3D Core Principles

Chapter 1

Introduction

Um, I'm Leslie Powell and I'm from a movement of foot. And I first started my career as a dancer and I went to the Labon Institute of movement studies and through the Lebaron Institute of movement studies, I also then became a pilates teacher as well as a movement junkie. That's the only way to explain it. And what my goal today with you here is to talk about 3d core. And I want to give a quote from one of my colleagues, uh, doors, passenger hall and, and abdominals come in many flavors.

And what I also will want to say is the core comes in many flavors and sometimes I feel like there's a lot of bad information or old information that I even had as a dancer that is really getting our core in trouble, that's getting us to compress and that's really stopping movement. Um, the other thing I want you to think about when you do this, uh, this workshop is, um, I'm also calling a lot of the work I do in New York, I call it PyLadies and embodied anatomy. So when you do embodied anatomy, it has a different feeling than if I do that, oh, I feel my bicep. It's not always about that. What I love about a bodied anatomy is it puts you in your body differently and it makes you think about your body differently. So you're not always going to feel, oh, I feel the tension. It's gonna get, give you a different understanding of the space that's within your body and the coordination of your body. Okay.

So what I see a lot with in teaching teachers and teaching clients is a lot of times where you say abdominals and they may immediately go into that. Like, you know, and it's causing some problems and especially it's okay when you're young. But if we keep compressing our spines down like this, it could lead to disc problems. And then the other problem we have today in our culture is we are in so much fluction. So we need to help our clients and our own practice find different spaces in our bodies. So, um, just imagine that this is your spine. So really it's very dynamic. And there, there's always a relationship.

So imagine that's the front of the spine and that's the back that if I do a movement one way, so that would be more like walking. There's a counterbalance that happens in the other part of the body. A lot of what we're doing in our bodies, and I did it for years as a dancer was this is a problem. My ribs are out and I, my teachers or somebody told me say, pull your ribs down. Okay. And I don't know it kind of slacks some of the, um, cords on this.

Another image that I have is that if this is your spine and you are constantly pressing down, do you see that would be a, could lead to a certain scoliosis pattern or it could happen to having a disc problem. So what we're gonna really look at the coordination of our muscles and how it's all working together. So it's not just front, you know, a lot. And you know, with you as teachers in politely, teachers are, have been trained really well to think a lot more three-dimensionally. But a lot of times our clients, you know, Oh, I have a backache. I think I should just work on my core and they just think about the front, you know? So there's much more to that as we can see.

So another thing that you hear is a drawing that I did and I'm trying, all these drawings are trying to show a more in a two d way to show 3d. Also, the other thing I've been loved, this word is anatomy dances that when I move the simple as walk, there's a constant interplay of your muscles around the joints to stabilize and move. If we didn't, we just fall apart. So it's also the kind of get you in touch with that dance. Now the next picture you can see is kind of like if we went through him and we cut directly into him. That's the kind of the, what the picture is and what's so interesting. So if you look at the spine, which is the gray part, your so as comes.

So that's the red and the pink comes right up against it. And look how much volume that has. Then you have these layers and you can see like you have your transverse abdominis. It comes all the way from the front to the back. You got your external obliques. It comes from the back to the front. You have your internal, a dump, a dominoes comes from the back to the front.

And then of course, and then you have your rectus, which is just a very one dimensional muscle. And then we also have your multifidus and all your erector spinae. Then you just also then throw on the Fascia. Then you have this incredible corset. Yes. And once you get these um, moving together, it's an incredible coordination and it's gonna Change depending on what the movement is. The one thing we're also going to, uh, be looking at is that part of our body is designed around our bones that we have to really think about how our bones influence the coordination of our muscles.

Here is the PSOAS. And I want you to look here is, so as major going all the way up to here and it comes all the way down to your lesser trow canner. ILIAC is, comes down through here and goes all the way down to your lesser toe canner. And then the, so as minor goes up like a long that I'm going to call it the SOS line up that way. So we're going to do a whole imagery about that. And then one of my images there, so as minor, again, I want you to see how three-dimensional it is so that if we were to look at him profile that. So as starts back here, comes down and comes right down to there. Okay. Then one of my images is that a lot of our structures are like flying buttresses. So the flying buttress is, you know, in the old churches, especially in Europe, um, the, what held them up was these, uh, structures on the outside. And so we have that in our own bodies. And it's really interesting. The one on the left is a true, uh, watercolor of a church in I believe Spain. Um, so it's really a kind of, has a almost so as feeling, but here is that flying buttress of the, so as coming along the spine. So we're going to also talk about the, so as being a core muscle. Okay. Um, and then even looking at the structure here is another, the femur bone is another flying buttress this.

So there's many structures that we could be using to help create a different foundation for ourselves. The next, uh, picture is the, I'm looking at the f flying buttresses of the coordination of the front and the back. So there's your, so Az and here's your quadratus. So sometimes there's a relationship. And then with our clients, sometimes we need to wake up those quadratus because they're too much in a flection. And in some, this is the hard part about muscles is sometimes when a muscle, have you ever worked with a client and they're there, this is their posture and you put your hands on it and it just tight. So sometimes muscles just get on too much length and they're too tight. And sometimes we need to activate them, define their original length, especially in more functional movement.

And here's another idea of a, the relationship between the PSOAS and the quadratus. Here is the, um, um, transverse abdominis. Again, look how it's a course. It coming all the way from here, all the way to the front. Then we're going to, so I'm going from deep muscles to superficial. So here you can see that this is the external oblique. I'm coming around and what I want we're going to explore today too is if this so as is tight and it pushes your posture in a different place, how is that gonna Affect your external obliques?

And one way I think about it too is, you know how if I sat here and I sat in good posture, my shirt would hang a certain way. But if I slumped to one side, you can see that it's influencing the fabric. So it's kind of, sometimes when I'm teaching my clients, I'm looking how their posture might be influencing their coordination. Okay. And then here's the internal bleak. So that comes more back here and comes down though why. Okay. And then this is kind of to show you more h again, this three d that you're having everything working, um, together. Depending on what the movement, and it's like I said, anatomy has different flavors.

You're going to have a different flavor here compared to a different flavor there. So, um, [inaudible] put what we do as Pilati teachers. Great. Cause we're really moving our clients in different flavors all the time. Um, and this is a picture again trying to show relationship. This is external, um, obliques with the multifidus. Then at at the very, our last coordination we're going to get there we go is the coordination of your arms with your obliques. So that would be, you know, moving your arms, your quadruples, head plank pose, downward dog, all those, whoops. And then our back muscles, the importance of the back muscles like went a little too fast. Um, how that's really important for the front and back and, and especially again our culture of being in too much flection.

And then here we have the rectus abdominis. And then we're also going to look at the next picture. There's the obliques with the rectus abdominis. And here is also important coordination of the Leticia is Dorsey, which we kind of get confused about because a lot of times when we're using our shoulder blades, we're locking it down. That pulls our ribs down, which is not healthy, but in gait that Latisse Ms. Dorsey with our glute is an important stabilizer for the sacrum. And then we just go there. And with that,

Chapter 2

Getting in Touch with Your Curves

so we're gonna look at the spine and I want you to notice just through the structure of the vertebrae, it's already in neutral.

Okay. And so then we're going to add the sacrum to it. Can you come up here and hold this for me please? And I want you, uh, be on that side. That's fine. I want you to notice how the sacrum has like a little shelf for the lumbar spine and, um, where the sacrum is, is going to be influencing the whole spine. So I always get this confused. Nope, she put it on backwards. There we go. So just let it drop just a little bit. There you go.

So do you see, I put the shelf in a horizontal line, you know, like in a table plane and it has its curves. And if I tilt the sacrum, it's gonna influence the structure. And if I tilt the sacrum the other way, anterior, it's going to influence the structure. Thank you. So it's really important to think about where the sacrum is because a lot of times when you see somebody lying down or posture and you think they're hyper extended, we do a lot of work of trying to fix it from up here. I call it the upstairs and we want to get downstairs, right?

Is that we want to get the support more in the lowers to help the uppers instead of that compression model. Okay. And what's really going to be hard in our teaching is to try to get this because people don't know how to get this nice. And that's your pelvic clock, um, that a lot of you have been doing in your like pre, um, platas. Um, and it, there's a wonderful thing on PyLadies anytime with Sean Claude West, you should see that is excellent. So what we're gonna look at is getting you in touch with the curves and then getting an idea of how to get more movement there. And then we're gonna also help how as a teacher, you can start seeing where the curves are. So I want you to all just to lie on your back.

And this is an image from Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, who's the founder of body mind center and totally different from Pele's. And her image is that your spine comes in six curves. So your head is moving back into flection. Your cervical spine is floating in extension, your thoracic spine is moving back in fluxion. Your lumbar spine is floating up in extension.

The top of your sacrum is moving into flection and your tailbone is going into its extension, but we're going to image it as the kangaroo tail. I think that works. Okay. So that's our, our six curves. And so we're just gonna do a little pelvic clock. And I want to really just work with the lumbar and sacrum. And I want you to observe, do you use your rib cage to try to fix the Lum lumbar?

Okay. So you're going to inhale and you're going to gently arch and you're going to feel your multifidus of your lumbar float up. Now I wanted to be very specific. Are you doing it in the lumbar or are you doing it in the thoracic? Now I want you to visualize that the tone in your low belly is going to slide closer to the sacrum to tend the sacrum in postier tail in just from that pelvic floor bones.

