Class #2428

Standing Spinal Mobility

45 min - Class
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Description

Feel longer in your torso after taking this class with Ken Gilbert! The first half of this class is all standing Pilates movements that focus on the midline of the front of the body. Ken emphasizes paying attention to the breath with the movement, the alignment of the body, and increasing the mobility of the spine. After finishing the standing portion of the class, you'll take it down to the floor to deepen your understanding of the movements.

If you don't have a Braided Towel, you can substitute it for a Stretch-Out Strap or a regular folded towel.
What You'll Need: Braided Towel

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I'm Ken Gilbert here at Polonius anytime and we're doing a floor class. We're using the red braided towel. You could use our green stretch out strap or you could use a bath towel folded long ways once and then twice and then rolled it up. There's different ways of using this incredible tool. So we're using the red towel for today. So let's begin.

Ankle bones touch above the knee, high inner thigh, so you're bringing in the midline and my tutorial at this, this cycle of classes, we're playing with the midline, the midline of the front of the body. So let's be aware of five Halos, the ankle bones or above the knee. One of those two depends on how you're connected to your midline of your legs. Then here at the hips, hip to hip, then here with the diaphragm, been here at the shoulder girdle and then here at the eyes learn to look out at the top of your spine. The top of the spine is located where we recall the third eye, so play with the eyes, looking out if the eyes fall, they head befall. If the eyes lift the head, lift the eyes go ahead of us of the spine.

Sometimes we're not doing some of the work we think we are. So keep the focus of the eyes clear. So we're here from behind and underneath. Head Up, eyes up. Now here's your opposing force. Pull in here. Trans versus raps. And one more time. And [inaudible] going into the foot. Legwork. Rella Bay, right.

And then down and okay, let the arms spin open at the elbows. Yep. Keep the spine lifted. The sternum in relationship to the crown of the head. Okay. And four and three press into the heel. Ball, heel, ball, heel.

Keep the heels down and we play a [inaudible]. Dropped the pubis and sacred. Straight down and eyes up. Looking out. Put your head on top of your spine. Four and three. We're in the leg and foot. Work. Last two and one. Now we put the two together, right foot relevant, a plea, a come up heel down, relevant. A plea, a come up heel down saying I pride in your spine. Relevate a come up and down, a plea, a spin. The elbows out, stabilizes the shoulders. Then relax last time [inaudible] turn out at the hips and then [inaudible] parallel if the kneecaps forward.

Turnouts parallel turn parallel. Here's your Europe pivot point. Way Up here. Imagine your pivot point way up here. Stabilize here. You're opposing fourth stay and [inaudible] a an inner thighs and zip up in front of you for more nice and too. Yes, working way up into the buttock. Stay there and Relevate ball. He'll stay in the ball of the foot, not the outer toes.

Ball heel. Four more. [inaudible] the front of you. This is your opposing force. Last two and one. Now we have a plea aid. Relevate ple, a come up heel down. Relevate ple a come up, heel down, leg and foot work. Okay, you're very good people. Thank you.

Four more times. Then they're ah, nice. Yes. Beautiful. I love this. Then stay more upright so the hips don't go back. They stay over the leg. There it is, and down. Return to parallel and we're rounding over head, neck, shoulders and arms. Rounding over widen the shoulder blades. Hug the shoulder blades around the back of the rib cage. Widen as you roll down.

We're not yet in the hips and pelvis, so we're stabilizing the lower belly in and up. Beautiful. Now tip the pubis over. Rounding over all the way. Crown of the head goes to the toes. A little bit of a Washer woman here. Inhale, lift up. Exhale and round over and lift up and round over. Let the crown of your head go down. Round up and over. Let the crown of the head go down to the toes, round up and over.

A washer woman variation. Round up and overthrow. All coming out of the middle. Back routing up and over and rounding up and over. Two more times please. Rounding up and over. Let the head be heavy here. So we want to get into the lower back in a different way and over. Take hold of the towel. Take hold of the middle of the towel.

Don't do anything with it and just roll up. Just roll up. So here we are. We're going into the pelvis, places, sacrum, and then into the lumbar. Lower back then in the thoracic ribcage, then the neck and the head are all good at this. So let's play with a wide. Uh, you don't have to go out to the ends cause that might be a little bit too wide. There's a way of put, put the towel just so that you're out in front of your sternum. Out in front of your clavicle. Yeah, and we're here overhead wide back there.

