Advanced Pilates - Circular Crunches

Hi. I am Dory. This is Advanced Pilates. I am going to show you how to do a circular crunch. So, go and seat yourself in the middle of the mat, but a little bit just further down, grab on to your hamstrings and unroll your spine, one vertebra at a time, connecting your spine with the mat. Take a big, deep breath in and as you exhale, bring both hands right behind your head, resting nice and comfortably. And this time, as you inhale and you exhale, I want you to rotate your spine under pulling your navel into your spine and your spine right into the mat, getting into a nice Pilates neutral position. And you are going to lift your upper body up off the mat. So again, I dont want you to tuck your chin to your chest, or let your head drop forward. I want it just resting nice and comfortably. And you are going to lift your legs to 90 degrees. We will basically make like a little circle with our upper body, keeping the shoulder blades lifted the entire time. So this position, right here is your start and your finish. So, you are going to rotate to the right, come up higher to the center, rotate to the left, come back to center. Inhale, exhale, right, center, left, center, right, center, left, center; one more, right, center, left, center, great job. Let's just reverse it, to the left, center, right, center, left, center, right, center; last two, inhale, exhale, left, center, right, center; last one, left, center, right, center, great job. Bring those knees in towards the chest, look towards the navel, inhale and exhale, roll up, sitting up nice and tall. Lets go ahead and move on to a side plank.