Spinal Stability Exploration

So we will be working with straps today. And if you don't have a strap I in watching this video, what you'll be able to do is use a towel. The purpose of that is to stabilize more through the arm reach. So we'll be using that in a, in a moment as we roll down and roll up. So let's begin by breathing and finding the centers, the foot centers, the base of the big toe between the fourth and the fifth toe in the middle of the heel.

So you find that triangle that you're standing on and let yourself play a little bit with the weight shifts through the legs. We want to find the midline. So the ankle bones touch above the knee high on your thigh. You're pulling in and up on the inhale, lift your toes on the exhale. Lower your [inaudible]. We use the [inaudible] breath in through the nose. Yeah, out through the mouth and [inaudible] toes lift and lower. Relax the toes down rather than grabbing.

You want to lift and then lower and two more times and one more. Okay. Pace of the breath changes. [inaudible] stimulate the intercostals. The muscles between the ribs want to simulate the sternum lifting they have begins to float up at the top of the spine. Four, three, two and plea a [inaudible], Benny Ebeneezer in the hips, plea a and plea a drop the sits bones, the pubis, the sacrum.

Straight down as if you're going to sit on your eels and tomorrow. Nice one more. And pulses. You're sure you're lengthening through the back of the legs to straighten the knees and eight more, four, three, two and [inaudible] you'll be aware that you want to keep the back open so you don't want to get caught in the shoulder blades pulling back. You want to keep the shoulder blades down and wide. We'll be going over that more later.

So for now it's just practicing what that is. So inhale, exhale, open the arms and inhale and lower the arms. You want to isolate the arm bone, the upper arm bone, and keep the back. Why the shoulder blades wide? So there's a space between the shoulder blades and you want that to open. She want to keep it open.

So you're using the muscle of your shoulders to stabilize. So what we're playing with tonight is we're playing with the stability of the spine and the mobility of the spine and the contrast of those two things. Right now we want to play with stability. Nothing of the spine is moving. We're holding this upright position. Shumar okay, and one more. So do you give a little bit more to it?

Most of all, you want a relapse across the neck and shoulders. So you're learning to Shimmy. Collate the muscle of the arms, stability from the bat. Hello? Four three, two. Let's have a PA stay lifted through the spine. Keep going. So you want to be aware of below that the pubis wrap, the pubis below the navel. She want to pull in and up.

So you want to stimulate more of a classic platas. Fewer pull in and up, in and up. And then above the navel to the sternum, what I call the highest point. You wanna wrap sheer pulling in and up and wrapping. Last time. Yeah. Arms reach up. Overhead. Shoulder blades pull down.

Here's where we can get caught if we're not careful. So widen the shoulder blades. Let's just play with that for a moment. Reach the hands, expand the palms of the hands, let them go wide. Inhale, open, exhale and pull together and inhale, open. Exhale, pull together. This is the shoulder blades, not the arms short. Yeah, shoulder blades and shoulder blades and shoulder blades and one more shoulder blades. And keep the shoulder blades wide. Lengthen the spine and your round over. Arms, head, neck and shoulders and then round over to what I call the high points.

So stay there. Shoulder blades are pulled down, the lower belly pulls in and up. So you're lengthening the lower back. It stays upright, you're widening the back, the shoulder blades, the lower back stays upright, you're widening the back, the shoulder blades, the lower belly pulls in and up. You're widening the back. Pull the shoulder blades down and wide. Very good. [inaudible] shoulder blades down and wide. Now we round over into the Lumbar, take the fingertips towards the toes, rounding over and then all the way over your fingertips are floating above the floor. Pull in and up from the lower belly. So you want to get a sense of widening and lengthening the whole spine.

So now we're creating a mobility of the spine. On the inhale, lift your toes on the exhale. Lower your toe as you want to. Find the balance and relax the neck and shoulders. Keep letting the head drop towards the toes. Two more and one more. Let your arms swing down a roll. I placed the sacrum and pelvis in place and then the lumbar in place.

