V-Sit with Long Pole

Hi there. I'm Jillian Hassell and this is part two of some archival exercises using this time, a 48 inch pole that I learned from Kathy grant back in the early eighties in the Bendel era. So this is Michelle and we're going to start, I called these the, these sit with the long pole exercises and again it relates to learning to control thoracic rotation, especially if there's an imbalance like I have with scoliosis, like Michelle has scoliosis. So I'm going to show first or Michelle is going to show to kind of rest exercises to put in between because these exercises are so much concentration in so much work. So when you're doing these at home you can insert either the star Gazer or the spine stretch as a rest. Oh there go the knees. Oh well I need oil. Okay, so the feet are going to be about to hit with a part, not in a huge wide v sit.

The why do you sit the harder the exercise is going to be so about where you do spine stretch and Michelle is going to take her arms up on an inhale and place them behind her and go into kind of a thoracic arch here and just working the neck first. So she's looking up, this is called stargazer by the way. It's from Corolla tree air, one of my other mentors. So she's inhaling and lifting the breastbone. She's going to lift the head up and exhale and just drop it down and relax and you can roll it a little bit from side to side. And when you arch again, go ahead and lift. Be sure not to crunch your neck. You want to have a lift through the back of the neck and lifted up on an inhale and drop it down.

And now she's going to do a half roll to the right and a half roll to the left and half roll to the right. Good and a half roll to the left. And then if you're able, you do a full neck roll and you're going to do a stargaze to open the eyes, right? Lift up on an inhale, exhale down around across the chest, inhale up and exhale down. And of course the arms are still supporting you. Go ahead, back the other way, just two each way. So this is a real nice rest one. Anything to open the body up these days. We need it. So now we're going to take the 48 inch pol and place it across her thighs just above her knees and she's going to press down strongly on the bar with the palms of the hands and really lift up through the throat, the thorax. Oh, and I forgot to mention if you watched, um, our tutorial number one, Michelle has a higher right hip and you can see that she's not sitting evenly.

So we're going to take a small little wedge and lift up the left sit bone and work to even out so that she can sit up out of her spine as evenly as possible with the hips riding level. And remember, uh, when you're watching here that the right side is her dominant side in her curvature. So we're going to be working on that breathing into the left side. And when she gets into rotating, working on rotating, especially counterclockwise since her wind is clockwise. Okay, so now back to spine stretch. We want to draw the energy up through the crown of the spine, right through the belly and up through the spine here, pressing down on the bar, lifting the breastbone up. Inhale. And as she exhales, she's going to do a nice spine stretch. Rolling that bar.

It's a little lumpy over the knee caps. And notice that the bar goes out to her forearms, she reaches forward. That's an exhale and inhale, pushing down on the bar and rolling and stacking the Vertebra up. Now if you're teaching this to your client, go ahead and do it again. I often kneel behind.

I'm not going to do that today because I would mar your view, but you can see when she's in this forward bend, her curvature is much more dominant on that right side. So we really as she rose up, want her to inflate using that image of the one lung breathing through that left side. And just once again, exhale, pressing down on the bar really gives some resistance. You can do this also with a foam roll in your lap. It's really nice reaching out and rolling back up. So that's your to rest exercises when you get tired from Kathy grants work.

So now we're going to start the these sit with the long pole and you'll see a similarity if you've already watched the tutorial on the red pole, but now we don't have the floor as our friends. So she's got to do all that work that she did with the red pole sitting up tall, really working against the pull of gravity. So we're going to take a breath in and as she exhales, float the bar up to shoulder height or chest level. Good. And then take a breath in and float it back down. And we'll do that three times. Take a breath in, floating, moving only on the exhale.

And we really want to keep those um, arms working out of the back. And back down and once again, floating up. Good and back down. Good. Very nice. So now we're gonna take another breath flow to chest level, but we're going to work on going much more overhead. So let's take three breaths to get overhead.

And the eyes are focused straight ahead. Very important to stay focused with the icer that the head is writing correctly on the spine. Good. And we want to watch that as the arms go overhead. That right shoulder isn't popping up. Good. Now pressing down, she's going to reach up, but pull the shoulders down. Pull shoulders down. Is I pull up? Yes. Now take a breath in and pressing the underarms. Bring the barge slowly to chest level. Really pressing through the lats, gliding the scapula down the back. Good and back down. Good.

And one more time. Just that. Take a breath and let's exhale to chest level. Good. One more breast. Stabilizing the scabs down and breathing into that left side overhead. You can give a little resistance there. She has to pull her shoulders down as I press up. Take a big breath.

Feel the energy out of your head as you come to chest level. Nice, Michelle. Beautiful and back down. Good. Do you need to take a break or we go on your, okay, good. All right, so we're going to go on and take a breath and float to chest level. Now remember that Michelle has this curve that pulls her clockwise to the right. So we're going to inhale and rotate to the left and work on sting long and tall out of that rib and exhale to center. And now the right side, which is the easy one, you'll notice she can go farther, much easier.

That's the way the spine likes to go. Good. And once again to the left. Inhale and exhale. So her gaze has to rotate with the bar and inhale, she's looking out over the center of the bar. Good. And then take a nice breath and float the bar down and rest. Good. You need a break? You okay? All right. Which one? Stargazer. Okay, so I'm going to grab the bar.

She's going to reach your arms back and lift up and then drop down. Good. And once again, lift up and drop down. And let's go right away into the full circles. You're going to roll. Let's roll your head to the right and round, or that's left. But that's okay for the folks at home. Good. Okay, so we're ready now to go on. Yes.

