Whole-Body Ladder Barrel

Hi, everyone. Today, we're going to do a short full body practice on the ladder barrel. So for the setting, you kind of have to play with it a little bit for your own frame. So it's very height and frame dependent and also leg length and torso length and what have you. So how I have it set up for myself and I'm a lot longer in my upper body than in my lower body. So do with that what you will.

I have about one knob away of space. So let's say I don't know 4 inches, something like that. So, again, you'll just have to play, but that's where I am. Ready? So we're gonna start sitting up on the barrel and how I want us to organize, I'm gonna have my foot on the 3rd rung down, and I'm pushing into arch of my feet so I can use it for feedback. So we're gonna get down pretty low on the barrel because we want the barrel to be able to port the body, which is about to go backwards. Is everyone ready?

Take your arms forward. Bend over your knees. Feel your feet pushing into the ladder and really use that pressure to find connection to the center of your body. This is our little meditation moment. Get connected to your body. We from there go back.

The arms reach This is the first moment. If you'll know where your if your barrel's in the right place, take the arms around, reach forward, use the abdominals, and roll up. Keep that pressure in the feet, and we go back. The arms come with us. Allow the spine to be supported as it extends. And then feel the flexion.

The abdominals reaching back as the body re reaches forward. We'll do 2 more. I'll collect myself, so I stop stuttering. No promises, but I'll try. Around go the arms, they reach forward.

The abdominals pull back the feet push down one more time. Get nice and close to your legs. You want the barrel to feel comfortable. And supportive, which is why we have to choose the setting for each individual body. Come forward.

Now, go back. Feel that the pelvisus is supported reach back, take your hands behind your head, create a straight line from your pelvis to your head, just like you would on the spine corrector and extend. And feel the abdominals connect and lift back up into that straight line. Feel as you're going back, there is not it's not a rest sting movement. It's a controlled extension and come up.

I use my legs a lot here. It helps me. I feel that down pressure in my feet using that pressure in the feet to feel the connection of the pelvis to the barrel and inhale 2 more. And exhale. Might look easy.

Doesn't feel easy, but you'll feel for yourself. Last one, and lift down. Hold from there. Take rotation. Come back to center.

Take rotation in the opposite direction, come back to center, and work the down. Feel that full extension of the spine and lift up and rotate. And center. Feel the rotation of the spine coming from the center of the body. One thing that's really nice having the feet here on the ladder is that you can really feel if there's any pelvic shifting We'll talk about that more a little bit later too, but keep feeling equal pressure in your feet and rotate and center twice more everyone back and up. And turn and center that had just comes along with the hands.

Center and last one back. The last one up at turn and center and turn. And center take the arms forward. Go all the way back over the barrel. You could certainly do more of those if you wanted to, but for me, That feels like plenty. Arms come around.

We'll go back into that initial place. We're reaching all the way forwards reaching the body oppositionally and then place the hands on the barrel and come all the way up to straight legs. Now straight legs isn't critical. You could have your knees bent or straight, but basically what you wanna be able to find is that you can sit all the way up straight. So how I'm organizing my feet is I have my toes on the top of the rung and my heels pushed up against the next one. And the reason I like this foot position is because I like the prehensile, feedback that we can get and stretch the toes.

So we'll do hands behind the head. And we'll take rotation. Sitting rotation, keeping the body just over the sitting bones and center and sitting rotation. Lifting up and center, sitting rotation, If you have mirrors, it's nice to know if you're leaning forward or back. Sometimes I just look for my shadow.

And center and 3, ringing out the spine. Center. Feel the head reaching up as the pelvis is grounding down. The head comes with the spine. And center and 2. Center.

Beautiful way to get a lot of work through the trunk, the front of the body, in addition to the back of the body, everything is working now. Here, we can go back to that idea of how you feel you're feeding into the ladder. Are they still? Can you feel any pressure differentiation. Oh, I wasn't sure I could get that word out, but I did. Come all the way through center. Take your arms forward.

Round all the way forward or reach for the bar and just give yourself a little bit of stretch there. From here, we're gonna roll back up. We're gonna keep that same foot position. A different option would be to just hook underneath the ladder. But I like this. So that's what I'm choosing.

So we're gonna go open v feet. Open feet. Spine stretch forward, please. Inhale. Lift the spine. Feel the feet reaching around the top of the ladder if you're choosing what I'm choosing.

And in here, I personally have very tight feet, so rolling up to stack up straight. So any opportunity I can get to stretch my feet take advantage of fun fact about me. Here we go again. Head goes first. Abdominals engage.

They continue to engage as the spine reaches out over the over the top of the ladder and then we sit getting taller each time we lift up One thing that's nice that's different from sitting on the mat in this exercise is with the legs here, they're a little bit lower than they would be if you were sitting flat on a mat. So that gives you just that little bit more opportunity in the hamstring area is what I'm speaking about. And now also in the back area, we're gonna add some extension. Here we go inhale prepare. Excel head goes abdominals work. We reach out over the ladder.

We bring the arms out. Feel the spine reaching out in space. Left and lengthen the head is reaching out through the hands. Yes. I'm pausing here because it's a great place to feel some challenge in your body and go down and come up all the way to sitting and go round. And from there, reach out feel the back extensors working. Feel the arms really straight.

The head reaching out towards the hands. And then we go down folding over the legs and using the front of the body to stack the spine up over the top of the all this. We're gonna do that. Only one more time. Go down.

Reach out. Well, That was a misstatement or a lie, if you will, go down and lift back because the truth is is we're gonna do one more, but we're gonna make a change. So maybe a lie, maybe not a lie. We'll see. Whatever you think we're going down, We're reaching out and pausing. What's gonna happen here? So we're gonna take the right arm down onto the lateral in the center of the feet. The left arm's reaching up around and behind. Use that front arm to pull.

