Arcus Introduction

I'm front Macintyre and this is arcas and Arkis was born out of spending a year as problem solving for my clients. And I realized that with the brilliance of Joseph, his equipment, the one thing that I felt like was the disconnect was having a flat roll down bar. And I thought, you know, the equipment's brilliant, but you know, Joe didn't invent the Dowel, the wooden dowel. He just had the brilliant idea of attaching it to his equipment. And after years of working with clients, I realized that the, the idea of having to conform the curves of our body to a flat object really gotten the way, uh, progressing with my clients and helping them problem solve what they need to problem solve. And so I decided to try creating a piece of equipment that would be curved and play right into the work as it exists and not get in the way of the brilliance of what Palladia is, can do for someone, but yet enhance the teacher's ability to do their job better and also get more movement in new and better ways for the client.

And what started off from me being just a replacement for the roll down bar and maybe some arm exercises. It really turned into thousands of movement possibilities that go from improving spinal articulation to allowing for better lumbar stabilization to creating more open hips to better connected shoulders. And you know, one of my favorite things is actually has nothing to do with exercise and has everything to do with your client's mental state when they start a session with you, is that when you hand them something that's this beautiful, they noticed the beauty and they start their session commenting on how beautiful this is. And we have so much negative self talk every day, all of us and, and exercise brings that out and kind of enhances that. And so if I can have a client feel more positive at the start of the session, that is the most beautiful thing because it gives me a better open door to help them find the solutions for their body. So let's talk about the difference between holding on to curves versus holding onto something flat.

And let me grab a flat rolled on bar just to make that comparison. So when you have the flat line and you take the curves of your hand and the curves of your shoulder and you have to adjust yourself to that flat line, it creates this internal rotation of the body that actually gets in the way of some natural movement. And when you, when instead, if you take a slight tilt and you follow the curve that fits right into the contours of your hand, it allows for your shoulders to be naturally connected to your back where you're not having to create that lap connection or that kind of manufacturer a pre connection and then insist that your client or you keeps that connection where sometimes holding on here, it's like we're constantly having to say shoulders down or pull them back and you're, you're queuing something that's actually being caused by the equipment. And so to get better use of the spring and to feel a natural connection holding onto archis allows for artists really to disappear, that it isn't about that you're holding it, it's about your body is in an organic, natural alignment that allows you to get the real benefit of the exercise, not here. 40 corrections about your shoulders that really are not the main focus. So the shape, the curves, while it fits your hand really well, it actually has more benefit because it matches other parts of your body.

So if you think about your collarbones, you think about your rib cage, you think about your hips, your pelvis, the bones in your feet, it mimics so many bones. We don't have bones in our body that mimic this shape. And so you're actually working against real physics. That kind of gets in the way of how we're naturally built. So when you, you hold onto something that mimics your natural shape, it creates better float, creates deeper connections, and it creates a higher level of function. So you can get more out of the exercise that you already know how to do.

And I think one of my favorite things as a teacher is it makes my job easier. All the talking do this, do that, do this, pull this in, pull this down that I can let go of that. I can hand the Marcus or we can do feet and straps with the archis and do their bend and stretch and short spine on a Cadillac, on the reformer, wherever we're at. And the archis actually gives the client feedback, they can see it, they can see that it's has sensitivity, it'll move and tell you if you're imbalanced or if you're crooked. So if you are crooked, your alignment is off. Or maybe you have scoliosis, you have some kind of rotation in your spine, you can actually hold on to Arcas in a way that will improve that asymmetrical alignment and create a more natural flow of abdominal force and spinal alignment in your body. And so if you haven't tried archis, I want you to know that it's more than just a replacement of the roll down bar. It's really about helping you problem solve and easier ways and get more benefit for your client to help them fill in more gaps, and especially if they have conditions or injuries or joint replacements, things like that. So give it a try.