Inhale gently arch and go to what we call six o'clock tail, and then slowly go inside and go to a 12 o'clock now I'm going to give you another image. So if you look at the sacrum, it does kind of have spinal processes. It's all fused, and I want you to imagine that. And I'm going to just say that's one o'clock one I'm going to call it floors, right? Two, three, four, five, six, and the top is seven. Okay, so you're going to arch your back and you're going to go to one. I want you to go specifically down to two with nothing else, no ribs, nothing else. Now go to three, go to four, go to five, go to six. Now float up. Six, five, four, three, two, one. Now are you even on both sides? Yes. Do you have a preference? And so that's also one way.

If you have clients, have some things happening in their pelvis, getting them to clearly, are you even on the left and the right? So you're at one how's the left and the right side? You're going to go to two, you're going to go to three, you're going to go to four, you're going to go to five, you're going to go to six. You're going to go back, floats six up. You go to go to five, four, three, two, one. Okay, so now I want you to come to city. Now we're going to look how the bones are in sitting and getting the same rhythms. I'm going to say that I put everybody on props because depending on your structure, you might be hard for you to be a neutral.

And the best example is I had a dancer that used to work with me. She could kick her leg up to here, but when she sat, her knees were up and her, her sacrum was back that structural. So I don't want, so sometimes getting props are great because we want to get that good head tail connection. Now we always have to do something silly. Put your hands here. That's where your spine ends up in your head. So is your head over the prop? Yes. Okay. Now Cross your legs.

So your com I know it's a little high. Everybody put their head put. So if we touch, touch the top of the hip, that's your anterior superior Iliac spine. And if we put our thumbs to the back of the hip that your post here, Iliac superior spine and you can't, I mean you can kind of, so what I do is I kind of image that you can feel your sacred, but depending on where your clients are, you know, some of us are more fleshy like me and some are very boney. So it's kind of, sometimes you just have to image where that sacrum is and you can kind of find that. So whoops. So I want you to put one. Ha a, your hands are there and r is the as is and the uh, psis on the same plane. If I'm tipped my sick home, do you see how that's going to influence me?

And then if I go the other direction. So I'm constantly as a teacher looking at the bones and the fabric to try to get an idea. Even though we come in all different shapes right now, put your head until we did this thing. That's how I think. Put your hands behind your head and keep your elbows close to you and lightly push your head backwards. So we want to get that skull right over our, our pelvic floor. Now we're going to review those curves again.

So is your head moving back into flection? Is your cervical spine moving a little forward? Is your rib cage, and I'm going to say all ribs. Yes. And I'm going to show you bad version soon. Going back into flection. Lumbars going forward in extension and your sacrum is slightly back and up, but not tucked. Yes.

And then your tail has a little kangaroo tail. Now put your hands at your sacrum and can you just tip your sacrum backwards without, yes, your ribs are going to get affected, or did you do it from your ribs? So can you move your sacrum backwards and can you move your sacrum forward and can you move your sacrum backwards and then forward? Now put one hand here. So these are things I make my clients do because what is really, you know, when I first started teaching, I would push my clients into a position, but they're not going to learn that way.

We needed the more you can get them to understand in their own language and their own, um, oh, I can feel this, it's gonna change their nervous system and how they organize. So here I am and here's Leslie's Powell joke. You have to be able to do bumps and grinds at mom's house and she at the dinner table and she shouldn't know, right? If I'm doing this, then I'm doing the ribs and if it's small, this shouldn't change. Okay, so, so, so you feel right where your hand is, where the Xy, that's kind of your bodice. Yes. Can you move your sacrum back and forth?

I'm not saying that there's not movement, but it's not me doing down. Yes. So can you get that sacred movie back and forth without anything else? Good. There you go. Or do you use your hip flexors and we're gonna talk about that. Yes. So that's something we're going to keep looking at. Um, [inaudible] what I'm working with clients, I'm first looking at their bones.

That gives me tremendous information and then we're then go to look at how muscles were. Now the one thing that, um, I'm trying to address as a problem, he's kind of like my, um, he's uh, one of these flexible skeletons. Well, I had one at my studio, but he was falling apart and he was like this, you know, and he definitely had scoliosis. And so there's this whole thing that I learned as a dancer and you, you still see it in a lot of the fitness world of pull your ribs down. Okay. And so the thing is, if I did that on end, if you were to feel my back, I live in my habit is I have too much extension in my thoracic. So if I pull my ribs down, it doesn't solve the flection above. Okay. And the thing that when I had, um, this flexible, um, um, skeleton at the studio, you could pull the ribs down and his spine still stayed in scoliosis.

Okay. So what I would do is to show this and uh, is, well you can kind of see it is if I slide these vertebrae together, do you see how those ribs start hanging better? So that's getting the feeling of the multifidus working, which is going to get back your flection. Sounds odd, doesn't it? How does your back help your front? Yes. But that coordination is going to be really important in looking at, um, the spine. Okay.

Chapter 3

Extension and Rotation

So a lot of our clients have little understanding of the movement of the spine and a lot of times the thoracic is really stuck. So I love the overhaul. You can use the politesse arc, you could use yoga blocks, but I want to give them a, a little different physical experience that we all know, but it's, uh, I want you to get conscious of that. So I want you to lace your hands behind your head and I want your elbows close to you. So I don't want you to think of it as a set up and I want you to arch backwards to where you feel comfortable now. And I want your elbows to your cheeks. Okay?

So all you guys just naturally went back, which is fine. You're going to have clients that don't, they don't have that flexibility. So it's really important to find a way to start inviting this movement in. Now I want you to notice in the ball how that ball is telling your vertebrae to move in. Okay? So that's extension. Also, notice how the vertebrae are sliding together. Now I want your elbows.

I don't want you to think of it as your traditional setup. I'm just really talking bones right now. I want you to lift your head up a little bit. I want you to do a little cervical nod chin to your Adam's apple and then I want you to move the you going to bow, you're going to flex your spine, but I want you to get the ball to move away inflection. And then I want you to slowly go back and notice how the front is going to slide apart and the back vertebrae are sliding together and go all the way back.

The more the ball moves is a reflection of your vertebrae and your spine moving. Okay? So I really want you to pay the more you can get that. Get the ball rolling, move the ball away. So feel your lower ribs slide away from your pelvis and push it backwards. Good. A little more ribs. Good. That's all I want. That's it.

And then I want you to slide the whole thing back and take it through. Great. Great. There you go. Good. Now I want you to lie. It's very simple, but for some clients they don't know how to move their spines and I'm trying to teach them that movement. Yes. Now I want you to lie prone with the ball on your breastbone. Okay?

Uh, let's have heads facing each other. Okay. And I want it right underneath your breastbone. So you're in, it will have fletching so come a little more underneath. There you go. I'm sorry. And then those girls and come forward. Relax your head down. So I want you to feel flection of your thoracic.

Your shoulders are relaxed, you're going to open out. Now bring your elbows out. Um, this way. Good. There you go. Now this same idea is imagine your mat is a conveyor belt and your first goal is to move the ball forward with your breastbone to come into flex extension. So lift up, uh, too much arm work and then go back down. Good. So this is really the first movement a baby has to learn. Yes, they don't have orange arm strength.

They have to learn spine strength. That's what we need to get back to. So I'm going to keep asking you, are you using your shoulders to get up? So you're going to feel your shoulder blades on vacation and you want to move your spine into the ball less. No arms go up, lift, float, move this forward. Move this forward, move this forward and through. Good. And then you're going to come back down and through. Good.

So can I have somebody? Ha, I'm the pro and good version and bad version. So if you look at me [inaudible] and I'm gonna move my arms out of the way, just so you can see. I'm gonna do so do c. It's subtle. But do you see that ball is Raleigh. Yeah. Where if somebody doesn't know how to use their spine, and we're going to talk more back soon, but do you see, I'm just doing head or a lot of what you're seeing is people do their arms to get their back move and we need to get that movement happening in the vertebrae. Yes. So try to give it that thought. So go ahead and you good. And your shoulders are relaxed.

Remember you're a baby, you're two days old and you go, you're using too much arms. There you go. And then come back. Great. Bring your elbows a little more forward. Yes. So I'm trying to get you to feel that your spine should move into the ball. That's great. That's great. And then come back down and through now. Um, come on up. Have a seat. Uh, Anna is Anna come. Uh, and I want you to sit, so you're facing your back to the beautiful ocean.

So one thing that I'm always doing is, so you remember I talked about the flying buttresses, right? And when I use my hands, I'm really light. I'm not going to be like, right. But if you saw me do a drawing, do you see what's happening with her spine? We want to get her a little lift of that sacrum and then I'm going to just tell her a little bit lift of through there.

Then for her to extend, yes, we want those vertebrae to move in. So we help. Extension is really healthy. She's doing a good job. And so you want to feel how those vertebrae move into the body. Yes. Um, and right now we're not even talking about, I'm just trying to get the attention of how those bones move there. Okay. Now I want you to cross your arms tight. Have you hugged yourself today?

