Find Space in Your Spine

So Jennifer's going to help me do a little demonstration of just how to find a little bit of space in your spine. And a lot of times I talk to my clients, um, and I use the alliteration or the term from Shakespeare out damn spot because every one of us has a damn spot in our spine that won't stretch. And one of our jobs is to figure out where that spot is so that while we're doing our work and all this fancy, you know, this and that with our movement that we're still concentrating on finding how to get length out of that one spot. So one thing I like to do is just lay flat and just try to relax my abdominal muscles completely so that they drop. Because I think another thing that like we so frequently get into and where you start doing our exercises is that as those muscles begin to work and then they pop out.

So to really just like be here and even if you would need to to bend the knees, that's, do that for a second. Let that, yeah, right here. Bend the knees and feet flat. That's it. And now can the tummy muscles even drop more easily? Like sometimes you just got to take a load off and just relax. Right. And then I even will put my hands on my tummy sometimes and just kinda like give myself a little massage. Like let things just drop, let them fall.

I think that's another thing that kind of happens to us as we get older. Like we have a little bit like dissociative kind of thing going on where we're not really connecting to our bodies. So feel it. Where is it? What's, what's tense, what's not, you know, tense. What, what holds us back? What, what are we more willing to get into? What are we not willing to get into? Um, and then just from here, just bring your chin to your chest. We can keep the hands on the ground. And once again, just try to let your tummy muscles just drop into the ground and go ahead, put your hands in there and kind of give them a little press massage. I'm down now. Curl up even higher. And can they still keep just dropping down, uh right and then curl up even higher.

And can they drop down even more and curl up even higher and drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop. Right? So I just do a little exercise like that for myself. And then you can take it up on the wall. So we can stand now and let's start with your back to the wall and we'll begin with your feet. Maybe like 10 12 inches in front of the wall. So make it easy. Heels together, toes apart and very similar to being on the ground.

There's some spot that doesn't like to be on the wall so you can bend the knees a little bit. Right? And then once again, try to get that sense of when you were laying on the ground, how much can your stomach muscles just fall back into the wall? So it's not such a tense, grippy kind of feeling, but a kind of an easy feeling. And then let's just simply drop the chin to the chest and you'll begin to just pee. You good? And pause a sec. Cause, I don't know if you noticed, but there's like a whole bunch of bones that aren't on the wall all of a sudden. Right, right. So like really take your time and just write only when your body releases do you make that decision to roll away from the wall.

So you kind of like let the ideas flow from your body up to your brain rather than the other way. And then let's just hang out here for a sec. Good. And now again, in this position, can the head just relax? Can the belly move? Skills drop? Good. And now when you roll back up the wall, not only do we want each bone to go on the wall, but we want to kind of make some space between each of those spots and coming up. Good. So at this point, where's your spot? What spot do you feel is where like it's the toughest for you to articulate?

She kind of recognizes two spots. I have two spots too, so we're the lucky ones. Good. So it's good to just get in touch with that. Like what is that spot? Cause chances are when Jennifer's teaching all day, when I'm teaching all day, when you guys are doing your work all day and running around chasing your kids, getting water, getting this, getting that, like those two spots are what are doing the brunt of the work. So when you come in and do your plot, these workouts, you go for a run on the beach or you do anything else, you know, be aware of like, Oh I gotta like lighten up on those areas or figure out a way of working differently. So I let my work, um, go through my whole spine and not just focus on two spots. So one more time, let's just drop the chin down and just peeling off.

So here she's between her shoulder blades. So she's taken a little time, right? And you can breathe, right? Cause just inhaling, exhaling and do it can help out. And then she might get into her other little spot. And another little technique I use is if I put some pressure down into my feet and try to lift up into my waist, then I'm kind of alighting out of my little spots a little better even. And then to roll back up the wall, you can create some more length to grow tall. Good.

And then your goal would be to get your feet to go closer and closer and closer to the wall until your heels are touching the wall. And all the bones of your spine are too.