Then the thoracic rib cage in place. Then the neck and the head. So what I play with in classes to avoid this to happen, causing the head to go forward, we want to play with the lifting of the spine between the shoulder blades, working more, the intercostals. Also working into the introverted roles of the lower back. Okay. Head, neck, shoulders and arms running over them for Racich rib cage.

Rounding over only to the base of the rib cage. Stay there for a moment. Reach your fingertips forward, expand the hands. So widen the web spaces. Then allowing the head to round over into the lumbar. The lower back and rounding over all the way. Stay lifted in the lower belly shoulder blades into their pockets and wide crown of the head of the toes. Any pulse intended to be a stretch for the whole back of the spy. Eight more.

Four three two. Let your arms swing down or roll up. Sacrum and Lumbar, lower back and thoracic ribcage. Keep the shoulder blades wide, neck and head so it may feel like you're moving your arms forward and indeed you are. Cause the anatomically we're not designed to do this were designed to be hanging our arms from the shoulders. So we want to get that feeling there and allow this to widen as well. One more time. Head, neck, shoulders and arms wide in the back and then widen the rib cage and the shoulder blades. Now wind it. Rounding down into the Lumbar, the lower back, rounding down all the way into the sacrum, crown of the head to the toes and do you pulse. Four three, two rolling up sacrum and pelvis in place, lumbar, lower back and plays the rassic rib cage in place.

Neck and head were going down to get the strap. This time when you come up, take hold of the middle of the strap with your fingers in, you're holding it, just letting it hang. Head, neck, shoulders and arms. Then thoracic ribcage than the lumbar. Lower back, yes. And running over into the sacred. Although way they hold in the middle of the strap and rolling up sacrum in place and Lumbar, lower back, lengthening the spine as you go wide the shoulder blades. So rassic rib cage and then neck and head one one. Put your hands into the first two straps in the middle.

So if you were using Italian, you would just hold the towel. You'd roll the talent, hold it. Here. The straps are nice cause you get a little bit more friction in the, um, the holding of it without gripping and hanging on. So we're here. Expand the fingers. I'm finding this most recently, if you expand the fingers, very jazzy hands, it allows you to reach more out. If you don't, then you'll tend to get caught in your ligaments. So I want to say that you're using the muscle dynamic. In a, in my practice of neo, we would call this positive tension.

We want to get that positiveness of the energy of the muscles reaching, getting longer and overhead. Keep the shoulders down. I can always tell when someone's in their shoulders is when the trapezius swell up here to want to open the neck. Let it widen, reach the fingertips up and take the arms behind you. Now your opposing force is at high point here. Pull back from the high point. So as you're reaching your arms behind you, your chest stays wide, your spine stays lifted so that the strap is, is taught and you reach the backs of your hands behind you. Your high point as your opposing force and eight more four, three, two and reach out as if you're going to touch the wall in front of you and then come all the way down.

Keep the chest lifting so you don't get caught in the shoulder blades. But instead you allow the arms to move. I'm getting into the playing with the differentiation. We want the arm to be different than the shoulder blade. Want the arm to be different than the neck.

So let's play with that a little bit more. Do this two more times overhead behind you and point the rim of the rib cage intercostal. I'm calling it the intercostal band. Feel like you've got a ring around you at the base of the rib cage and up overhead, shoulder blades down and in front. Let's just do that one more time and [inaudible] nice and eight more. Four, three, two and reach out and down. Let's play with this now. Straight out in front of the chest. And what I'd like to see is that you pull the shoulder blades together as if you're wrapping around the spine itself, and then open the shoulder blades wide and keep expanding the hands, reaching the fingers forward.

Your opposing force is still coming from the front of you from the what I call the low point up to the high point that's pulling in and up and wrapping around. Two more and one more. Now reaching out is if you were going to pulse out, keep the strap taught. We're going out the pulses at the side of the arms, out and out. Nice show. We're stimulating the connective tissue to release and relax.

