great for strengthening the intrinsic muscles of the feet.  It's so important to pay attention to your feet.  They are the foundation that moves you through your day and life.

These are the classic first five exercises from the mat routine.  These exercises help develop core strength and stability.

These are guidelines to follow when starting and setting up for the side leg series.  Please comment or message me with any questions.  If you feel any pain stop the exercises.

These exercises are great for creating hip awareness, stability, and leg length and control.  

Also be careful stretching. It’s best to stretch a warm muscle, so do these after you’ve moved around a bit. Only go to 60-70% of your maximum stretch. Be kind to yourself and breathe comfortably throughout. If you can’t breathe easily, you’re stretching to far.

Always be careful stretching. Never stretch a cold muscle. Only go for 60-70%of your maximum stretch.

Rib Cage Arms is a fundamental exercise in Pilates. It is a key in understanding and finding the Pilates connection.

Here is our CDI PSG ride. We placed third with a 67.647!

Belles and me on Sunday at FEI Test of Choice PSG. We won the class with a 69.706%

The most difficult thing is finding the perfect place on your head for the strap. If you have cervical spine issues, please check with your doctor before doing this stretch.

This exercise will help you ride perfect balanced corners, bending lines, and circles. It’s also a great suppling exercise for your horse too!

Help create a better outside wall for your horse using these magic circle exercises.

I always do these two exercises before each ride, they help me start each ride with the best balance in my feet and mobility in my spine. My horse really appreciates it too.

I truly find that working from the feet up has the most profound effect on a riders seat. This often under rated area really makes a big impact on the effectiveness and evenness of your seat.

Here is one of the many exercises you can do with the toe corrector to help create a better connection from your feet to your seat, and throughout your whole Powerhouse.

You don't need a toe corrector, all you need is your own feet. Or if you can find the thick rubber bands around broccoli then those work well too.

Often the key to finding the connection in your practice and in the saddle is length. The ability to keep this length working through your whole practice is crucial to finding growth and better spinal movement. It is also so important to use this in the saddle, to create a "deeper" seat.

The easiest way to practice this awareness is in the roll up and spine stretch forward.

Pay special attention to the intention you put in your legs as you execute these two movements. Make sure your energy stays all the way from the feet through the legs as you lift your powerhouse.

Remember that through better reach your can find better lift. Keep this feeling as you move through your exercises.

This is so often forgotten or avoid in our personal practice, but it's truly invaluable in helping use develop not only our Pilates practice, but develop our longer leg and deeper seat. Remember to always work the squareness of your pelvis. Feet are active don't drop the heel of the foot on the bar. It's not how deep your go it's how square you stay. You're working on a lot here so take your time and build your splits, you'll be so pleased you did.

Here are some of the most common mistakes I see when teaching tree. Make sure you keep the focus on the lift of the powerhouse, in relation to the stretch of the hamstring. Square hips and a lifted powerhouse are key to really growing your tree.

Hug on the short box is an exercise that people often practice in a rush, not moving through the powerhouse and pelvis correctly. In this weeks tip we go over how to help move the pelvis properly into the box. This is so great for riders as it allows us to learn how to move through the pelvis and stabilize in the upper powerhouse. Helping riders learn how not to lean back or get left behind the motion.

This deceptively "easy" exercise is often mis-practiced on the box. In an attempt at flatness practitioners often sink, or jam their tailbone into the box, loosing the connection and movement. Many times you see this is the saddle too, when the rider is asked to sit more still, or the sit taller. Learning how to properly lift and move with the connection creates a deep smooth movement that travels effortlessly into the saddle, allowing the tailbone and pelvis to move with the horse while still finding length and lift to carry the connection up to the bit instead of blocking it or balancing on the bit.

Knee stretches are learned right away in Pilates. These challenging but wonderful exercises really do build. It's so important to learn how to do these properly so you can progress to flat, and knees off. These are so great for riders for a number of reasons, but most importantly is the movement you can get in your lower back, the strength you can grow from your feet to seat, and the ability to really stabilize and mobilize from the Powerhouse.

Please remember if you have knee problems, or have had surgeries these are not recommended. Always get the eye and guidance of a well educated teacher to help you.

It's essential to keep your foundation the same, and remember to move from a rounded spine to an arched spine, without changing your angles. This is a spinal change, practicing just the change first a few times before beginning the movement to really establish the correct for is so helpful in nailing this. Also remember to keep your Powerhouse supporting the "arch" of your spine, so you are not dropping your ribs to the springs, and then pinching or locking your back.

This challenge is definitely difficult, but so worth it and so important to really learning how to hold yourself in the saddle, and create that bridge for your horses spine. This exercise relies heavily on the 2X4 work. If you are having a hard time finding stability here go back to your 2X4 work and then try this. The importance of working the correct for can't be overstated. Often in an effort to get the knees up the Powerhouse is dropped and the weight shifts more into the hands, creating a flatter back. Follow the video for tips and ways to create success and grow this invaluable exercise, to help you create a better bridge for your horses back!

This is a wonderful postural exercise, as well as a great stability exercise. It's particularly helpful to riders who have rounded or uneven shoulders, as well as riders who collapse or get left behind the horses motion.

Remember to be careful when mounting as the carriage moves. Work on length and stability throughout the whole series. When you feel well connected on the reformer try to feel how this helps create a better more effective half halt in the saddle.

This exercise builds on the what we've learned in stomach massage and teaser. Learning to pull the powerhouse back to grow forward is integral in how we ride a half halt, and how we use our horses supple balanced energy in the right way.

This exercise is related to work we do on the chair. It's all about foundation and how we interact with our foundation and gravity. Pay attention to what your feet and hips want to do. This is what they will do when they encounter stress or outside forces. Such as trying to create straightness for our horses.

It is so important to not rush through your footwork, whether it be on the reformer as here or on the chair or 2X4. It's the key to really accessing your seat in the saddle. Pay special attention to unifying the lift of the powerhouse with the push. It's important to keep lifting at the top because there is more length than you usually think in your pelvis. The focused time on footwork pays huge dividends in the saddle I promise, as well as in your life. It helps you carry better, walk better, age better.