Here's where you want to use the opposing force of the bottom of the sternum here. So inhale, lengthen up. Exhale, keep the length of the spine and return the towel and lower belly pulls in and up. All of you. Keep the shoulder blades wide. Keep your blades. Why it's here. Moving only the head of the humerus. Only the head of the upper arm, bone, clavicle, stays level. Keep the towel and arms in front of the face. Keep it back wide. Yes, two more. Head Up, eyes up. And one more. This time you're going to stay lower.

Belly pulls in and up. Shout, we're here and turnout. I'm calling this typewriter for no other better term. So we're playing now with a halo. We've got the halo of the legs going on with the heels above the knee, high into the NFI. Take the hip to the side. Nothing happens in the shoulders center side, center side center, eyes up, look out and opposing forces coming from here and it's like a hip bump to the sides. Side Center, side center, lower belly pulls in and up.

So you're working the Serratus area working the bottom part of the rib cage right here. Want to play with the posterior serratus trans versus the intercostals working the obliques. It's pretty comprehensive. Last two and one now we played with the pulses and in, in, out, out, in, in, out, out in n arms come to chest and in, in, out, out. Go to work. Right here you're working the rent of the rib cage and n n o l four three two. If the pelvis spin the elbows out, nothing moves in the shoulders. Stay still the rib cage.

Stay still [inaudible] yes, look at this and four, three, two and four. Four you're working the rim of the ribcage, the radius and four, stay there and center. Now that was the easy one. Now we take the rib cage over. Nothing moves from here down and pick the rib cage over and center. Take the rib cage over and center.

Ribs and ribs and ribs and ribs. Taught the towel a little bit more. Ribs and ribs and all the towel top. Pull it out and ribs. Now, single breath. Nothing in the head and arms. Nothing in the head and arms. Only the rib cage.

Only the record. Yes. Only the rib cage and three and two. And chest and ribs and ribs. Welcome to the Serratus of your spine. Four and three and two and one.

Pelvis, eight and seven and ribs and ribs and four and three and two and one and center. Fatiguing. Yes. Yeah. Working in the middle of the spine. So this is my philosophy about moving is that the lakes come from here, the arms come from here. So we're activating that. This is it. I was excited this year about the serratus. It's just too exciting. The anterior posterior survey to sit in a beautiful wash. All right, here we are Lincoln. Hang Up. Now lift on your right side. Lengthen on your left side.

You're going to side bending. Lift on the right, lengthen on the left. Lift on the right. Lengthen on the left. Lift on the right. Lengthen on the left, coming up to the center. Keep your arms in front of the face. Lift on the left side. Linkedin on the variety. Lift on the left and lengthen on the ride.

Lift on the left. Lengthen on the right. Lift and lengthen. Then lift to center. I want to play with this as this is side bending. So now we don't have mirror reference, but what I do want to play with this as we go on to side bending, we want to keep the line of the nose in relationship to the spine. We don't want to do this as we go into sideband. We don't want to do this. We don't want to fall out. So as you're going over, you're using this, the opposing side of the nose as your gauge, if the easy way to see.

So we're here like the NEP, lower belly. Zip it up. Pubis, Navel. Okay. And lift on your right. Lengthen on your left. One more breath. Here. Go a little further. Lift and Lang, then coming up and lift on the left side. Lengthen on the right side. Lift and lengthen. One more. Two breasts and lift and lengthen. Yes.

And lift and widen the shoulder blades forward and center and over and lift and lengthen. All single breath. Lift here and lengthen and lift here and lengthen. And four more. Last two and one coming to sentence. Sure. And arms down best night. So we're getting a lateral flexion and extension.

Alright, play with it this way. Now we're here. Take the hip and then side bend and then bring the hip and return the hip and side. Bend the hip and return hip side band, Hip and return hip side Van, hip and return. Now moving co just simply from the hip, hip side, bend and center. Hip side bend. Put your head on your spine. Hip side bend four more. Last two and one coming up and center.

So we're moving up the Halos. We're now at the shoulder halo. We're going to go into the head halo for a moment. So we're here wide back. So look to the the upper arm here on the right and then center. Then look at the upper arm on the left there. Keep the shoulder blades wide so your arms are going to be in front.