There you go. Great. So when we do rotation the vertebrae, so if here's the spinal process, right? Oh, come to me. There we go. Here's the spinal process. And when I turned, you see how it has a twist to it? Yeah. So as teachers, that's what you want to start looking for. And this is so important.

Not like my guys that like to play golf and tennis, they're not turning, they're doing it from their shoulders. And then then where, what happens is when you're stuck somewhere, you're going to hyper mobilize somewhere else. And 99% of the time they start doing it, their lumbar. So, and this is also so important because this is what's missing and gate. So I want to watch her term, let's turn your ribs good. And then come back. And right now she's, she's doing pretty good job, but she's doing a little bit of pulling the shoulder blade. So what I want her to pay attention to is can she get those vertebrae to turn to the side? There we go. Now this is an image from my teacher, Irene Dao is imagine you have an eye in front of the vertebrae. Okay?

And I'm going to ask you to make it look left or right. I call it crazy eyes, right? Okay. So if I want, um, Anna to turn her spine this way, do you see the spinal processes are moving to the right? And then if you saw the front, those eyes are looking to the left. Okay? And it's a great image to get your client into their bodies and they get some really nice rotation happening. And I'm not talking about big, so you're going to lift up good. You're gonna, you're gonna float your breastbone up. She's a little, there we go. So I want her, I'm going to do a drawing here and I want you to imagine the vertebrae in where my hand is, are going to look to the left. There's a dolphin over there, so you've got to look that way. They, that's it.

Good. There you go. Good. And now there's a dolphin to the right eye. This is a perfect studio for it. Ah, there you go. There you go. Great, great gray. And there you go. And then you're going to turn left. That's great. That's really very healthy. Good. And then down, the other issue is if you look at side bending, let's watch what she does inside bending side. Ben, she's good. But the, the hard thing is a lot of people are not, can you do bad version in lean? No. So that's leaning. Yes. So a lot of clients are not moving here and so you want to get that nice movement to happen through here, which is again your core. Yes. And a lot of times, especially when we come up to standing, that locking up the, the, the spine down is going to affect your legs as well.

So getting that beautiful and there's so much beautiful repertory we can do. But what I want you as teachers and you can start teaching your clients this too is the awareness of this. And the beauty about working with the imagery of bones is that it gets the right phrasing happening. Yes. They don't overdo it. They get it just right. Just right. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you.

Chapter 4

Imagery of the Psoas

Part of how I learn anatomy, I have the great fortune to have Irene down in New York City and um, what I love about Irene is that she teaches anatomy through census. So we learned drawing. We would draw with her, we would intellectually talk about it and then sometimes we would do touch to understand the feeling of the muscle. Though I want to also talk about tones a muscle, because we get sometimes between our practice and our clients getting too much physicality that locks things down. And so what I want you to think about is muscles have movement and that the more we think about that, that's going to create Frazy. So first of all, if this is my muscle, yes. That if I'm con, if I'm doing concentric contraction, it slides together and it slides apart. So that's one image to work with. Another thing is I want you to make a fist.

So that's one way of using muscle. Now I want you to squeeze your hand more. Okay? Now move your fingers. No, right? That's okay. Now move your fingers. So on, that's another of moving muscle, right? So we have to get two different qualities of movement of muscle than sometimes what you feel in your clients or maybe in your own practice is you start moving, you start sliding the muscle and then you just lock it down. Okay? And this is going to be really important because a lot of times when I see people working with abdominals, it's kind of like it's a thermometer and they go to about here and the, the dominance can go way up. They can really move up. Okay.

Another image I work with, um, is about, um, so if I have two points, I could slide them together. So that's the sliding together contraction. I could have one point fixed. Uh, I'm sorry, we could have them slide together, we can slide them apart. I could have one point fixed and I could slide the muscle towards it or I could slide it apart. So sometimes we, we need to find different coordinations depending on what the movement is or where the muscle is. Now the thing that I want you to have no ego when you're drawing because what I've learned about doing all these anatomy drawings is it really teaches me about anatomy. It teaches me about the origin.

It teaches me about the insertion. Even like looking at the pictures and like, oh, I see the fibers of the muscle moving this way. Like the external Blakes Oh, it moves that way. So a I d I just don't want you to worry about it being a good drawing. Just it's just going to teach you something.

And I'm a very visual learner and it's also something to know how your clients learn. Like I remember my first anatomy class was in college. It was all intellectual. It didn't go into my brain. And I always work better with teachers that are visual. I know that about my learning where there's some people that work better with imagery. Some people work with touch. And I'm talking about, I'm not talking about manipulation, I'm talking about, Oh, put your hand here. Put your attention there. That's touch. Yes. So there's different ways to cue, right? So we're gonna look at the, so s so you can make it really, it doesn't have to be great choreography or a great trolley. So if you just, here's your sacrum c really simple.

And then if we draw up, there's our vertebrae and here is the ILIAC, right? And here is the femur. We were going to give them a lesser trow catheter or a, she'd give them a greater trow canter. Okay. How you'll see it's that simple, right? So you did that drawing, right? Go ahead.

So I made a sacred and I made a spine. I made to a pelvic Hass and I made a femur bone. Okay, so your, you got that and we don't, I'm just going to just give you an, I'll show you on the skeleton, there's your transverse spot of process and, and I'll also show you in profile, but that, so as especially up here, comes right in front of the vertebrae, right in front of that transverse process. So that's your flying buttress, right? So what I want you to do is if you go up here and you draw, so it's going to be close to it and it's going to come down and it's going to attach to the lesser trow canter. So there's your, so as my major, okay, so draw that. You're going to have modern art here.

Okay? Then your Iliac. This here's your is it attaches inside this bone. And what I want you to, especially when we do this imagery about this, the Psoas, I want you to imagine it shaping and going back into the curve of that bone. So the, um, Iliac [inaudible] feel that whole pelvic half and again attaches to the lesser toe candor. So give a drawing about that. No, you're so as minor attaches to the, uh, top of this pubic bone right here and it goes along the PSOAS major line.

So it attaches here and it comes up to there. So do you see houseless beautiful flying buttress so you can keep drawing that. I'm going to do another drawing just to show you, here's your vertebrae. Here's that Iliac crest. Here's your femur bone. She's, there. We go.

Here is the, so s coming. So if I drew, there's this spinal process and so the, so as comes all along, the top of the spine goes in front and it goes over. I should have drawn a pubic bone. Yeah. There a pubic bone. There we go. So do you see how it has a very three dimensional feeling? Your Iliacus? You're not going to see that. Well because of the bone, but it comes in here and attaches to there.

And then your minor also comes here. And this time attaches to the bone. Okay. So what we're gonna Image is the directions of this muscle. So, um, Eric Franklin writes very eloquently about this, but also I worked with, um, a lot of body mind centering who Eric worked with. So if a body called the currently, and I think it's a beautiful word because it suggests movement. Um, that's really neat.

Chapter 5

Psoas Mantra

This is one of my favorite imagery to work with is the PSOAS. And I want you, what it makes me do in my own body is it teaches me about a different space in my torso. And so it's not necessarily you're going to feel you're so as, but you're going to observe its space. And then, especially with Peloton at any time, we're also going to do a workout based totally on the SOS, a Pilati, so equipment class. So you can see that I can have rhythm and have a workout and have imagery. And what it happens is when the PSOAS loses its length, that's when the belly pops out, right?

And when I go to more complicated, you know, when do single leg stretch, double leg stretch, I'm loading the PSOAS and our job is to not let that. So as our dominoes to counterbalance that, but what I want to get to is before we do a load, can I immediately get this length? And the thing that's been interesting in my own practice and even watching my teachers is when I visualize this space, my abdominals come in in a whole different way. It's almost like a reflex. Okay. So it's a, it's a, we're going to, I'm going to call it a mantra. So it's, I'm going to take you through this, um, idea. And you're also going to observe in your own practice.

And first as we do it and then I'll talk to you, what you need to start seeing in your clients is do you unconsciously tighten the top of the PSOAS? Do you tighten the bottom of the PSOAS? Do you tighten the, I mean the middle of the PSOAS and the bottom of the sellers. For some people who tighten the bottom of the Psoas, that's what you see that get pulled up. That's what you'll see a lot more tucking. And you don't see this beautiful femoral fold and differentiation of the pelvis in the leg.

ILIAC is sometimes it's what's pushing the belly out or if it's real tight, it could be pulling you into anterior tail top of this. So as it could do different things once I could be tight, one side could be long. So it could be rotating you, it could be pulling the um, your ribs forward or it could be compressing your ribs down. You know, this is where you have to observe in your own practice and in your clients how they pattern. Cause we're all different. Okay. So I want you to visualize so that if we kind of went to the Xy FOI process and we go straight back to the spine, that's kind of where the beginning of the attachments of PSOAS major is, right near the diaphragm. And if we travel the PSOAS major down along our spine, and then it's going to fall along the oil crest and to the lesser trow canter. So we're going to image that sliding currenting to our heels.

Okay? So as major attaches to the top of the, the thoracic spine, around the diaphragm, not the top of you know, um, let's say top of the to the diaphragm. And I want you to image it goes along your spine and it goes across your pubic bone to your lesser choke header. And I want you to visualize, it's like warm tappy. It's going to slide apart. Okay? Now put your hands on your hip bones. And if you just kind of sunk your fingertips, of course you can't touch it, but there's your Iliacus. So can you visualize that Iliac is softening as it soften, it's going to get a new length and it's going to go down and attach to the lesser toe. Kantor. Okay, so as minor attaches to the pubic bone and I want you to visualize it, it's going to current up. Okay?

