Long Spine Massage and Short Spine Massage exercises are two of the most beautiful and technical pieces of choreography on the reformer.  Translation?  They are super fun, super effective and kind of hard to follow in a class setting 🙂  There are so many wonderful bits and pieces to these two exercises, but it can be easy to lose some of them in the midst of just figuring out what’s going on!

I think a lot of students skip these two exercises in class for fear of doing it wrong or hurting themselves, and instructors avoid teaching them for the same reasons.  I hope this video helps you get past the “scary” and into the “exciting” of long and short spine!  If you have a reformer at home, feel free to follow along.  If not, watch the video anyway a few times through and really take in what’s happening.  Then apply what you’ve learned the next time you are at the studio.  You might surprise yourself (and your instructor :)!

Keep in mind, there are various ways of performing these exercises, depending which Pilates training your instructor has been through.  There are no rights and wrongs!  Just different variations.  If you keep your legs together or hip distance apart, or breathe in when I breathe out, that’s ok.  The basic components are the same across most Pilates disciplines.  Have fun!