Seated Gondola Pole

Hey. Hello everybody. Well, I didn't know about you, but I love to do PyLadies, but I like to do a new wrinkles of politeness, but I want it to be [inaudible]. You know, that whole thing. Is it [inaudible]? Is it not? [inaudible]. So here we have our Gondola Poles and I have had several wonderful times in my studio recently teaching with the Gondola Pole as Aegon, the Lapole Apollonius piece of equipment, applying PyLadies movement principles to it. And I thought, wow, I'd love to share this with you guys plots anytime and invite you to experiment at home. There's much more than what we're going to do today. This is just a little introduction to it. So let's just start and take a deep breath in and XL and take deep breath in and exhale and a deep breath in and exhale and another deep breath in and exhale.

And then find yourself seated on your sit bones. Open your legs. Now all the positions that we're going to use, a lot of it is a choice. So I like to start with mine, knees over my ankles and just under my hip joints. And we're gonna round forward and we're going to take our pole. So we might want a little explanation about the pole when we use the pole, the Gondola Pole, um, Amy and I were measuring, it's about five feet long.

So actually anything that would be this long, that's that you've got handy if you don't have your Gondola Pole with you, if you can't pack it in the suitcase and you're going to bring your hands in. And we're going to look at our risks movement first. So Joe [inaudible] had this wonderful thing called a beanbag. I didn't have one for many years because it seemed like, well, why? Why should I have a beanbag? Doesn't do much. Well, we all give these corrections of people, what you call in dance, breaking the wrist.

And what we really want to do is work the wrist extensors. So we're going to start imagining that we've got Joe's beanbag between there and open your hands a little bit and push your wrist forward. And then the other one forward and forward and forward and forward, forward. And as you do that, you're going to imagine that you have a string and you're pulling the bean bag up. Things you might notice. Now I've been doing this a little longer. This g I noticed, um, you know some of you are over there rowing a boat. So a little bit faster and push and push and push and push and push and push and push and push. Push, push, push, push, push, push, push, push. Bring it in, try it close together and [inaudible], push, push, push. Yeah, push. Now you don't want your elbows and your shoulders hyper extended.

So try to relax the elbow a little bit and see if you can get a little more wrist action in there. Push, push, push, push. And you'll notice maybe that one arm has seems to work a little bit better, glides a little bit better as I watched both of you. And then I observe myself in my mirror at home. Good. And then let's go out.

So we're just over our little bit beyond the range of our hips and push, push, push, push, push, push, push, push, push. And we feeling that, yes, when we though those frowns look really good there and push and then bring it down and then lift and lower your shoulders down. And just take your little finger out for a minute and wiggle it. Good. And from here I want you to imagine a line that goes from the little finger all the way around the back. Kathy grant called it the piano muscle and down. So a circle. Can you imagine that?

What I would would like you to do is bring the circle up toward your neck and just lift the bar, the bar up, the Gondola pole up, and the circle is hanging around from your little finger to your little finger and it's kind of going around your neck. Do you feel that? It would be fair to say that we all do that on some days. Can you lower the circle down so that it, it goes around and maybe right where your ribcage, the bottom of your rib cage. All right, so feel that. So when we're doing different exercises, one of our plans is going to be to introduce proprioceptive feedback to help us feel this position as opposed to that position. So I can say circles down and people seem to like that cue. So from here, let's just go lower this down and let's lift it up and lower down and lift it up and lower it down. So we're going a little higher, but we're not going to go higher than just to the forehead and down.

As you do that, I want you to be aware of do you risks, want to go or are you really feeling that that exercise we did for the risks that we can really feel that round the extensors of the hand and up good and down. Bring the pole to the middle of your feet. And so I'm going to ask you to just take a moment and notice that your hands should be as high as your ribcage. In other words, as we start to move along class, you might notice that you start climbing the pole. If you climb the pole, it's really hard to keep your shoulders down. So right now puts your hands. Let's put the left one on top and I want you to press down as if you were drilling, drilling for gold. I didn't want to drill for oil. I want to drill for gold. So you're, you're drilling. Now push down and feel the connection from the little thing or the little finger that circle all the way around to the rib cage. Can you feel that?

And then just release and then give that a little more information. Good. And then release and in a little more and release and then a little more and release. Now give it a little bit and just have your scapula slide up and slide down and your scapula up and down. Now I am going to suggest that we might want to breathe two or three times in the middle of this class.

So I like to inhale here and exhale and inhale and exhale. Now people who are very observant will say, hmm, her left hand is on top, so we better change. And this is where when you're changing again, you're going to, if you keep changing, you'll keep going up the pole. So you have to kind of replace and lift and down. And let's pick up the speed and, and, uh, I think you've got the concept now and up and down and up and down and up and down. Now while we're here, I want you to protract and retract and protract and retract and protract and retract and protract and retract. Change, chance, and protract and retract. Now for me, exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Works with the organ systems in the body.