If you go here, you're going to miss that connection to get a little too TANF in the neck. So be careful of that. So let's do it in single breath side, center side. Now look at the upper arm and look at the upper arm. Look at the upper arm, look at the upper arm last two and now a single breath. As we move through playing with the eyes thing level to the floor, you're focusing your eyes to the head. Turn four, three, two and one center. Arms down. Now we get to put some things together. Oh, we've got one more thing.

Two more things. Taking my quick mental inventory. Two more things. So we've done forward flection, we've done side bending, lateral flection. Yeah. And we've done a little bit of rotation in the head. So you want to do some rotation in the thoracic, zip up your mid line heels above the knee, high in a thigh, and rotate to the window. [inaudible] center.

Now keep your focus of the sternum and the eyes in the center of the towel. Sternum and eyes are staying unified. One more each way. Great, and last one. So now that's interesting to me, but what makes it more interesting as watch right there. Okay, watch right there. Single breath first. [inaudible]. Now Watch how much further I can go. This hip goes forward because I bring it from here. So we want to play with that two breasts.

So it'd be breath one. Then go further. We're asking more from the cereus area. Remember if the Serratus area, that's what we're working. Yes, yes. I like that. Yeah. And rotate. One breath. Second breath. Go further. Now keep the hip. Yeah, forward. See your right hip will be forward. Right hip forward, right hip.

Forward. Forward, forward, forward. I'll come to center and now watch here for a second. This can happen if you're not careful. We don't want that to happen. Keep this hit so it goes here and then there. Yeah, this doesn't move. Yeah. So let's do it again. Other side and one breath.

Second breath and centre and one breath. Two breaths. Nice. And Center and one. And to center and [inaudible] your head and sternum. Stay in the middle of the towel and two and center. Nice. And one and two.

And coming center. Arms Up. Be careful to not turn the head. What will happen if you turn the hip or the head is you get the illusion of a rotation when indeed you're not rotating as much. Yeah, you want to rotate with that specific specificity of the axis. All right, so now overhead, then we get to play. All right and rotate. One. Sure. Zip Up the front of you. Is it up the front and two? Yes.

And Center and one. And to zip up the front of you and center and one and two. Zip Up the front of you. Yes. And Center and one and two. This is very pretty and one more each way.

And One and two wringing out the spine center. Really Nice and one and two come into center and arms down. So now we need to do a little bit of extension because we've done a lot. We've done a lot to close this n for stabilization and for focusing center. So be careful with this. You don't want the head to fall back. Here's, here's where we're using the eyes as, as a halo. So as you go up and over, the initiation comes from here, not the pelvis going forward.

It comes from the lower back lifting. So you lift to go over and we'll go over four breasts for three, two and one. We'll take our time gap, upper back extension. So nothing to happen down here. You want to stabilize this here from the lower belly? Yeah, we have that.

All right. So here we go. Watch please Andy. Okay. Come up. And then we do forward flection to take any tension out of the lower back. Yeah. So it's five breaths if you will. Yeah. So let's start here. Up and over. Four and three.

Take your head with your spine. Yeah. And two and one lengthen up, center and forward. Fluxion it's a bottom rim of the ribcage. Lengthen the lower back. Gorgeous coming up. We'll do the three more times up in over four and three and two and one coming to upright and forward. Let's do that one more time like this. Then we're going to add a detail coming up center and over four and three and two and one coming to upright and forward flection.

So there's a little bit of a tendency in the room. So let me just review this. We're going to play it one more way. So this, you don't want to do it all. You've got to keep your legs underneath your pelvis. Bonnie had a teacher that loved to say, take your pelvis with you. Here. We're keeping it with us. We're not taking it anywhere.

So we go up and over four, three, two and one. Hold this position here. Arms reach, wait weight at the arms and then go further over. Arms reach away. You've gotta be lifted up here. No cinching or pressure down here. Not that at all because that puts too much pressure into the lumbar.

It's dangerous for anybody. Yeah. So we're here. I will. What I'll say is arms reach to the thighs, wait for the face, and then you go further over. So we'll go that. So arms up overhead and over four and three. Take your sternum up and over. Three, two, and one. Beautiful. Now there, bring your arms. How do the thighs keep your spine extended.

Tell, tell to the thighs now keep your arms at your face and then go further over. Bring your towel to the thighs and lift and go further. Oh, over and arms to the thighs. Okay. Yes, you're holding the extension. It's like a freestanding Swan and Oh, beautiful. And one more time and up and, oh, over. Come to upright and then forward. Fluxion take out any tension in the lower back. Shoulders down, back wide. How are we doing? Roll the shoulders forward, down and back or forward.