Allowing the muscle to stimulate even more. And eight more. Four, three overhead and eight four, three at the chest and eight shoulders down. Widen the bash. And Four for [inaudible]. The spine is staying stable. Four and two and two, two, two, two, one. And let the shoulders stay dropped down. Sure. Four, three, two and down. Good.

Two, two. If you need to release the legs, just go ahead and play a yeah, that will help you. Yeah, that helps. Takes cause what happens is getting used to standing takes different muscularity. Yeah. Good. We're here air. Okay. Yeah, I'm sweating. So this is good. Okay. Feel free to open a window if you want. So we're here. Anybody wants, so keep now the high, the low point stable.

So we're stabilizing the spine here, mobilizing the ball and socket. Now removing the head of the Femur, the top of the femur bone, not the feet. The feet. Follow the legs. Okay. She followed the legs one more and [inaudible]. Yeah. So you want to feel like you're zipping up the inner thighs from above the knee all the way into the Crotch, way up inside the pelvis, allowing the inner thighs to get stimulated. Good.

Last two, and to parallel for the pattern becomes this. So this is opposing force coming from the mid section or the core of the body, the abdominals, whatever you choose to refer to them. That is how we'll identify. That's the opposing force. Good. And Yeah, last two one and turn out and stay arms down. What I'm finding is that this is one of the joints that does not get mobilized enough and we need to stimulate that opening, letting the ball roll inside the joint. So we're here. So you're moving the torso. Think of the central axis of your spy.

So you're rotating on the access of your spa. You're moving your torso, not your arms, your arms. Stay with your torso and rotate, rotate, rotate. You want to keep your focus through the middle of the strap so you're not even turning your head. Your head is going with the rotation. So your eyes stay forward. Over the middle of the strap. One more [inaudible] and center. Let's go to three to three on one side and two on the other. This is an important aspect, so what I'm looking for is that you rotate this way so we're not turning to twist.

There is a ring that goes on inside the spine when we rotate on the of the spine. If we release that access, then we tend to get tweaked out in the hips and the knees. So we want to stay more on the central axis. Let's do this again. Single breath. Now inhale here and here's where you start to feel the ringing, particularly through the ribcage above the navel. Keep your back wide. Sure. Yes. Keep the back. Why fingertips reach hands expand. Last two, one overhead.

What a focus on linkedin. The opposing side. So here you lengthen on the left side, left side, left side and right side. Right side, very good. And two more left side. Left side, left side. Last time. Right side or right side or right side. And stay single. Breath to rotate.

[inaudible] the arms alongside the ears. That keeps you honest with your head and neck. Then the rotations coming through the spine, like the ringing, the ringing of a washcloth. [inaudible] last two. [inaudible] last one. And Senator Reed, I know I've had people actually say that ringing and they'll go rain. No, it's the [inaudible].

Yeah. I've got to learn to pronounce the w different than the [inaudible] ringing. Ringing. So we're here. Ready to get there. What's that? Musical isn't, we can make it a musical. This, this is the uh, the driver's room. We'll make the musical version next time. So we're here. Let's go back to the um, or let's return to the side bend.

Hip stretch lead with the hip joint. Come back to the s, the center side bend first and then to the hip, Suresh and side bend and hip stretch. [inaudible] keep your focus forward to the front of the wall in front of you. Keep it in to the front. Nice. So there is no head turn. You're getting the idea of bending into an action. The lateral bending of the spine, side bend and hip stretch.

Now let's make it a hip stretch. So lead with the hip. It's the left hip. It's the right hip and left hip, Scheisse and right hip shorted the left hip. Again, reaching out here. I love this pattern. This is something to get involved with. To open up the QL, the muscles here below the rib cage into the waistline. It allows you to sense your body differently and opening the side.