Exhale and inhale and exhale and inhale and change hands again. Shoulder up, up and down and lift and down and up and down. Lift and up and up and up and up and down. Now I'm noticing something, so I'm going to just point it out, but I'm not gonna say who. This is a really good tool. What your clients will say to you as, wow, I really like it.

I can feel where my pelvis is while I'm doing a lot of this arm work. Here's the lift that's actually coming from the Scapula. And here's the lift that's coming from the spine and the rib cage going over. So let's just see if we can isolate just the scapula up and down and the sky. A up and down and up and down and up.

So I don't know if you felt change, but I did and probably you did too, because it's just the way it is to be human. So let's come back to here and bring the pole out and we're going to lift up and down and then bring it out to here. So you're going to take an inhale on an exhale. You're going to pull and an inhale and an exhale hole, and an inhale and an exhale. Now change how you think about this and think.

Push it out and then push it out and in. So scapula apart, scapula together, scapula apart, scapula together. Scapula. Pardon? Hold. Take your right elbow and Bin and Center and two and center three and center four and send her. Inhale. Exhale.

Now if you look up here and I'm not in the right position, that's because I'm looking at you and center and down and lift up and bend and up. Now come down again and imagine that this pole has a 50 pound weight on each side and push it up using your back and lower it down. So push up and down. Push up and down and up. Nice breathing ladies.

Up and down and up and down and put it down. Bring your feet out in front of you and put them together. I'm going to give you a choice. If you do short box with the strap over top of your feet, feet together, you can do that or you can open them up slightly. I like mine open. Okay, so those of you who are watching, please do it however you would like. So we're going to start here.

We're going to do the short box series and then we're going to pay attention a little bit to the wrist. You can see my left arm, which would be Amy's right arm. I have a little bit. This is my tendency. So I'm going to watch that. So take an inhale and exhale round. Inhale, exhale. Ah, and stay. Now let's go. So inhale and exhale and roll up. Inhale and exhale and really dive over. And Ah, so I'm watching risks ladies. Oh yes.

That's why we started with our risks. [inaudible] one more. Please watch that right wrist, Michelle. Good. Now we're going to put it together. So from here, round over, come back. One, two, three, four. Now you're not going to be on your chair. You're going to be just in that round back position as if you had the strap on your feet. You probably won't be as far back as you would be on a reformer because you don't have a strap.

And then you're going to lift up and come forward and back. One, two, three, four, up and over. Back. One, two, three, four. Up and over. Let me watch back. One, two, three, four, and up and over and come all the way up. Sitting straight. Now I didn't say, although you both are doing that nicely, we are on the edge of the chair. So we're not sitting back. So we should be able to hinge back without hitting the edge of our chair and come up for hinge and back and up and two and up and three and up and four and up and back and lift.

Now sit bones are rockets and they shoot you straight up and down and back and lift and up and down and back and live. Shoot up and down. I actually think short box is harder off of the short box and down and bring the bar down for a moment and just adjust your shirts bar is going to come out here. Now we're gonna, we're going to twist, so twisting over to the side and then back to the center and twist and center, twist and center. Be Aware of the weight on your sit bones. You want to make sure it's equally weighted.

So the tendency is of course you go to the right and the left on weights and twist and center and twist and center. Now twist and roll back so you're not, you're going to maybe just touch the edge of your chair. Round up and center and twist and round and up and center and twist. I'm watching and up, n center and twist and [inaudible] and up in center. One more set, twist and round and up and center and twist and around and up and center.

Very nice. Now you're going to take the pole like this, Ben, one elbow and stretch and come forward and twist and reach and side and center and twist and stretch and back and center and twist and reach and back. Watch your wrist twist. I would say if you're not challenged to watch your wrist, then we don't need to do this whole sequence. Cool. Now we put it together and twist and round and reach and up and center and twist. Round, reach and up and send her and twist.

Round reach and up and center and twist. Round reach and up. One more set. I hear there are great whites out there today, so imagine you are cleaning out the ocean. They told me there's a surf school here. We need to take care of those little kids and back and down and lift and lower and just circle around.

Massage your thighs, whatever. All right, so back into here. We're going to bring the pole to vertical. Now in this position, again, I have to remind myself, so I'll remind you, bring the hands. They're lower than you think. If we were going to air, we could probably air and have them too low rather than have them too high. So again, think about your circle and you're going to take a nice inhale here and then you're going to exhale and you're going to think of spine stretch. And as you do spine stretch, the pole will move forward on the diagonal. So this is not us being sloppy, this is intentional.