So I'm going to run a mantra. So as major currenting down, so as minor currenting up s a ILIAC is currenting down. Now put your hands on your pelvis or I'm going to keep running it and I'll, you know when you watch in the piles, anytime I'm going to do footwork with this image, I'm going to do short spun with it. You can do everything with it. It just puts you into a space. We're going to do a leg slide with it. Okay? Really simple. So, so as major current down, so as minor current in up, Iliac is going down, stretch your leg down, Redo it again. Can you bring your leg up? Keeps so as major going down.

So as minor going up, ILIAC is go down to the other leg. So as major going down, so as minor going up. So Iliac is moving down and then bring it back and throat. So I would be running this mantra eventually. If you were my client, I would ask you to start saying it because you're saying it's going to put it in your brain differently than me saying it. Now I want you to observe, okay, come back and I'm going to play.

I want you to observe both sides. So some of us, you know I'm going to call the leg that slides down is the gesture side, the gesture leg and the leg that stays up working. It's not just to give it differentiation. Some of us tighten on the working side, some of us Titan or the other issue is some of us let go too much and we don't have that. So as mine are going up enough, so our pelvis on levels. So I want you to deserve, even though it's not an even movement, can you get it even in your psoas? So, so as minor, current teen up, so as major currenting down, how is your femoral folds on your working side? And then you're going to bring it back up. Good.

Now that's so as major and minor. Here's an image is, especially since you're lying on your back, you know, you have the, uh, well I don't know if you have it in California. We have it in the east coast. They're um, like bean bag, uh, tubes that you put against the door to let not let the air come in. So my east coast people can relate to, but I'm going to just visualize my cell as having weight to hold my low ribs back. Okay. Another image is that if, if I'm like this, that, so as it's going to be that flying buttress that holds the spine from going into hyperextension. Okay. So by observing that space, that's one way to start create healthier alignment. Okay. Now we're gonna do a thigh lift. Okay?

Same idea is, can you still see the SOA as long on both sides and do you tighten either on the gesture side or the working side? So, so as major current team down. So as major a minor current team up and lift a leg up. I just want it. Knee height. No higher. Good. Now what I'm seeing is a lot of you are lifting the leg up and the sacrum is moving. So the Sacrum, remember we will going back to the original part of the workshop, the top of the sacrum is staying grounded. The lumbars floating up. Okay, so lift one leg up on you now. No, that's it.

How's both sides? And then lower down is your, put your hands at your ribs and visualize your unders. Taking my hands and I'm visualizing my soul as falling into the spine to give its, its, its new stability. So do a knee fold. There you go. There you go. Great. Now do you lift the leg up and you go like this and then you fix it.

Can you get that? Put your hands on top and bottom. Can You keep your spine totally quiet to lift your leg up or do you do it in adjustment? And I want you to work slowly. That's it. There you go. Great. So what I'm going to ask you to look at is we all have a habit before the habit comes. I want to get the nervous system to change because as you know, as a dancer, I had all these habits that I did, these funny fixings that really got me more in trouble. Okay? So that's the goal of getting that.

So as to in length in your practice. Okay? Now come to off of force and you could have um, move a little closer and butt heads this way. Yeah, you can be on the mat. Have your knees to the back edge. So we're going to just take our leg out right now, even here. How is your six curves? Okay, so the one thing that I'm going to look at is, first of all, I'm going to look at the sacred. Okay.

Is the as is in line with the pubis is the, do you have your lumbar curve? Good. I'm gonna help you a little bit. You're giving me too much flection here. No, I want a little extension. A little more. There we go. Good. Now I want you to visualize that. So as long. And can you slide one leg back and keep the so as long on both sides.

So the, so as is going to act like a rafter for your spine shift a little bit is your weight. Uh, your hips should be back over your hips. There you go. There you go. And it do you do, you tighten your psoas and now lift your leg up is the, so as long. Just stay there a second. You can lift it up higher. Now the knee that is down, a lot of us start using our femoral folds to, to brace. And that's not our core. How is the Soas on that side? Is it long as as the uh, leg?

It's up and now bring your leg down. Good. And now you're going to switch and you're going to do the other side. Is your tail between two legs? Shift back. There you go. Is this so as long. So a lot of people tuck and it will bring your leg down.

Yes. And then it's again, not your deep core that's working and then bring it back down. Okay. Well I want to do one other thing. So we're going to talk about the, the SOS line and one this theraband is gonna give you a visual. Um, I'm going to show you different ways. This is one way to do it that you guys of easily move.

You might have clients that don't want to do this, but it's that hard. But what I want you to do is I just want you to step through it. And so if I could go inside my spine, do you see that would be this psoas line. Here's the inside of my thigh bone. Here's my, if I could touch to the back, I want you to pull it a little short and you might even want to hold towards the bottom. So I'm, I'm gonna really concentrate that. Just one of them. We don't even have to hold it. So I'm going to squat and I want you to hold it short.

And what I want you to visualize is that, can you lengthen that so as and come up to standing. Okay, now remember the current team. So the PSOAS major goes down, minor goes up and ILIAC is goes down. So if I did bad version, so here I'm doing a squat and you have to visualize that. So as it's coming in, if I did a tuck and just do that, do you see?

It's going to start pulling that. So as major in a different way and you're going to get real. You can feel if you talk too much, you feel the fibers in front of your thigh bone getting tight. So what I want you to really think about is as you do this, get those ideas of major, minor Iliac is counter and feeling that length even more, even more. So now if you could go to the top of, put your hands here and if I could have that theraband inside of me, I'm gonna lengthen the Soas up and notice and now move the SOA, the lesser trow canter down. Do you see it starts getting your dominoes going in a great way. Um, and so getting that new way of thinking about your torso and length.

And one of my teachers always cause by habit is to do this, says your [inaudible], your slump, you're flapping. And then I lengthened her up and it puts my sacrum in a great healthy movement place and I'm ready to move. So we're gonna look at that and bring that into our practice. Now we also looked at in the beginning of when the quadratus is not working. So sometimes we need to get a balance of the quadratus.

So for instance, a, here's the PSOAS coming this way. That's one flying butters. And then the quadrates comes up through here. Okay. So do you ever have clients and they're lying on their, they're lying down and you see one hip or you see them standing? Their hips are on level. Okay. So sometimes I need to wake up their quadratus and especially if I know that they are living like this all the time, then we want to just wake it up. So who wants to be my um, demonstrators?

Somebody come up here like pro, no, we don't need anything. Just lie on your belly. Yeah. So she's just gonna Relax. And so it's, she's very subtle, but I feel like this right hip is high. So what I used to do was I would release that side.

Now I'm, I'm gonna activate it because sometimes, uh, if I stretch certain clients too much, they get in trouble. If I activate them, they do well and it's not a big thing. So I'm going to gently pull on her leg and she's going to hike her hip up. That's it. There you go. And there you go and hike up. So sometimes you need that, you know, it depends on who the client is. Um, especially if I feel that they come in and they're, that's their posture. I might wake up their quadratus.

Chapter 6

Transversus Abdominis and Multifidus

We're going to look at the transverse abdominis as well as the multifidus. So the transfer's a domino. So heres the rib cage, there's the sternum process, here's our pelvis. We'll give it as sacred. Okay. The transverse abdominis is like a corset.

And one thing I want you to think about is, it kind of goes all the way up to here. Some of the fibers, they kind of facially goes into the rectus. And if you see a lot of drawings, they're more horizontal. Yes. So there's that Nice Corset, right? And if we look at it profile, so if you want to draw, you can, here's our our spine. We'll give it a little curve.

There's the pelvis and there's that multifidus. Um, I'm sorry. Uh, transverse abdominous coming around. Now we're going to look at the back of the spine. So if you think these are vertebrae, so in, um, art, we call, like if I make little lines to fill up a shape that's called hatching. So your motives [inaudible] usually go from one vertebrae up to like the third, right? So they kind of are going, they're like, they're going up little tiny muscles to go up the spine. Nope.

They're very profound. And, and one thing that Bonnie says that I think is really an incredible image is that a lot of your stabilizer muscles move into the joint where your big muscle groups move away from the joint. So if we look at the [inaudible] in the back back, and I'm going to visualize that, I'm going to take these and I'm going to s lightly squeeze in and then I'm going to give it a little lift. So that's at flying buttress idea that if I'm schlump he schlump right? The multifidus are on length, I'm going to slide them into it, I'm going to slide them short and then I'm going to bring them up. Okay. So that's, and that's very, we need to get our clients back to that.

That's real. And the interesting thing is we're going to do is sometimes getting the [inaudible] can get you to your transverse abdominis. Okay? So, uh, this is a exercise that I do on the physio ball and most of the time it works. And then if it doesn't work, then it teaches you something. Okay. And what's neat about it is if you can get, it's almost like a reflex when you do this with your client that they get to their transverse abdominis.