So we just, if you remember, floated the bar to chest levels. We're gonna repeat that. Float the bar to chess level that was on an axial. Now she's going to inhale into her left side and rotate left. And now on the exhale, she's going to place the bottom part of the bar, twisting to a vertical line. Don't know, don't just your body, just the bar, right? So it can't be too far to the side. Now rotate it back and then come center.

Good. So inhale to the right and rotate. Plant the bar. Exhale in help. Vertical. I'm sorry, back to horizontal and center. Let's do that once again. Now that we got it. Inhale left. Exhale, plant the bar. It's very hard to get that bar completely vertical, but that's what we're going for without breaking in the wrist or hiking the shoulders, right? And so the breath pattern is inhale. As you rotate, exhale, as you twist the bar.

Now notice her obliques have to work to do that movement. Inhale back to neutral and exhale center and float the bar down and rest. The more that you repeat that, and especially if you have a weighted bar, you really get an amazing oblique workout. It's pretty terrific. So now we're going to take a breath in, float the bar to chest level and revisit the overhead position all the way up. Good. And let's do a rotation in this up position. So we're gonna inhale, rotate, left, good and exhale center. And you can add a little lift here.

If you're the teacher, inhale, rotate, right and exhale. Again, I would be kneeling behind her, but I don't want to bother. Bother the camera view again. Left. Inhale and exhale, right shoulder down. Good and inhale and exhale. Good. And bring the bar to chest level and drop it all the way down. You want to do a spine stretch? Okay, so we're going back to spine stretch, lifting the chest nice and tall. Inhale. Exhale. Flex your feet this time as you can track. That's a nice little add on.

I forgot to say. And Inhale, rolling up one vertebrae at a time. So if I kneel behind her, I'm just gonna show this briefly. Go ahead again. Exhale down. Flex your feed. As you go down. Now you're going to point as you roll up, as she rose up, I can run my fingers here and guide her. So that left side of the hollow rib, she really wants to draw it back to me and I can really see if she's cheating. Do One more. Flex your feet. Exhale, lift up to go over. Exhale down. Right? And drawing back through that left side.

Pressing the shoulders down and unfurling. Good. Okay, so now we're going back to the arms, right? So we're going to float the bar two horizontal and to all the way to vertical. Good. Now we're going to do a lateral reach, which means she's gonna take her body without side bending and lean to one side. This is her easy side because the left side, which is the collapsed side is stretched law. Come back to center. So on the inhale she leans now to the left and the hard part is not to side bend here. Lean out and come center once again.

Now on the lateral at the beginning we keep the hips level and you can see it's much easier for her to go to the right than it is to the left. Keep that side long. Good. Now come back to center and this time we're going to lean out just like the short box series on the reformer. She's going to lift that sit bone. So the left sit bone lifts, she can go a little farther and then she levels that sit bone and come center. Inhale level out and the right sit bone reaches and comes back one more time.

Lean out nice and come back that left side. We don't want those wrinkles and lean out and come back good. And take the bar down and take a rest. Okay, so now we've done the laterals. Um, both with the sit bones down two sets and letting that sit bone tip and the whole box of the body has to stay long in square. Now we're going to go into the side bending. So we're going to take a breath, float the bar to chest level, take another breath and float the bar overhead. And now Michelle is going to allow herself to side Ben.

It's gonna be challenging for her to set, had been to the right cause. That's her protruding side. But we want to open up that left side, come back up through center and now live way up and side bend. This way. This is the easier side to side bend cause these ribs liked to collapse. Good. And we're going to do three sets, so hopefully she goes a little farther east [inaudible] time.

And we want to keep the sit bone down as best we can. But if it comes up a little, we have to remember it's the first thing to come back down. Good and a little farther, a little farther. Can we work towards planting that call? Woo. A little lift way up through the crown up like you're being sucked up through a vacuum cleaner. Yes, yes, and over, over, over. So we're working to plant the pole onto the ground and the side bending and come down and rest for a second. That's really, really difficult. You can play with the distance that your hands are placed on the bar, either wider or narrower.

Wider can be easier in some instances because it helps to drop the shoulders down, but also harder to do the side bending. All right, so now a grand fee. Now we're going to float the bar to vertical, two breaths horizontal first, and then all the way to vertical. Good. Now she's going to do a huge side bend to the right. Inhale. Exhale over and over. Round through the spine. Stretch, draw to center and [inaudible] the roll up through center right first through here and then bring the bar up and lean out and overside bend to the left, right around drawing the abdominals back. Reach forward. You can rest the [inaudible] on your legs and then roll it back up. That's it.

And all the way up. Inhale. Exhale, good. And lean out to the right once again. And this time you're going to go all the way through center. Plant the pole round through. That's it. Round through. Now Roll. Oh the way to the right and up through center. Pull that right ribbon and lean over to the right again. One more time.

Draw back through that rib round forward and rule to the right. Pull that right shoulder down back where you just came from. Up and over to the left. Draw down, right shoulder down, left rib, back over to the side and that's it. And once again, over to the left and down at all the way to the right. Plant that pool and lift up. Good. Stay there. Let's do some overhead press. Ben Elbows. Inhale. Exhale, one pulling back on that left ribbon down on the right rear right Scapula.

That's it. Four and five. We'll just do eight, six and seven. Lift up out of this side a and slowly bring the bar down and rest. Very nice. Good work. Thank you so much. Alright, that's the end of part two of Kathy grant's VC with the pole.