And then we're going to roll up on an inhale and as we exhale, the shoulders slide down the back and can push into the pole and we can reestablish that position. Does that make sense? Okay. So we have inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale, lift tall, round forward and articulate and ah, inhale forward and round and up. Change hands. Always have to change hands. Inhale, exhale, inhale and exhale. Alright, take the pole off to your side. Readjust your hairdo in this position. Um, you gotta Take Cam, uh, take note of maybe a slight widening of your legs.

So it's not, it's not a big, it's not a dance position. So I like to have my feet here and I liked the pole to be somewhere in line with my metta tarsals. So to make this real clear, what I would not like is for us to think that the pole, the, we wanted it intentionally sidewards because that is not what's called the angle of scaption and the angle of scaption, but it just really means that the design of the, of the shoulder blade was made for us to work where we could see. And so if you're going to turn your head, you're going to turn your arm. Therefore we want to be in that kind of functional angle. So there we are, we're in this position and move your hand down, take your opposite hand, your right hand and go up and over to the top of the pole. And then slide the other hand down so you get a natural side bend for you.

So it won't be, again, it won't be truly side. It's going to be diagonally side on purpose and lift and come up, up and over and lift and up. So I like an inhale and an exhale. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Inhale. Step two, inhale, exhale and pull and lift and a top arm, bottom, elbow lift. And uh, are we feeling this up and, and lift and up and over in bend and lift and up change sides. So if you're doing this at home, you'll notice we're on a wood floor. It does make it a little, you feel the pole sometimes is skittering across the floor. That could be us, but we'll pretend it's the floor. So you may want to do this with, with one or more matter on a different surface.

So you can try it out and see what you find. So first one is just inhale and exhale, kind of size yourself up and inhale and exhale. Watch your left sit bone. Keep it down. One more without the elbow pool. So that would be step one, step two for some people is that little bit of extra that Cathy grant talked about on side bands.

Using the breath to open up the rib cage more. So when I go over here, I'm not thinking so much pull on the elbow but open the left ribcage. So as we go over, you're going to feel that left rib cage from my students. Point of view open and come back to the center. Go over here. So let's go to step three. Get yourself lined up over and up.

So it's always a good idea in your class to let you get, let your people find their position. So we're going to go over and add the elbow and up and look and center and over and up. Now this is rib cage movement center and over and Ah, rib cage center and over and up. And I need to watch this and rib cage and center. Good. Back to the other side. So I will point out that when it's, when it's ribcage movement and you're going to round it is really just ribcage to be very careful that it's not the lumbar spine or the legs going over.

So not that anybody was doing that, we're just, we could demonstrate that for everybody. Um, let's not and over and up and rib cage and center and over and Ah, and ribcage and center and over and Ah, and rib and center and over and uh, and rib and center. Very good. Bring your legs back together again. It's nice to break up the pieces. So there's side bendings then there's a forward bendings and extensions. But right now we're going to come back and we're going to start rolling. So we're out there looking for the great whites out the window, right?

So as you row, row, row, row your boat and reverse, get a little kayak and then again and see if you can add a little bit of thoracic movement. Can You keep your feet grounded and then reverse. I got look, that's so I can just, I can hide that. I don't feel like I'm trembled. It looking great. Coming back to the center. Very good. So from here, open the legs again.

Right hand on top. So we're going to round down and we're going to arch up and come back up and center. Inhale. Exhale, round. Inhale up the Poles. Like my sternum goes up the pole and sand here. Yeah. [inaudible] oh, okay.

Oh yeah. Change hands. Now I'd like to watch and inhale round forward. Sternum up the pole, up the pole, up the pole and back to center. Good. Inhale and forward the pole. We'll go forward. Now. Really feel like your sternum is going up, up, up, up, up.

Come back and put a little downward force into the pole so you reestablish the shoulders and inhale. Exhale, round forward. Good. And pull up the pole. Up The pole, up the pole, up the pole, up the pole. That looks good. Take it out over to the left side. Get your hands lined up. And I like my feet about, I like them together, but um, I don't like them open. Again, this is a matter of preference. So you, I don't care which one you choose.

You're going to do the same thing here. So first what we're going to do was we're going to do the round version. So inhale, exhale, round and back and sit. [inaudible] let's change it. The other side on this exercise, I am choosing to bring my arm, my body when I do the side positions. So the bottom arm is the shoulder blade that I'm turning toward.

So inhale and exhale round and round and up and close the circle. Why am I watching that if good. And then back to the center again. So one of the things that you'll notice in terms of keeping yourself square, and as I watched both of you, yes, this one is going to come up more than this one. So that would be the position as you're leaning. What's important is that as you come back up, they, they calibrate themselves, they become more neutral. Okay.