And it's also multifidus all the balance work you can do with all the funny props are wonderful work because it kind of triggers the nervous system in a different way. Um, so the first thing we're gonna look at is how your client sits on the ball. So one thing I look at is the, is the, as is in line with the pubis. That's one way. So in many ways, especially as teachers, depending on where my client is in space, you know, if there's supine on the reformer, I can't see their back. So I have to look at their front. If they're sitting and doing, um, chest rowing front or back, I can see their back. So, you know, I want you to start looking all different ways of understanding because depending on where you are, that's how you're going to have to do that. So that if you look at your client, a lot of times right now, most of our clients are a little too much extended in their thoracic and they don't have enough in their sacrum. So I'm going to give her a little lift up. And she just did a really great job.

That was great. And for some clients, a slump for me do bad version. And um, what happens is if I say extend, they start extending up through there and they still might, she didn't, she did everything. And what you see is they extend, but they keep the, the, uh, sacrum in inflection. So we want to find that balance. Right? Um, so that's the first thing. And two, you might, as the teacher walk around and find that. So here she has a little bit too. I'm going to give back that sacrum back. And if for a lot of clients that feels like they're are cheap tremendously, right? But here's a thing, if I sit profile and I send my sacrum back, do you see it pitches my head forward? Okay.

So now I got my sacred back. And so do you see, it starts bringing my head in a different place. Okay. And, and this is so important to start teaching now because we're living like this whole day, you know? Um, so we, we want to look at that. So we're gonna do a very deceptively simple exercise where you're going to grab hold of their legs and you're going to gently squeeze me in. Gently squeeze me, and I'm going to pull on her. Now what I want you to see if you can find is where they're trying to stabilize.

So lightly pull and she's doing a lot of legwork and I wanted see if she can get lift up to her pelvic floor. There we go. There we go. Good. Now you're going to do that. Uh, everyone. You're going to do that here and there. Now what happens is a lot of people cheat, right? They try to use their hips, they try to brace down.

And what your goal is is to get lift, lift, lift, and Shi. Lift, lift, lift, lift, lift. Now another. How's she doing? Did you, are you gently Poli? You squeeze and you pull this way. It's very light. It's very light. It's like me doing this. Yes, but okay, now you're going to do it to me. Come on off. So I have to, do you want, you're going to pull on me.

Here I am. And you're going to, so do you see when I lift, I get this in? Do you see how I long gated right now, some clients are going to [inaudible] and they're using their legs to try to fix the problem. And why? I love this exercises. If they get the fee, if you can get it, you're going to, you're going to learn a lot where they're trying to stabilize you, right? Another issue is a poem me is I could be using my back poemy, I could use my hips, I could pull back. So it's, it's really teaching you something. Now come sit back down. Okay? Now the thing is what I say, did you, you got to experience Greg, is that, how did that feel? What did you notice when you got it?

It lifts you up. Good. And it's really important that you get them in neutral, okay? Because other things are going to happen now lightly pull on them and the person that sitting on the ball, close your eyes and notice what's happening. Okay? And then let it go. So then they're getting a little bit of multifidus.

And the one thing that I say to my clients is, did you feel that? Or did you notice that? Yes, because it's not a lot of work, but that's what we have to get underlying right away in our practice. So it's not going to be this like that feeling, but that's the beginning of a of you have to have that underlying in UB stretch. Yes. If you don't have that, then you have a certain crunching or whatever. Now put your hands behind your head and you're going to lightly pull on them and own those who when you practices at home, it's very light. I'm not doing a major pole, but it just, it's just enough to give them a sense.

Bring your elbows in and just feel how the skull is gonna slide backwards. Send your skull backwards. So I'm trying. There you go. And if you close your eyes, there is your multifidus. Yes. Now another thing I do is sometimes I like to talk about bones to get to pelvic floor and pelvic floor gets me to to transverse. That gets me to my multifidus, right? And this is an image I learned from Mariska Mona. So feel, observe yourself on the ball.

It also is going to teach you weakness and it's, you are not going to see a lot of movement, but sometimes you can see them reorganizing. So for instance, you have a client with scoliosis. They're going to tend to sit to one side. If you were to measure in one way, I don't know if you can see it, my this pelvic half is wider than this pelvic half, okay? So sitting on the ball or on a surface, visualize your right sip bone and I'm not gonna see much movement energetically move towards your left pubis. So you're going to bring that diagonal together and then release it.

Feel your rights, hip bone, and your left pubis come together and then let it go. Now go to your left. CIPO I should reverse it. And your right pubis and you're gonna feel that come together. You, I won't see much movement. It's just energetically. You're bringing it together.

Now notice which one took a little longer to bring together. That's usually your weaker side. So you might think bring the weaker side in and then the others. So bring right sip. Now we're going to simultaneously do sip bone pubis together, sip bone pubis together.

But don't change your ribs lift. So it's just pelvic floor frame your, and another way to think of it, it's like a kaleidoscope. You make it a smaller shape or another way. You're going from capital x to lower case x on the ball. Now you're going to bring the pelvic four bones together and then you feel the surface on the ball. You're going to dome that up there is your transfers. Okay, great. So that's one way to start.

I love talking about bones and it depends on who your client. You know, these days people are pretty well educated. Um, sometimes you don't, you, you feel, um, problems of talking with clients about pelvic floor, um, going to bone imagery is very safe. Everybody understands sip bone pubis, you know, so, but it's really wonderful. It gets that feeling of that. Okay, great.

Chapter 7

Obliques

The obliques are really, again, a three dimensional muscle. We talked about in the beginning that they all start from the back and they wrap to the front. And a lot of getting those obliques woken up is what eventually is going to solve the ribs. You know, you have clients that live this way, and what I see I'm seeing all the time is pull your ribs down.

So then it's creating another problem in my shoulder girdle. And then it's going to create another problem. If they pulled down too much, it could push and compress down on the spine and creates scoliosis. So we're gonna look at the, um, spine, and I'm going to kind of try to, well, let's just, here's your spine. Here's again your sacrum and here's your Iliac crest. So your internal obliques, some of them start way back here. Well, some they come front and they go back.

So it's kind of like this isn't that neat? And they, they, if you look in some of the anatomy, you, you see that the fibers kind of go up. Yes. And then the external obliques start, um, from the back. And they kinda cross down. So if I started to do a drawing, it would look like a sash.

Whoops, yes. So do you see how it's creating this nice x? And then just so we can see this, it's getting crazy now, right? Here's your, um, Sifo a process, right? That's your sternum. That rectus is here. It does, it attaches to the pubis. So do you see that a one plane or muscle? And it's really important. I'm not saying it's not, but I want to get a little more clarity of understanding the, uh, importance of those obliques.

And we're also going to bring everything together to understand how this coordination is going to work. So we're going to go through the muscles that we've just experienced to try to start learning about that coordination. So this time I want you to lie on your back and put the ball underneath your pelvis and have it more to your tailbone and your feet are down. Go. And I'm gonna ask you to knock your knees and, Oh, why am I doing this? Is that a lot of times when you watch people try to do posterior tilt is they're not working from core. They are pushing from their legs. So I'm trying and what happens is when they pushed the legs, the femur bones pushed the pelvis into the position and we want to get that deep movement feeling through there.

This is also going to be great to move back just a bit. So just know your, your get it to your tail more. There you go. Okay. Cause I want you to be able to arch and round your back. Yes. So now sometimes your clients, their backs are tight. Okay. And they're using, um, the front to solve the back.

But basically what's gonna happen is if my back is tight and I pull down, I'm gonna do phenomenal compression job. So I want to start changing how they think their nervous system is working. And also one thing that, why is the backout, that's one thing I'm going to keep saying to you as, as teachers is we have to problem solve why the Baca is out. And when it's an extension, maybe there's too much tension in the back. So if I don't solve the back problem in its tension and I put, and I'm not going to get to the core correctly, so I want you to arch your back.

Uh, Matt, I go back, just relax. Just stay there. I'm going to bring in a nice images of felled in Christ image. I want you to imagine through your pelvic floor, you're going to pull up a silk scar. You're not going to change your bones. You're going to inhale, breathe, and on the exhale you're going to school. Pull that silk scarf up the body without any change in of the ribs.

And I want you to move a little bit more back so it's more to your tail and your ribs are relaxed. Don't, uh, say vacation. Thank you. There you go. Good. Okay, so now we're going to change that image to a weighted ball and that it's Kinda like, it's going to roll down the sliding board of the sacrum and then it's like a seesaw, right? So inhale, I arched my back and the weighted ball gently rolls to my tail. I'm going to gently squeeze that weighted ball and I'm going to roll to the top of the sacrum. So I'm going to get into posterior tilt without using knees together. I see some cheaters here and how gently Archie back, the weighted ball goes to the tail.

Then I want you to visualize that weighted ball goes in and it slides down that ball. Good. Now put one hand on your ribbon, one hand on your pelvis. So I have one up here, one towards my side it and one towards my pelvis. The hand that's on my ribs, it's on vacation. The hand that's on your pelvis is working. Inhale, you're going to release an archer back. You're going to exhale, you're gonna live. Feel that pelvic floor bones come together and you're going to feel the tone. Move into the ball.

Inhale gently Archie back, XL hollow. Pull the low belly in and feel that move in. Now Archie back. Notice the tone in your lumbar. That's your motive for this has moved in once you to just visualize your multifidus sliding to a new length to neutral and it's going to slide and release and the front body is going to shorten to go to post to your hotel.