Back and down. Forward, back and down. One more time. Forward, back and down. And then forward. Down and back. Forward, down and back. Just saying the intention out of the neck and shoulders that might've built up there. So now we get to play with some geometry, some design. So taking the towel here and let's go into side bending hip stretch. So we go over to the window here. Now you're add the rotation here, pull up under the the sternum and side, bending and rotate side bending and rotate in the side. Ben, bring your focus forward and coming to center and [inaudible] side. Bend the hip. Stretch and rotate.

Lift on this side. Lift on your right side and lift on your right side and come into center. Now we're going to make it more dynamic. This was what makes it a little bit functional. So the pattern will be this hip stretch and rotation come up on the rotation and then center, it's hip stretch rotation.

You come up on the rotation, you have to get this going. This hip goes back as this one goes forward. So you keep the hip side side. That's what this is all about. Yeah. So let's play with that. Yeah, so it's three breaths. I wish I could say it like that. It's all right. Why? Back? Lengthen up and side bending.

Here's the rotation. Come to upright in the rotation. Hip site side, and then center. Yes. Now remember none. Nothing dangling it. Not like that. And side bend and rotation. Come up on the rotation. Lift and center. One more time. Each side, side, bending, hit, stretch, ship, stretch, hit, stretch and rotate.

Come up on the rotation and center. No tweaking the lower back. Keep this here, here and side. Bending. Hip Stretch and rotation. Beautiful. Come up on the rotation and center. Okay. Arms down.

Ish. Ish. Okay. We'll go naturally. Continue. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, we're now continuing. Yeah, let's play with it this way. Let's, let's take the side bend here and here comes the extension. You're going to lift the sternum and then return to center. Nothing changes here. This protects you. Yeah, this protects you.

So remember you're lifting to go into the side band, hip stretch. Then you lift the sternum. Remember this is holding on. This doesn't move. Yeah. Okay, let's do four of those. Right. Left, right, left. So we're here and side bend, hip, stretch and lift the sternum and then centered. Yep.

And lift the sternum and center. Lower belly pulls in and up. Lift the sternum and center. One more time. Keep the head behind the arms and center and coming up and side bending. Hip stretch and lift the sternum. Lower belly pulls in and up. Last two and one coming up. Center. Arms down for a moment. A lot of work in here.

Now we're going to go front, center back, yes. Fourth Center back. So it'll look like this forward center and yeah, to center four times each side. Then we'll move on and hip stretch forward flection, rotation, side bending, hip stretch and chest opens and side bending and forward side Bending and oh two more times side Benny rotation and oh and so I [inaudible] and center and open and coming. Center. Hip Stretch, forward rotation, first side, bending and left side bending and forward, side bending and linear side bending and forward. Side Bend, lift last time and side, bending, hips, stretch and come. Center and down. That was impressive. Do you feel longer in through here? Longer and taller. Yeah. Learning how to get the three writers to do what they do easily versus not engaged. We've got to stop this in our culture, particularly are driving so much in southern California.

Way Too much of this going on. And then of course we have our devices and so I, I say that there's basically three things that people do with their head. They're either this way, there's a lot of this going on in our culture or there's this one which is very popular, or there's this one when it's all lined up. So three choices. I have a preference. Yeah. So now we've completed the five joint actions of the spine.

Let's go to the floor and find out what else there is to learn about what we can do. So put your towels off to the side. I like to go into a little bit of front support to stimulate that so that we get used to, as I advise for anybody, everyone needs to have at least the power enough to push their own body weight away from something. So the functionality of a front support is crucial, particularly for women. You want to be able to push your own body weight away from anything that comes at Uba to another human being or a wall or something. You want to have that instead of collapse. So we'll play with this. Arms Up, head, neck, shoulders and arms. Rounding over ankle bones. Touch above the knee. Hina thigh, so racich lengthens over your arms or level to the floor.

Keep your lower belly pulled in and up and round over into the lumbar. The pelvis hasn't moved. Now tip the people silver running over all the way. Take your hands to the floor, spread your fingers and walk your legs back. Keep shoulders over your arms. Take the pressure off your risks by pushing into the base of your fingers.

Level your hips more to the shoulders. Now all of you pull your shoulder blades together and then pull them apart. Pull them together. Pull them apart, pull them together. Pull them apart. All of your lift, your lower belly in and up. Pull together and apart. One more time. Pull together.