The left arm pulses. Keep the shoulder down. Keep reaching out with your right arm. Eight more. Here you can move into the left side of the ribcage and it's ribs, ribs. It'll take some finding to find the muscularity that lists the rib cage off the hip and for three now the hips stretch and hip here. Keep the torso still so the arms, head, neck, and shoulders are not moving.

And eight more for three, two and hip stretch this time it's the right arm and it's arm, arm, arm and arm. Rib Cage and ribs, ribs, ribs and ribs and hip, hip, hip, hip and hip. Hip, hip, hip, eight more and four three, two and [inaudible]. Ada beach arm, arm for three rib cage and rib. Rib, rib and rib for three hip stretch and hip, hip, hip and hip. Four, three, two centers last time. This side and rib, rib, rib and rib, rib, rib, rib, and rip and hip. Hip. She sent her arms down.

She want to feel that sense of lengthening through the waistline. Okay. A little bit of a combination. Now we're still in turnout. What's that? Sorry. I love it. Yeah, it feels different. Yeah. Yeah. All the same principles of all the stuff that we know from mat work. Yeah.

So first or rotation, then a side bend. [inaudible] then up to upright and return rotate side bend, [inaudible] and up and center and [inaudible]. Okay. [inaudible] the last one. Okay.

Come down. We're gonna go to, we're going to go back to that in a moment. So we're here from the rim of the rib cage. I like to call that. Sometimes I'll call it the rent of the rib cage. Sometimes I'll call it the a, the intercostal band. So this is the contraction that you're using to open up the upper back that the Racich, the lower back stays lifted, and then you'll come up and then we'll add the arms in a moment. So I'm looking for the articulation of the mobility from the base of the rib cage up through the crown of the head.

You on three too. Yeah. So it's the contraction over and the coming up. Cool. Widen your shoulder blades and then coming up. So you want to use your high point as your base and round over from there.

So there's no bending forward. It's only a rounding forward stop for a moment. So there's a confusion sometimes when we get into this appropriate section of the muscle. So what I want to see is it's not going this way. What I want to see is the articulations coming from the lower back, staying still. So the articulation comes from the base of the spine over. So that's a mobility issue. It's like a wave. Yeah, yeah.

It rather than rather than pitch forward from the back, because we will get too tight in our lower backs if we're not careful. This allows us stretch to happen so that we can create more mobility there. Yeah. All right, so let's do that again for more of those and then we'll go with that arms and then we'll add it to that side. Bend, twist. [inaudible] lifting the sternum, keep the shoulder blades wide and [inaudible].

[inaudible] the sternum. Keep the shoulder blades wide. Lift the sternum, keep your shoulder blades wide. Okay. Reaching out of the hands one more time. One more time. Kristy. Starting to get it and coming up. Keep the shoulder blade, the wide lip, the sternum between the arms and rest for a moment. Okay, so then what I want to see is they're doing the same thing. This is for me, it's interesting to notice there's a different sensation, a different feeling when we're here holding the frame in front of us and then when we're taking the frame with us, it's the same move.

It allows you to expand differently, particularly across the back and shoulders. Yeah. [inaudible] I would call this a breath each direction. Yeah. Two more like this.

One more. Keep pulling the shoulder blades down and why particularly when you come up and you inhale here. Exhale to contract. Inhale to come up. Use the longer inhale, allow your spine to find its full length. When you come up all the way crown of the head and then over come up all the way crowded, the head reaches to the Strap and oh, but that's very nice. And two more times. And reach to the strap.

Shoulder blades down and wide and contract from the intercostal band or the rib cage, the rim of the rib cage and the over and come up and arms down for a rest. Yeah, getting to find more space between the, the, the Vertebra also, it allows you to expand the back. I particularly like this, this position here. Uh, and this allows this to open even wider chest expansion. Tough part about this work and always has been classic work or otherwise to learn how to expand the chest without compromising another body part. Let's play with this [inaudible]. So remember the rotation side sideband.