There we go. You're going to activate the multifidus and move in and gently arch. You're going to let that Motif at as slide two, a release length. You're going to let it slide even longer and then you're going to reengage the pelvic floor to give me post here tail. There we go. Good, good, good. Now bring your elbows towards, um, on the floor.

Point your fingertips up. So I'm trying now to get the whole motif of this chain going cause we need to train our clients. When you extend and it's healthy, all the vertebrae are, are moving in. It's not, it doesn't have to be a lot, but we need to get our clients and understanding that. So inhale, gently arch, lightly press your elbows down and very slightly coil the [inaudible] in. So your, your thoracic spine gently floats up a little bit. See the whole back body release slide to a new length. And now move the pelvic floor in and do post your tail.

Inhale gently archer back. Drive your elbows down, coil the multifidus in and your breastbone is going to go into your spine, is going to go into extension. And then you're going to exhale. You're going to move your low belly in and posterior tilt, more postage area from your bottom. So you want to get that going more. Inhale arch. There you go. Little multi-surface. Great. Relax your whole back body.

Good vacation on top. And you, you're doing a lot of work there. So what I'm gonna think about, she's tightening her back and I want her to let it go. There we go. There we go. And then release it. And there you go. Good. Okay. Now I want you to come to city in a second and I want you, um, well do this. Put your hands here. So here's another nice thing to do is I'm going to visualize, I'm putting my hand in front of the verdict, uh, the as in and to the psis, and I'm going to bring that together. So I'm just gonna visualize.

I'm going to narrow my hip bones together. Notice that's transverse. Okay, nice. So that's a great image to give people. Now put your hand. Um, let's go to our left side of our ribs and down at her hip bone. OK, I'm reversing things for the camera. Okay, so that I, if I did a drawing, so draw your hand down and go towards your hip.

So that's my external oblique. Okay. Now I want you to visualize, you're going to slide that long line long, so I have a little bit of rotation. Then I want to feel the fibers slide shorter without using your shoulders. Yes, I'm going to slide it apart and I'm going to feel the fiber slides. So it's kind of like I'm going from a, a large x to a lower case x. Okay. Now, internal bleak. So internal bleak wood.

We're going to start here and we're gonna imagine if it does come here, but I'm vivid imagination, right? So I'm going to go a little anterior on that hip and I'm going to visualize, I'm going to pull that line up so much, it pulls my hip up and then I'm going to release it and I'm going to get that to lift and pull it together and then release it. There you go. And you're going to lift. And so the image is if I'm in anterior tilt, I'm in bad version, right? I have a large x and I'm going to slide these lines together to give a smaller x.

And one thing I'm going to keep saying to you is what I see is most people are concentrating on the top of the ax and we need much more. That's gonna solve a lot of my lower, if I'm hyperextended of getting that connection. Okay? So I want you to lie on your back with the ball underneath, between your shoulder blades. And I want you to put your hands at your ribs and you're going to slide your hands down as if you put your hands into your po opposite pocket. And now we're going to add movement so that whole x is going to slide out to a longer shape and you can arch back.

You're going to give me a little bit of neck movement, cervical nod. Then you're going to move the opposite hip closer to your hip pockets. Good. And then you're going to inhale. So pretty much when I'm doing external, the bleak, I'm going to call it a bleak lines, right?

I'm coming in in my ribs. Pretty much stay on the ball, right? Yes. And then go back down. Now to up the ante, which is your Rola. I first want to get those external obliques going first, and then I'm going to pull my rectus closer to my pubis to come up higher. There you go. And then come back. There you go. And the, the one thing that I'm going to keep saying is I see people doing flection from all different places. It's really this it bleak lie, not me. Pulling my armpits down. Yes. Not, you know, and then underlying, we still need that transverse abdominis.

So we're going to keep bringing that underlying and throat. Okay.

Chapter 8

Applying 3D Core Principles to the Reformer

So we're going to apply, uh, the principles of 3d core to the equipment. And I'm going to use therabands, um, as a way to help you visually see it. It's really interesting. She's also going to get a different feedback from it. Not all clients are going to feel comfortable with this rep, but you can play with it, um, and see what you're going to do.

So what I want you to do is I'm going to put the rep, so I take us just so you talk about the therapist. I take like 10 feet and I'm, these are, I usually prefer the lighter ones. I'm doing more to give them a different sense of proprioception and um, then load, because I'm gonna use the machines to have load. Okay. Um, so I don't really need to have it real tight. You, there's ways you can make a tighter, but that's not my goal. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put it around her sacrum and then she's gonna take both therabands and put it between her legs.

And then she's going to take the theraband and put it on the outside. Now Jennifer, I want you to just fix it a little bit so that the, it gets tied up around and get it around your femoral folds. So you're going to, there you go. So we're going to give her one experience and we're going to have to tie it. She's tiny now. Face that way for me please. So let go a second and I'm just going to give it a little bit of a loop.

Yeah, my tiny woman. So it's just to give her a sense of, is that good? You feel just a little bit of her feeling this beautiful counter tension between her head and tail. And then what I want to see is here's that theraband and Baca first. We're going to do it this way and then I'll have her do a profile.

Can she move her sacrum backwards? She wants to use her hips and then, and then I want her to move her sacrum forward and I want her to move her sacrum back. It's really small. And then I want her to move her sacrum back. Now she's doing a lot of extra work. So now I'm putting my hands on her side teams.

There's no reason to pull down. Yes. So I can get the illusion of flection by pulling my lots down. That's not what we're doing. Right. It's so you're going to move your sacred and backwards and then you're going to move your sacrum forward and you're going to move your sacrum backwards. There we go. And then you're going to move your sacrum forward. Yeah.

That's great. Now, uh, Jennifer, I want you to sit in the well and your hands are here. So put both feet in. Yeah, just sit. There you go. So another thing I do is I push out just a bit. Thank you. Is I'm always looking at what's working, what's not working. Okay. And a lot of my clients, they're tr and she was trying to do it herself, use their hip flexors to try to get flection.

So what's the opposite of the front? Cause your hamstrings. Okay. So her just lightly pressing the carriage out has got her hamstrings kicking in. So now I want to watch her do the same thing. Now if we look at her alignment, she's in extent and it's, it's she, it's very subtle. You know, your, your beginner clients, you see much bigger range. So I want to get that.

Say she wants to pull a writ. I want you float your sacred ba up and you're gonna float that breastbone up. You're going to move your sacrum lightly back to me. Oh No, not your hips. There you go. And now you're gonna move your sacrum forward. Tea Away from me. So you're do we want post your tail and then we want neutral.

And then we want anterior tilt pose. Good. Jennifer was have, one thing you're always going to find is there's a language problem. There's a language problem. And so it's this dialogue. I have to find out what her language is and what my language is, um, to get the right movement. And there are times I've worked with the same client and I say flex your spine, extend your spine, and they still don't understand it.

So we have to find a common denominator cause that's how they learn. So here is the sacrum. And what I'm trying to get Jennifer to do is move the sacrum backwards without moving the carriage, the sacred, the top of the sacred. Just going to move up. That's neutral. And then she's gonna pitch the top of the sacrum forward. There we go.

She's gonna get the top of the sacrum to go up and then she's going to pitch it back without moving the carriage. I want her to push out another inch cause I'm trying to kick her out from her legs. So when their ego sacrum, then we're gonna move it back to neutral. And then we're going to go even more forward. So you're going to let anterior tilt happen healthy and back to neutral.

Just lift, get, lift the sacrum up and then take it back. There we go. And now move your sacrum forward a little more. A little more and up. So my hands are literally doing this. Yes. Is that what you, what are you observing in my hands so that you can teach teachers. You're, you're pushing the top of my sake, right? This is great.

So what I'm doing is I'm putting my fingertips and I'm just send the, I'm just, I'm very gentle because the more she, the client does the work, she's going to learn me, you know, of course I need to teach her the Frazy, but she needs to learn physically how to do this. Simple action. There we go. Now she's going to do flection from the bottom without hip. So she's going to move the top of the sacrum backwards. And then she's going to do flection from the top and she's going to lift those ribs up. So there's the obliques. Thank you so much. There you go.

She's going to get the top of the sacrum going, floating, and then she lifts and she gets the multifidus up in her. There we go. Great. And now she's going to do post your tail, and then she's going to lift up and she's going to come through and then come back and haul. Now we're going to give her another feedback. So we're gonna take the therapist come in just a second. You gotta loop your hand on it. Just your hand. There you go. And we're going to put the hand off. Well, I'm putting it behind her, uh, kind of where her tips or shoulder blades are and behind her occiput.

So she's gonna move her sacrum forward. That's back. There we go. And she's going to send her ribs lightly back and fill that theraband. It's just like a kiss. Yes, it's not a big thing. Now she's going to do flection from the bottom.

Good. And then she's gonna do flection from top, but she's going to send her ribs up instead of down. Do you see how that creates more space? And then she's going to release it and she's moving back and she sends her throat and her ribs back into that. Great. Okay, now we're gonna do another kind of wrap. So come on out of this a second and you're going to take it out from underneath and you're going to crisscross it and you're gonna to put it behind your bodies. And now face towards the, uh, the camera for me, just stand up for me.