Now you're never going to go there again. Today. You're going to push away into your chest. The lower belly pulls in and up. Point the right foot, point the right foot, and then push into the arch. Push into the arch. The Shin goes down to the floor, then reached through the leg, straighten it, then push into the arch. Keep it back wide please. Two more. Push the knee down and open the front ankle and then one more time.

Open the front of the ankle and then come to the ball of the foot. Straighten the leg, other side, point the foot, push into the arch, bend your knee and then straighten the leg. Push into the arch. Jane, you're doing it nicely, and bend the knee and push him to the arch, and one more. Bend the knee and then roll to the ball of the foot. Let's take a little bit break. Come onto your knees.

If you want to go into child's pose, that's okay. Take the hips back, do whatever you want to to relieve some of the pressure or tension in the neck and shoulders and in the shoulder girdle. Let's return to front support. Let's just do the leg lift because it's just too much fun. I call them party tricks. I got to start working on my party trick book. So there's, this is going to be a party trick. Yeah. Polonius party tricks. It's what you do to show off for your friends.

All you need is a coffee table or a floor. So go into front support, extend the right leg, point the foot, let's lift it four times. Inhale, lift and lower and lift and lower and lift and lower. One more and lift to curl the toes under and point the left foot and lift and lower lift. Keep it back wide and lift and lower. Last time, lift and curl the toes under. Come onto your knees. One hip and swing around. Diamond. Sit please.

So what you want to learn is we've activated the Serratus so we can lift up out of the pelvis by lifting the rib cage up off the pelvis or we can let it fall back and get heavy. We don't want that, right? We want to keep that length. So lengthen up pubis to enable lower back contraction. Nothing's going back. And nothing goes back. Keep this lifted and nothing goes back. Keep your eyes right here out, out, and looking up two more times. Please. Lengthen up and pubis navel. One more time like the NEP and pubis navel.

Now Roll on back to the back part of your pelvis. He the pelvis onto the floor. Lower belly pulls in and up and then coming on up. Imagine a big ball. Hug your shoulder blades forward as you come up. Now let's work on leveling the eyes. Lengthen up pubis. Naval roll on back to the sacred under the back part of your pelvis.

I've got a mic on so I can't go quite down and then come on. Hug Big and pull your outer tip. Did your shoulder blades beauty full two more times and roll down pubis. Navels and roll back to the Powell. This hug a big ball and coming up.

Beautiful work. And one more time and she was naval rolling back. Rolling back, rolling back. Stay right there. Lift the right leg and down. Lift the left leg. It's all coming from here. Pull in here more. Pull in here. See around a little bit more here. Rounding here and for yes and no kick.

It's a leg lift. No kick. Stabilize the leg and one more. And find your sweet spot. And both Carey. Yeah. Wide back or belly head. Hitting head. Head. Let's do this. Nod Yes. Say No. Do I love this? Yes. Yes, yes. And then lakes down and roll up to upright.

Sit. We're going to play with that. That would be fun. Yeah. It's powerful. Yeah. Okay. Makes us breathe. We're here. Rolling back and find your sweet spot here. Bring both legs up. Head, head, head. Yeah. You do not want the head to fall back. Keep the head on top of your spine and then leg down and like up and lay down.

Moving the Femur, not the, not the Shin. Move the femur and, and four more and three last two and one and legs down. Come on up and roll back. Pubis enables, yeah. Now go into what we'll call a teaser. A diamond teaser. Yeah. Diamond teaser. Bring the legs together. Yeah. Diamond teaser. So we're tabletop. Get the chins level of the floor. Yeah. Oh, we're doing this nicely. Now we go down, down, up, down, down, up, down, down.

So you can do it without falling back down, down and up. Four more. Down, down in, up. Three more. Down, down and up. Left to down, down, head epps and down. Down and up. It's going to diamond. Lower the diamond and come on up. Flex your feet. I like to do this. This is a variation of stomach massage. It's just too much fun. Stomach massage. Yeah. All right, so over here, imagine the bar would be there on the reformer. Yeah, so our feet would be up on the bar.

And so what we'll do now is the legs will move, not our torso, and keep it go into your midline, their zip up, your inner thighs for more of those. Keep your heels and feet flex. Go through back. Nice, beautiful. And three and two and one. Good. Now we add the contractions. So we're here and we can track back. Keep the contraction coming from the bottom of the sternum.