So now we do the extension version. So we'll have the right hand on top. So inhale and exhale round. Now extend up, inhale, exhale and extension. Yeah, that's it. Adage, shoulders. Good. One more. Good. And back to the other side. It's looking good ladies. Now as you're doing this, notice if the feeling on one side, when we were doing this last night, Amy and I were doing a class, we noticed that one side, it's like, wow, that's really easy to do.

The other side, this totally doesn't feel normal. So that this starts to uncover different, different ways we move in different imbalances or just things that we're more comfortable doing. So we have an inhale and exhale and come up [inaudible] and inhale, and I'm watching and sternum up the pole, up, up, up, up, up, up. Use the poll. Good. And inhale and exhale and up. Good. And inhale.

Exhale and up and come center and bring your pullback to the middle. Very good. Now this is not the class where you have your hair done before, because if you don't have a Hairdo, one is finished. So from this position now, you might want to go a little wider because what we're going to do is we're going to call it, it's lady Macbeth. We're going to be the witches stirring the pots. So you're going to go all the way around towards your left and come all the way around until you're right. Now we're going to do that with round.

And then as you come to the center sitting vertical and all the way around and sitting vertical all the way round and sitting vertical all the way around and sitting vertical change, hands reverse and other side, all the way around. Sit vertical all the way around and sit vertical all the way around and sit vertical and one more all the way around. Nice breathing ladies. Good change hands. Now when you're doing this particular series, you will notice sometimes that the poll move. Um, it has been my experience that sometimes the poll moves, you could say we're out of control of the poll. The other thing that happens is as you start to do the series, your spotty starts to get looser. And so suddenly the position of the pole, your body is doing more movement in the, so you have to kind of redefine where the places, so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

And that doesn't necessarily mean that you're out of control that you may, although you will, may be so what? We're going to go around this time so your left hand is on top, you're going to your left round. As you get over your knee, you're going to pull up and you're going to come up on the side in an arch and come back to the center and all the way around and our church and center and round and arch and center and round and arch and center and change hands in reverse and all the way around and are good and center and all the way around. Keep those circles and arch. Yeah, that's what I mean to send her. I think you're getting more emotion now all the way around and are good and center and all the way around. Nego all the way around. Stay there, stay there.

Now stay over your leg, go over to the side, go over to the side more and more, more over to the side. Both of you now try to come up in an arch over top of that knee, over, over, over, over, over, over, over, and then up and center. You see how that goes? Okay. So what's happening is that's why your sticks are moving around is you're starting to open up your ribcage and suddenly the pivot point doesn't, isn't it? You may find your stick goes in and out. So let's try two in each direction again.

And when you make that extension, you want to teach, you want to teach round over this leg, come all the way around and try to arch inside of that space and then get centered on your sit bones. So here we go and circle around arch two, three, four and circle and around and arch two, three, four, change hands and circle and round. And our church, that side is easier for me. May Not look as good, but boy feels easy and up and center and bring your feet back together again. Different, different. Yeah. Do you feel your rib cages opening up it?

Yeah. Okay. So from here, just a little bit more to go. Uh, so up just to the forehead and then down. So we're going to start now leaning front, tailbone out, and go all the way up to that forehead position and then articulate back up and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. So you'd call this a forward hinge. Inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale. Now we're going to do two more on the second one.

You're going to stand up from that hinge position and inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and reaching out to your hands. Put the weight in your feet, unweight and stand, uh, good. Take your feet out into a small [inaudible] v position and widen your arms a bit and lift up and down. So you could do any of those exercises that we've done from here, but let's do something that Joe did and Mary Bowen's archival footage. So bar to here, and you're going to go over to the side and come up and over and up.

If you've seen any of the archival footage, Joe liked to do wrestling with poles. So this is, here's to Joe in his poles. I guess that might need to be edited and there and uh, now over and then come around and complete the circle and up. So was very surprised when I saw when I first saw that Joe had been doing this stuff up at Jacob's pillow and over and around and come up and bring it down. I think it's good when you're doing something seated in your opening up body parts and giving people new information to complete the work standing because that helps integrate, um, the good things that you've created into functional activity. So this is one more of Joe's pieces where you do a slight little thoracic extension here and then come up and let's just do that a couple more times.

Reach back and come up. So this is done in the upper back and up. Now from that back bend, you're going to lift up, bend over and down and one to three roll up to here. And then remember you're 500 pounds, you have to lift and then back and up. Then over one, two, three, rolling up to three and uh, and up.

Bend over and lift up. One, two, three, and press it up and bring it down and put the pole down. Okay. And you're done.