So here it's to give you an idea of those oblique lines. And then also that, um, where her sacredness, now we're going to have her, she didn't know she was going to get tied up today, so she's a good ally on her back and, uh, we're gonna do, we're gonna begin footwork now. So it's Kinda interesting, this, uh, line to do. Um, is it, it's gonna give you a little more information about the legs. Another thing I could do is I could take the theraband MFA, come on up.

We're gonna do it. Um, unloop it behind your head cause you'll see it now lie on your back. Lift your head up just to say, so I'm putting it there. So it's to give her a sense and I'm going to ask her, I'm just going to hold again, I'm trying to show you that oblique lie. Okay. Now, you know, a lot of times when people straighten their legs and they do foot work, you see them go that way and then they talk. I want to get this pattern connected before she finished straightened her legs.

And once she gets that, it's gonna get her ribs in the right place. We are going to start parallel and ankles, knees together right now. So we're gonna think about all that we worked on in the beginning. So I might ask her to give a little bit of pelvic floor lift. Good. And then I want you to push out one third stay.

Now we w especially in the reformer class, we're going to talk more so as, but I'm constantly looking at this whole area that I should see a beautiful femoral fold. It shouldn't be coming up and that we want to get these low abdominals and the cell as to current along her curves to go out. So she's going to press out and straighten her legs. There we go. And then she's going to slowly come back in and sh we can even pull on that. So there's your hamstrings staying working.

She's going to go out and then she's going to come back in. Now I'm going to get a little underneath the her waist and what I'm doing is I, it's um, John Club was calls. It is sort of lovely way of saying it. Listening hands. I'm not doing anything. I'm observing her back. Now I want you to just think of your back, the multifidus sliding a little longer and just see your low back ribs. Good. There you go. Push out halfway and hold. Stop.

Now give me that deep pelvic floor lift without losing your low ribs and push out all the way. Slow. Slow now good. And now s come in, bend your knees halfway. Hold. Then slowly come back in and then come back in. Now it doesn't look like she's doing a lot of work and I don't have it really heavy right now, but it's a great way to start teaching your clients. Like stop them. It teaches them to get into their legs and stay in their core.

Cause a lot of times you see him push out their legs. Hyperextend they do this and then they do all this. Fixing. And we want to get the nervous system working right away because once you have to keep adjusting, you're not creating the right patterns. And now slowly press out slow. And I want her to keep that internal lift going up, up, up, up, up.

Thank you. See her eyebrows lifted. I know she's doing good. And then come back and home. There you go. That was great. Now I want you to go to second position so we could do the whole a second. Second. We could do the whole version of um, foot work, but I'm always concentrated on this thing.

Now she's doing a really good job. I could do another thing. Uh, bring your hands off a second and you're gonna put your thumbs in the red straps and you're going to just stretch your arms up. Okay. He got, yeah, there you go. Put your thumb in it. Alright, so you know, we always, you know, you have this, you see the client, the ribs go out and then you, you, they have a cube narrowing your ribs together. Right? I'm not really crazy about that Q y because it closes a diaphragm and really the diaphragm should rise up and at the very end, the ribs hug to help rise it up more. But if I'm closing the front, you see that diaphragm's gonna stop.

So what I want her to visualize is those low ribs and that cell. As you know, you have to decide. One thing I want you to think about, I'm giving you a lots of information in this workshop. You're maybe you work with one thought with your client, you know, and then layer it, you know, but um, because you're sophisticated movers, we can go there. So I want her to stay in, press out, and I want her to imprint those ribs into the, there you go. There you go. And then slowly come back home and control through your legs and she's going to press out. There we go. Good. Now she's going to keep her ribs. She's going to get, she's going to think her ribs are going to push the carriage away more.

She's going to push the carriage away more with her legs. She's going to lift her pelvis up an inch, but she's going to get more length. She's stopped. She's going to coil her spine in, so she's going to give me a little extension arch arch. Arch. Healthy. Good. There you go. You're going to give me twice as much length to come back down. Am I hitting coming back?

You're coming to no, no, no. Your legs are straight and you're going to slowly reach through your legs, reach through your spine, and then you're going to come back down. And there we go. Good. So what I see a lot in sequential [inaudible] is you're so interested in the front, you forget what's happening in the back. So press out. She did a pretty good job.

I want her to spatially move the ribs that way. She's gonna lift up. Good. She's going to push the carriage more away. She's going to let the multifidus slide to a new length and she's going to yield her vertebrate into the carriage and she stays in her legs and she's gonna let her low ribs kiss the carriage and then she's going to slowly come back in and come back home. Correct. Okay. So that's what I'm constantly looking for is how to help my client get a better sense of alignment with internally, not fixing it from above. Okay?

So we're going to do something very simple, deceptively simple, deceptively hard. I want you to come to new on the box, hands on there. So I'm imitating cat and camel, but again, I'm going to try to make a, what happens with cat and camel is people use their hip flexors, they pull down in their ribs, and I want to get that feeling of extension inflection from that new lengthening position. So she's going to press an ounce out with her knees and she's gonna keep her shoulders over that. Then she's gonna push out and squat backwards. There we go. Okay, let's stay lift. There we go.

So what I want, we're going to do, how we started class of like on the overhaul is I'm going to ask her to do post your tilt and anterior tail or cat and camel just at the pelvis. And let's watch what she does. [inaudible]. Nope, I don't want it to move. And then go back. There you go and go.

So there's a little bit she's starting to try to do through the top of her up here. Squat back a little bit more. No squat. So shift forward and there we go. So this is something I learned from a Madeline and black. It's really nice. You get the femur heads back behind the knees and you're going to ask them to do posterior and anterior tail because a lot of people are doing posts here because they're pushing the femur heads forward. So, okay. And then go back. Now this is a, this stays here.

It's bumps and grinds at mom's house. Slow. No, you're doing okay. So what's happening is, and she's probably looked like she's doing a great job. She is, but I'm trying to get her deeper in her lowers. Move arch a back or Toback arch arch arch. Now feel my hand is lift that tone off my hand. Just lifted up. Lifted up. Sh lift, lift. Thank you so much.

Then here's that multifidus and now reverse arch. Arch Arch. There we go. And then she's gonna lift. Good. Left lift. There you go. Then come back in. You're good. Okay. Now here's my image for flection. It's like a drawbridge is the pelvis is going this way.

I have to, you have to say pelvis is going this way and the ribs are going this way. So do you see that's a long flection where most of the time people are going plonk. Okay, so come there. She's gonna stick her buttocks out and lift. There we go. So we're going to do it sequentially. So she's going to flex from the bottom up, lift, and then I want her to flex from the top, but I'm going to keep, she's going to send her ribs that way and then she's going to arch your back and then she's going to go. Now I'm going to come back in. Jennifer, we're going to get, we're gonna really do the same rep. So what I'm going to do, bad version for you guys.

So a lot of times when people are stuck in the thoracic, they will try to get flection from somewhere else. Leslie, she sheers here? Yes. So do you see my head is moving faster than my shoulders. So we want her to feel that the her throat stays gently up into here. So she's gonna push out. Okay. Now I'm going to give her another image up here is her first rib we want that is up as much as the bottom rip? No, she's doing, do you see how she's flexing more down there at? We're just trying. Neutral.

Neutral. Thank you. Thank you. So remember the curves flection from the top flection from the head, cervical extension, thoracic, full flection, lumbar extension, a little bit of flection here. And then the tailbone has its own Smith. So you're going to do flection from the bottom. You're going to lift those lower dominoes up and you're going to send your ribs in your skull up. That's beautiful. So you see that's a long flection.

That's it. So our goal to get our clients to feel, and then you're going to go back and bring it through. Okay, we'll come back to that. Now we're going to talk about extension. So we're going to put the Togo ball on the, um, a box and you're going to lie on it and you're going to, um, lie on it and your hands are there. So you want this on. Yeah. Yeah. So you're going to load the lie prone and your arms are rich and you're going to just say you're gonna Relax. You're just gonna do nothing. Right?

So remember in the earlier part of the workshop, we talked about moving the conveyor belt. And one thing you're gonna see with your clients is people are really weak in their multifidus. And so they start doing their, let's first. So if I do lat first, do you see, have I shortened? I kind of collapse. Now, here's multifidus if I want to do lots. Do you see I still have legs? Okay. So your lats are very important, but we need to get primary these deep muscles in the spine.

So one thing that I do is to help my clients is I'm going to say, okay, I'm going to do a drawing and I want you to feel that lengthening that way. So just brushing them kind of helps her nervous. Then if I tap, kind of get some more activated. So what I want her to visualize is can she move her, slide the ball forward and lift up and eat, know shoulders, vacation, shoulders, and now, uh, easy. She, so she's tightening her shoulders now and then lower down and release it. And so we want her to move those vertebrate easy vacation, shoulders, working back and lift. Easy. Good.

Now when her breastbone moves, it should help that the spine is what lifts the head up. There we go. And our shoulder blades are nice. And armpits. Yes. What does that mean? A lot of people are pushing their shoulders down so much they're pushing their ribs down. Okay. So we were going to, now, uh, I'm going to bring the bar up again and just stay there a second. Move you a bit not, so whoops.

Here we go. Every machine has its own thing, right? Thank you. Okay, so she's got to put her hands wide on there and she's going to relax. Okay. She's going to lift her legs up. Good. Now sometimes what you see with your clients, and she's pretty good, is there a little arched?