Flex your feet, heart flex of the feet, reach through the heels. We're stimulating in the back of the body from there. And four more and three, two and one. And then coming here did diamond and come on up. Woo. All right. Hmm. Are you liking this? Oh good. Yeah.

I hope it's giving you some inspiration and ideas. Yeah. So hinge forward from this. Lift the sternum and drop the pubis forward. Now I'm not looking at the degree of your hands. I'm looking at the straight back of your hinge. This is a hinge queen, so she can hinge forward quite a bit. So go ahead and show [inaudible] the, I can't do that. She can. I do this and I'm very proud. Okay. That's a hinge. Cause the, I'm not doing this. Yeah.

So the degree of the hinge isn't matter. Keep the spine lifted here. That's what matters. Okay. So let's play with fat. Flex the feet cause it's a, a wider base here and hinge forward. Come to upright and take your head with you. And yes, let's go two more times. Lift up. [inaudible] sternum. Widen in the back. Lit the sternum, white in the back. Now here we go. And a little bit of challenge upright. Now, hinge back, lift the sternum and come up and lift the sternum and come up and lift the sternum and come up one more time and lift the sternum and come up and then point the feet and relax. The arms down I thought was fun.

And your rotate and contract over the thigh. Thanks sternum to the thigh and we come back up to and center. You'll rotate sternum to the thigh coming up and center. Let's do a bunch of those and okay, stay lifted rib cage off the pelvis, rib cage off the pelvis and get the flection extension rotation, rotation flection extension rotation. One more time and rotate selection, extension rotation. Last time. Rotate flection, extension and rotation.

We can play with this with our towels. Uh, so I teach spine corrector, uh, one or two times a week and we played with this a little bit. So imagine where we'd be sitting on the spine corrector in diamond. We'd be in the crevice of the spine corrector. So we'll just imagine that it's more challenging because we're not dropped into the crevice. So we're here side bending first. So you're lifting on the right side, linkedin on the left side and go forward.

Take the crown of the head to the knee. Yeah. Coming up to side Bend and Ronny over. Okay. Do Two more times on this side and rounding over.

Keep the head connected to the spine one more time and rounding over. Yeah. Okay. Coming into center. Okay. Other side and side bending. Lift on the left side.

Lengthen on the right side and Ben rounding over. Yep. [inaudible] tomorrow. [inaudible] and one [inaudible] [inaudible] and then coming center and up. So in that we don't have a corrector to go back against them. Do you want to get a little bit of circumduction going on?

It'll be the last thing we do on the floor. Play with it this way. We're in the side bend here. We go over, we come up and there's your extension there. Focus here, extension there to the side bend here. Does that make sense? So we're working the serratus one more time. That rim of the rib cage. Yeah. So I'll go through with you. We go right to the left and then left to the right. Then I want to see what you have and we'll know if I'm going to teach anymore with this and side bend [inaudible] and then forward [inaudible] come to the side bend now upper back extension to the side bend.

And then for reflection we go the other way. Side Bend and extension to the side. Bend and forward. I'm watching now and side bend and extension. Layer, belly in and up and side. Bend and forward flection. Side Band, upper back, extension and side bend. One more time. Each side. Forward.

Flection rotation. Yep. Side Bend and lift into that extension side. Bend last time and forward. Lift into that set and then come up center. Come on from the very center up and towels down. Great.

Circumduction yeah. All right, let's just get a little lower back. Stretch. Press through your heels. Oh, we got the towels. Uh, you know a neck stretch. All right. Sorry Nicole. Okay, let's do it with the towel. We got it. Here we go. Now Paul, put the towel over your ears. I know. Put the towel over your ears, elbows forward.

And so we hinge back and center and hinge back and centers. Yep. Press through your heels so you're flexing your feet hard and center. One more time and and now round over. Pull the crown of your head towards your toes. Rounding over the lower back is staying lifted and then roll up pelvis, chest and head. Flex the feet and round over.

Then roll up pelvis, chest and head. I'm doing a breakdown of it first and round over. Okay. Lower back stays lifted and then coming up. Pelvis, chest and head last time. Rounding over and then coming up. Pelvis, chest and head. Now we'll make it the a neck pull. Hinge back, round down, round over. Stay round, round, round, round, round.