Now we add the contraction and rotate side bend and contract come up and center and rotate. Sidebench and contract come up very good and [inaudible] and rest for a moment. So it's, it's what it does. It starts to into a circumlocution. The last thing that we're not adding yet is that extension for the back of it. So let's play with that for a moment. So I like to teach it this way.

Think of up and over. So you're focusing the crown of the head of the strap and it's, we'll go over four, three, two and one. Each one of those is a breath. Your high point is your opposing force. A pull in on the intercostals, allowing yourself to find even more mid back from here. So we're here and try not to head an over four high and three and two and one and stay. Stay pulling on the intercostals. The high point, the bottom of the sternum.

Shh. You're looking out of your forehead or looking pat. Yes. Nice, nice correction. Look out, look out. Not down or up. Look out. Pull in on the intercostal from the front right beneath the sternum. Excellent. Come up to upright, arms down. That was a good start. I love seeing that. That's one of the most opening gestures a human body can do to allow the chest to open without the compromise of the neck and shoulders.

Let's do it one more time and over four, three, two and yeah. One coming up one more time. Last time man. [inaudible] four, three, two and [inaudible] and stay there. [inaudible] on the inner rim or or the band at the bottom of the river. [inaudible] okay. Age Ben coming up and yeah, sure. So we're going to add that into, now we go into the, the rotation, the sideband, we're going to the contraction, we'll come around, we'll come up to a sideband here. We have the memory of that and we'll go into the high release will come up. So go with me. I'll cue it as we go. Yeah. One thing we haven't done, so let's do this. Go into the side bend, then the contraction come to center and come up side bend contraction, come to center [inaudible] and come up. So that's the front part of the circumlocution and I know we get excited to go around and [inaudible] and come up. Show up. You worked at all on a um, spine corrector.

This is a takeoff on that feeling of what we can do on a spine corrector. So let's, let's not add the side bend a pattern yet. Let's go ahead with it. I might have an angle so you can see what's going on here. So overhead side bend contraction, come to front, other side, go through, come up and over side bend, come to center, sideband contraction come through the front to the side. Come up and over side bend and center. I know, I know. So that'll be interesting.

I can't see it cause I was thinking about it. Yeah. So let's go through it again. Yeah, let's mark it slow so we don't, and then we'll make it flow. We're here. Side Bend contraction, front other side. You're still on the contraction side bend up and over to the side, Ben. Yeah, now we got it. Let's go up and over to the side. Bend the contraction, the front, the other side, the side bend up and over to the side. Then yeah, and let's come up and finish it. Yes, makes sense.

Spine mechanics. So that's the mobility, the pivot points at the base of the spine. I like to think of the, the middle of the neck, the neck going straight down. Somewhere in there, somewhere in there is the middle of the neck. It's like a a root. So I think of that. So what I want to do is I want to be pivoting on the base of the root. So let's just go ahead into a side bend and go around. So let me show you what I'd like to see.

Then I want to watch and see what I need to correct. So it'll look like this. [inaudible]. Yeah. All coming from the rim of the rib cage. Is this all about stability and mobility? So let's play with that up overhead should start in front side. Bend to the right and Oh and side bend and Oh, very good. And side band. We'll do two more of these and oh over. That's pretty. And sideband and [inaudible] stay front. Let's go to the, the other way. The left and over and over. Two more times over last time over. That's great. And then come up and arms down.

A lot of energy begins to move. It's just what starts happening. Circumlocution so we've done lateral, we've done forward, we've done extension, we've done circumlocution and rotation. So let's be done with the standing work for now. Nice to see. It's what so much fun to see is when people know the work and does that, what is, ah, I love those moments. I just, that's so important to me because that's why I like going back to the classic work, cause I have this other, I have all these variations going on and when I go back to the classic work, it's right there for me. All of it. Yep.