So that's where you need to get the tone right in front of the sacrum. Yes. So here I am. I need to get this lower tone coming in. That's the problem. Not this. Do you get what I'm doing? So she's going to give me a little spinal extension without any arms.

Her shoulder blades are going to just gently slide to the foot bar. Shear legs are lifted and she's going to straighten her arms. There we go. Good. And then she's gonna catch her back as long as she's going to come in. And there we go. That's great.

I still could get some more extension there, but I don't want her to, she's trying to do it from her head. And what I w what I'm, it's very subtle, but basically we want to get these spinal muscles to coil in and if it's a good extension, it's an equal coil. If it's when you, when somebody said that it hurts my back, it's going right into the, uh, they're just doing it. The lumbar. Okay. Okay. We're going to,

Chapter 9

So I want her to bend her arms, bender arms, and we're going to have you reach out and go forward. And no, no, no. Your arms. I'm sorry. And then you're going to bring your arms up forward. There you go. Not just to there. And then you're going to bring your arms out and good. Now Bend your arms in today. Specially.

I'm more interested in our spine because, um, a lot of times you see clients, they get so interested in the arms, they forget about the spine. Okay? And especially if you have any like frozen shoulder, it's better to first teach in this, uh, space. So it'd be your forward in your diagonal, then eventually you can go to side. But I'm really cautious about that. So now if we could do this, we're going to just loop it. I don't cause we're eventually going to add the reformer strapped. So I don't want the load to be too heavy, but we want to get back all those principles. So matter of fact right now, just bend your knees, Cross your legs. There you go.

And first of all, we're going to move the top of the sacrament and now stretch your arms forward. So there's just a little bit of tension. Now what I want you to think about is, remember when we talked about the obliques is that those obliques are going to come into a lower case, a lower case x, and that moving this way against those bands is your stability. Instead of pulling your ribs down. Now I want right now I want her.

So right now I'm feeling I'm, my hands was listening to her and I felt the bottom of the x come down. So here's the image is we're starting out with a capital x. We're going to do a lower case x from the lower abdominals. So you've got to get those lowers lifting. She's pulling down lift. No [inaudible] yes, that's it.

Do you feel like you're arched? Okay, so sometimes I need to see where they, because it's a new position. So bend your arms just halfway and then push out and give me this lift and send the insides back. Throw back. There we go. Great. And I'm still going to need more lowers. That's her goal. That's her new job. Now I want you to flex on top. So you're going to bow forward their ego and then she's going to go lean forward at the hips and then she's going to go out to flat back because she lifts.

Lift your arms up. Good. And then she's going to come back. So I'm doing a modified chest rowing too. I, it depends on where your school thought. So bend your, I'm mainly concentrating on what the spine does. So she's going to send her arms forward. She's going to do flection on top with support at the bottom lift. So we want to get a real long flection. She's gonna lengthen out. Go, go, go, go. Good.

And then she's going to come back and bring it through. Okay. We're not done yet. Now she still kind of lives. I need to get back that sacred. Eventually I want better flection here, but it's a different feeling. So here we go. Don't do anything yet. Put your hands in the struts. So we're up in the ante, right? So again, do you see she's leaning forward.

We got to get those lowers to lift. We want to feel that a front back experience as she presses out. Straighten your arms. Send your ribs from inside. Good. Good. We're going to do a plane. Good. Open your arms out diagonally forward. Don't lose your ribs. Bring your arms forward and inside. Go back. Bend your elbows. Come back home.

Now push out and do flection from the top. Send the ribs up. Yes. Lean forward at the hips. Keep your legs long, and then come back and come back up. There you go. And then come back and through. Okay. Uh, yes. Circle around. So that's it. And then bring your arms back.

So our goal is to get better. That head tail from that eat deep internal place. Okay. Come on off. And we're gonna do elephant, same rats. Come on. No.

Okay. Come to neutral. Downward dog. No, it's, I'm really, let's see what she does. Okay. So that's not neutral. Okay. And it's really important that you learn in your own practice and your clients because if you have a client with osteoporosis and or spinal issues that need extension, this is not a healthy place to go. So I'm going to ask her to lift is, she's gonna shift forward. So you're a little tiny.

So you're going to walk your hands with hands, feet, and you're going to lift your spine up. Are you in neutral reflection? Flection can yank you. So we're going to ask her to lift all her ribs up. So do you see she's working from the bottom again? So lip. Do you want me to go into flection? No, I want neutral.

There you go. Lift. There you go. Bend your knees. Okay. Now, right now there is a little bit, I want her to get her lumbar in extension. Thank you. And then I want her to straighten her legs. Good. Now I don't have her in the right place. Her sacrum is inflection her. Okay.

So I just need enough tone and I'm going to tapper to get enough. Okay. And then go back. Now what happened? She was trying to fix it from her hips. So, so here's those hamstrings. She's going to keep driving me there and she's going to lift her dominoes up. She still wants to use her hip flexors. So it's, it's a Panini. Jennifer Sandwich.

Thank you. There you go. Push out with your legs. She's gonna pull in with her. So as line, no, she's talking. So basically what I'm asking, come on off a second is if that's me in downward downward dog, I should be able to lift my leg up and this line should stay long. What I'm seeing is she's doing this. Okay. Now in New York we move. You know what mooning is?

Sticking your buttocks out. Shift power, shift forward. Good. Bring your legs closer together. Lift your toes up and lift. There you go. So give me a little, there we go. Push out with her legs and then come back in. Great. And push out. Nice. Now we're going to do push out in hold.

We're going to do flection from the bottom. [inaudible] push out. She's trying to do it from her hips. So this lower dom room, no push out. Do not move the carriage. I'm going to lift this up off my hands. Come on, come on. Come on. Come on. Lift. Oh, you gotta lift this up. Oh my gosh. There we go. Lift. That's hard for her. There you go. So it's getting those lowers to work. Okay, so I'm having her again. Those.

This is giving you the visual of her back line. And if first we want to learn to do it in neutral. And so do you see she's in too much extension here and she's in too much hip flection. So this is at our gluteal fold. So I want her to send her hamstrings back into there, but she has to lift as if my hands, and that's her whole domino is a rafter lifting the whole spine up. There we go, she's gonna push out. And then she, this right here is telling you about her first rib.

We're going to do a modified up. I want you to shoot your shoulders over the foot bar and send your legs backwards and lift your first rib up. Go down, go down, go to, there you go. Lift that first rib up. Nice. And now use your low. You're gonna lift up into downward dog as f. It's one piece. Very good. Very good. More first rip, look down. Okay, so that's that whole concept of that.

Now if we were doing the full up stretch first, we're going to go down in neutral. Well good. Go a little more. I need more hamstrings. There we go. Shift forward. Good. She's going to start flection from the top. She's going to lift this up. Stay. Remember the drawbridge and then she has to shift back at the hips. Okay. Right now she shifted at her sacrum. Okay.

Again, we want to get that whole quote. Um, shift flection from the top. Yeah. Flection. Good. Lift the pelvis up. Stay. Go to neutral pelvis. Good. There we go. Great. Okay. Just stand up a second. So what I did stand on in front for me please. [inaudible] yeah, you're going to keep that on.

Okay. So we just right now I a stand forward. Okay. I just did a criss cross. Again, I wanted you to visually see that she's going to send and parallel [inaudible] and now I want you to lift your arms up and we're going to go v for victory. Now do you see this right now?

I want her to slide this up and lift and then we're going to get that. So as long and she's going to keep the back in the front and lift one leg up. Just like a passe. Coupé. There we go. And then she's going to go back down. What I want you to observe, go back down, stand on wo legs is, is she keeping her back up and is this line staying long to lift her leg up? Now I want, it's very subtle. Turn around please.

And we're going to take, I'm just going to show you so you can see that is, here's her back. Bring your arms to me. It's almost like you're going to hug me. Wait, there you go. And I want to get a lot more lift up to the front. There's a oblique line. The PSOAS is long. Can she lift her leg up and can her back stay long or does she shorten?

So what I'm feeling, and I don't know if you can see, is I feel this and eventually that this core is, here's, do you see my shirt? It doesn't change. And that's the beginning of walking. Who is, what's happening is what do we do? Our lives we walk. So is every time your client takes a step and they dropped down in their back and then they come back up. If we could teach our clients to find this kindle in, in our bodies, it's gonna help our backs and our legs in a whole different way.

Great. Thank you. [inaudible]. So hopefully I'm gave you some new inroads to thinking about a hree d core. And our goal is to keep finding different spaces and length, whether we do flection or extension or whatever the movement is because there's, we need to help our clients and our own practice of not doing these kind of compressive forces that will take its toll. And the ne thing that is too really is hard to teach is, is getting those deep muscles going as we want to work our clients out. So the ne thing that I want you to see if you can find in your practice and in with your clients is this idea of 3d core and how can we help ourselves and our clients find length, whatever the movement is and not so much compressive forces of this kind of collapse.

And what is hard is what I do a lot is like I did a little things like doing the ball. Um, maybe spend a couple minutes on that. Then I bring it into a full workout. It's Kinda, I keep reeducating my clients little bit of a time, but I still keep a workout because I know a lot of you as teachers need to be, are, have a lot of pressure to put a workout within it. But we still can bring intelligence. It's into our training.