Feet and Footwork Tutorial

I'm Troy McHardy. I'm from Cleveland, Ohio and it's so nice to be back at plottings anytime. One of the things I love about coming here is this behind me. We've got water in Cleveland, but it's not that I'm here today to talk about footwork and I think footwork is such an amazing tool that we have and that the reformer offers because you know, we put our feet in the shoes all the time and getting out of the shoes and onto that foot bars. Amazing thing. So let's go start with three red springs on the reformer and we're going to place the feet into a little v. So we have the feet on the v now with feet work would I like to see my clients do my students, is 60% of the push become [inaudible] is from the big toe.

Second toe, 40% goes out. So this structures the foot, so think of 60% between the big toe and second toe, 40% out. And that usually lines the foot up with the ankle. So Amy, let's go ahead and take an inhale. And this Exxon is push out and stretch and pull back in and push and stretch. Good.

And pull back and let's do a couple more and push and stretch. Excellent. And back in and prescence stretch. Very good. And back in, you notice that when Amy pushes out, she keeps those heels down. All right, so the heels don't move. They line up with the gear bar. So this keeps it isolated into the hip joint also.

Let's bring it back in. Now, another thing I'd like to do with footwork is I like to ask my students to take their feet and kind of do a little like you're shortening the bar just a little. So we're taking that big toe second toe and we're just kinda hugging the bar. Gentle squeeze of the hill. So let's inhale the tax helm. Push out very good and pull it back in. Push out in stretch. Good and back in. Lovely.

Let's do one more and push out in stretch. Very good. And back in. So kinda changes it up a little bit. Let's go up to your heels now. So let's put the heels back in that V in right in the middle of the hill. We work so much with the behind the legs, with plots. So it's important that you get the center of that heel right in the middle, right on the bar.

So you feel that connection way up here in the lower glute muscle. So let's squeeze the heels together, the sticker inhale, and this exhale, and let's push the carriage out and stretch. Good. And let's pull it back in. So there's a gentle squeeze of the heels pushing out and a gentle squeeze of the heels. Bring it back in. I have the foot, Dorsey flex toes are nice along here. Let's do two more. Press and back in, and one more and press very good and back in. All right, let's go to a parallel position.

So parallel and let's move it down to your toes once and this elevate the heels up. Now when we lift the heels up, this is where that weight placement comes into play. Big Toe, second toe, 60% 40% out through the rest of the fee. So we, the heels lifted. We're going to try to keep those heels there and we're going to take our inhale and exhale and we're going to push the carriage out and stretch. Good. And Paul back in push and stretch. So we noticed those heels are not moving and there's so much beautiful work going down here through the metatarsal range.

Good. And press us, do one more and back in and one more and push out in session. Let's hold. All right, so we have a long line here. I asked my clients to separate their toe from their thigh, keeping that weight placement throughout the whole picture, throughout the whole movement. Now we're going to lower the heels down softly. So here we go. The heels lower down. Good. And I'm looking at the weight placement and the heels come right back up.

So it'd be very easy to let the heels lower down and to roll out on a little tov to do something different with their feet and back. Obviously two more please. So down. Good and back up and go down. Good. And back up. So you notice when we do this, we have a lot of movement down through here and very restrictive movement up through here. So we're really stabilizing. Can we do one more perfect and bring it back in and it's been those knees and bring it in. Now we're going to go into a wrap position, so we're going to bring the feet up and we're going to wrap those toes around.

It's almost like you're going to knock all your toes and this really activates all the intrinsic muscles you have in your feet. If you go to an orthopedic surgeon and you got foot surgery, one of the things that are going gonna make you do is called a domain of the foot domain. This is about the same thing. We're really activating all these beautiful muscles, bones, tendons, everything that we have enough foot during this exercise, this then how? Let's exhale and let's push out and stretch one. Excellent, and let's pull back in and pushed two and back in. You can see those metatarsal starting to activate go three and back in and go back for good and back in.

Now if you're cramping a lot and this is just impossible for you to do, it's perfectly acceptable to bring your foot up a little bit and just to gently curl that same thing there. All right, so this is a general curl. We're still hitting these muscles in the feet in this position. Anytime that foot is pushing against the bar with this spring, those muscles are coming alive in your feet and they're really, really recruiting, making four very strong fee healthy body. Let's do one more and back in. All right, let's bring our heels out to the sides now. So once again, we're looking for it to go into the middle of the heel.

We're looking for that great knee alignment over that second toe and again for the bar to touch the middle of the hill so that we can feel the back of the leg. Let's stick it in here now and let's exhale. Let's go ahead and push out and stretch. Good and pulled back in and push and stretch. Good. And pull in. Let's do one more and push and stretch.

Perfect. And pull back in. So I'm looking for a pretty stationary foot here. That's not going to move around. I liked, it's how my students, when they stretch their knee, let's pull that navel up higher. I studied from Bruce Tang and Bruce was an incredible dancer and he never wanted my body become static. So knee stretches. Pull the navel up and we bend the knee and bring it back in and we press out in, lift that naval that's perfect. And bring it back in.

And let's do one more and press out and stretch. Good. And pull it back in. Now let's try this the, I see my idea that we had with the toes. So just we're right on the heels and just a little bit of gentle hug the bar. So like the heels are kind of this hugging, trying to sh they ass. Shorten the bar. Big Difference.

Back in and press and back in. Good more. Let's do one more and press very good and pull it back in. All right, let's go down to the toes again. Perfect. And with the toes. Let's do that little short in the bar. All right, so a little hug of the bar. We go press out and stretch and reach one and pull back in. Press two and and press three.

Good. Let's do one more place and press for good and pull in. Very good. Let's bring your heels back to a parallel position. This is an exercise I do a lot with my athletes. They've got these shoes on their feet all the time.

Getting these feet out of the shoes and on the bar is such an incredible thing for them. And I like to do a little bit more weight placement, weight transfer. So we're going to press the carriage out with two legs. So go ahead and push out. Now we're going to stabilize. We're going to keep one foot absolutely still on the carriage. We're going to bring one leg up to a tabletop position. Perfect.

Now we hold that there and it's a nice table top and this need bends. Then we bring it back in. Let's try it. So stay there and let's put foot back down. So we go two feet. Press away. Let's bring the other leg up. Excellent. And this bring it back. And with control, let's go down to the toes and try that. So way placement, everything lined up. Pelvis neutral, 60% 40% right? So here we go.

We press security away. We bring this leg up to a table top. Now that flips really act, reacting to what we're doing here. We bend the knee and we pull it back in. Good. Let's try the other leg and go up. Yeah, I said, and the leg comes up and we pull it back in. Very good. Let's do one more exercise.

So let's say that you've got some problems in the foot down there by the heel, the federal outta problem. All right, so this is an excellent exercise to help you get over this. So let's go head and push with two feet. So let's go push. Now let's bring that leg up to a table top position. This lord, this heel down some. Now think of this heel Steen right there. Bend that knee and bring it back in and try to keep that heel there. Good. So it's a big stretch. Good. Let's try the other leg.

So we push with two, we bring the other leg up, this heel lowers down good, and we slowly bring it in trying to stabilize that heel and that position, bring it in. So footwork is such an incredible tool for you to have. It really strengthens defeat. It's a nice warm up. It's just a wonderful way to start your session. Thank you.