And then roll up pelvis, chest and head and hinge back. That's the inhale. Exhale round down now round over crown of your head, going to your toes, pull the elbows towards your knees, then roll up pelvis, chest and head. Do this, make it not a hip flection here, make it come from here. You're down here. Round over here. Rather than go here. Do you see the difference? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's do that two more times. So upright first, elbows forward and hinge back. Flat back, round down, round forward, crown of the head towards the toes. Then roll up pelvis, chest and had a little bit more from here and hinge back last time and round down. Yes. Flex your feet, flex your feet, feet, feet, and then roll up crown of your head to the toes. You've got to round down, Kiddo. Round down. And then roll up. Pelvis, chest and head.

Let us be done with this. All right. Put your legs together. Roll onto one hip, then bring your legs underneath and then put your toes underneath your, your shins. The lower belly pulls in and up. Go into the whole foot and then hips up first and rolling up pelvis and then Lumbar, and then thoracic, neck and head. Okay, I'd like to do one more thing. Um, this will be a way of finishing up. Pretend we have a clock in front of us. So here we have 12 o'clock three o'clock, six o'clock and return 12 o'clock nine o'clock six o'clock in return. So that's market through and then we'll do it four times. Is this okay? All right, so forward for a slight turnout and 12 o'clock stay right in your spine.

Three o'clock it's the leg circle and six to return. So we're using the buttocks, buttocks, and 12 nine sure. And Return. Do you see it? The leg circle or trace? A big circle with your toe. Let's do it again. Four times each side. And then we have one more detail. 12 o'clock.

Three six to return. Okay. Nine and six to return. Okay. How high you lift the leg is up to you and your flexibility, you and your range of motion, you and how confident you are on your Saturday.

Always want to come back to center. You're always coming back to center and Furry. Six and return. Good. And then last time, 12 and nine and six always coming back to center now to given a little bit more interest, cross to 10. Then you go to three, six and return cross to, to go to nine, six and return habit. I'm going to do your mirror. So here we go. We're going to, let's see. I'm going to be your mirror. Just thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That translated well. Yes. Okay. All right. And Yeah, eyes up. Look out. It's about centering and balance and stimulating the brain. Crossing that midline. And one more time. Each side.

Last time trying to parallel. So we'll do four breaths. The last one is the salute. The way I play with it, it's, it's spirit, mind, emotions, and body. So just follow me with that. So we're here three this time it goes through all four rounds and we're here and spirit, mind, emotion, and body. Thank you. That was elegant.

Comments

1 person likes this.
Wonderful! I need to do this every day. I am so tight in my sides from having a toddler on one of my hips all the time. This is THE practice I need to do. Thanks a lot!
Viola . . . thank you for your comments. Play with the "lift and lengthen" cues to help you decompress your hip joints at the head of the femor and into your lumbar and sacrum.

Check out my earlier classes using the green strap, stick, etc.

Let me know how this goes!
That was an amazing workout ! I am having a lot of problems in my neck and upper trapezius , they have a habit of lifting and need to work on my stabilisers . I also loved the seated part of the class and l also enjoyed your sense of humour ! I will be looking at more of your classes . Thanks
Jacqueline . . . thank you for your comments! The habit of neck compression and overactive trapezius is a chronic issue for many. In 2016 I am addressing opposing forces and playing with passive/active engagement. My suggestion: take a look at my tutorial on the mid-line/plumb-line. Then, email me with how you notice your engagement of neck and shoulders. With the activation of opposing forces you can recondition this part of your body to find better stabilization. Let me know: kengilbertembodyment@gmail.com .
1 person likes this.
Wow. My needy shoulder says thanks and my muscles ouahhhouhh.
Thanks for this great towel class, well explained and demonstrated.
And thanks for having slown down a little bit your speaking speed. Much better for my poor blond brain and english level.
Vimi . . . I am thrilled to hear that you are opening up and releasing your neck stiffness. Thank you!
1 person likes this.
Claudia . . . thank you! This was an extraordinary experience as the students are from China except my wife on the front left and Jane, an extraordinary student at 84 years on the front right. I love your appreciation of my "slowing down".
1 person likes this.
Amazing!!! I really enjoy your lesson and I am looking forward on other. I like exercises with towel and this is really helpfull. For me great inspiration... :)
1 person likes this.
Outstanding class!! Feeling tall and aligned after this wonderful movement experience. Thank you!
Katerina . . . thank you for your comments. The towel is a great prop to assist in experiencing opposing forces that create the "lift" out of gravity . . . great for decompressing the spine (particularly the lumbar).
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