Take everything back to center. Left arm goes down. The right arm reaches up and around. We have equal weight through the feet, equal weight through the sitting. Come all the way back through center.

We'll do 3 on each side. So reaching up and around. Pulling forward with that front arm to maximize that spinal extension and center and left arm. And reach her on. I'm not sure if I said left and right, but you'll just alternate sides.

Center. One more time through one arm down. Other arm reaches circles around and back. Circles around in forwards. Oh, it's a big hamstring stretch for a long time for this person.

Come all the way back one more time fold all the way down, taking a stretch, Allow yourself just to melt forward over your legs. Feel free to bend your knees if you need, and then bring yourself all the way back up. Step down onto the ground. You're gonna turn to the side The leg that's gonna stay inside is gonna be in front, and we're gonna place the side of the pelvis on the barrel. The back leg is gonna go behind, and I'm just basically toe to heel here on my feet.

Hands come behind the head. We're gonna create a straight diagonal line, and then we're gonna inhale and take the body over and exhale come back to that straight line and inhale. Go over. And excel back to the straight line. One thing I like to think about personally is as I'm creating the straight line, I'm pulling my head in the direction. I want the line of my body to go into and down and, almost like you're standing on the diagonal.

And up from here, we're gonna create the opposite range. So we bend the other way, take a stretch on the underneath side of the body. And find straight and bend lifting the ribs up away from the pelvis on that side. And find straight. Let's do one more.

Reaching up and over. Maybe you'll get a little further every time I sure am. And back feels great. And go all the way down. Take your arm overhead.

You could do a little backward lean. Feels really nice to me. You can do a little forward lean. So just listen to your body and decide what you like. Put your hand on the barrel push up and change sides.

So we're gonna go inside leg in front, outside leg in back, find your straight line, not super difficult this exercise here with the feet on the floor, but there are ways to make it more difficult if you wish. We go down. And we reach out. 1 is to bring the barrel closer to the ladder. The other is to balance on top. I chose this because we wouldn't have to make changes to our setting.

So enjoy the ease of movement. And as always, there is opportunity in things that might feel potentially like they could be easy to create muscular, physical, mental, challenge in your body with your brain. Last one like this down and long line And then we go into the stretch, the underneath side stretch. So bending and straight body. And bending pressing the pelvis into the barrel as we reach up and over and back.

Maybe the two sides make a little bit of a different range. Noticing that in myself, but that's normal. We're all asymmetrical. And we go all the way down. Take the arm.

Whatever you like. You can lean back. You can lean forward. I like to push into my back leg a little. And then we'll put the hand down.

We'll come up. And from here, we'll simply just turn forward. And bring the pelvis down onto the barrel. And then take the body forward, hands are gonna go behind that. So very simple back extension here.

I've got my heels pressed up against the bottom of the ladder. We're gonna press the head into the hands and float. Stretch the arms forward, bend the elbows back, and length. And we're gonna do this three times, and then we're gonna make a bigger back extension. If you'd like to do that, It will be coming very soon, but first, we wanna really feel into that upper back where we're in a place of support. Arms reach. Arms come back, had stays in the hands, and comes down at the very last moment one more time, the same head up.

Arms forward, arms back, spine down here is where we're making a change. It becomes bigger so you look after yourself. Head comes up. Send your arms forward. Bend your knees press your pelvis into the barrel and bring yourself in one piece from down into straight up. Then take the arms back.

Arms back. Arms back. So we're taking a full spinal extension here. It's helpful to use your legs. Reach all the way out with the arms near the ears. The legs straighten.

Hands go back, and the body goes down. We'll do that twice more head first. So we made this choreography first, second piece, bend your knees, press your size, and your pelvis towards the barrel come up to a straight body, then lead with your arms as you reach into more back extension. You can decide how far back you wanna go. Reach all the way out. Hands go back and the body goes down. We'll do one more here head first.

Then arms, then knees, and body, and then we reach back, back, back, back, back, back, back, back, come all the way back. Go Hands back. Go all the way down. Take a moment if you need to step away from the edge of the ladder on onto the floor. And then use your arms to help you up.

We're gonna walk back towards the frame of the ladder. We're gonna bring one leg up, take it to the inside of then up, What's useful about the ladder here is you can use it against the back of the pelvis to measure where your pelvis is in space. I like to hold on to the the ladder itself and pull up with my spine. The movement here is lean, then round then articulate. We'll do 3.

Lean forward. Keep the pelvis level against the ladder. Then round. Then articulate. If it's too much stretch for someone, you could place them up on some sort of, block or some sort of can't think of the word platform. Lift up. There it is.

The word. Bring the foot out or the knee out, the foot in. So I'm lining my heel up with my opposite pelvis doing the same thing lean. Round and roll. Check the pelvis against the ladder. I'm talking to myself, but it's a reminder for us all around and roll. Letting the knee be heavy.

Trying to stay squared in the lower body. The spine just moves freely in space. We'll step that leg in. Bring the opposite leg in and up. Measure the pelvis against the ladder.

That's the it takes the longest for me to get really organized. Leg should be straight out from the hip knot in the center and we leave. So this is the most active part and then round or muscularly active in the back Center specifically, roll up. 3 and hinge at around. And left.

But I like to think about my body just moving like a wave. And lift. And then we'll bend. That knee bring the heel just across from the opposite side of the pelvis, let the knee drop heavy. I get this pelvis nice and squared.

And here, we do 3 lean. Rounds and stack and lean Fending some breath into the tightest parts of your stretch, left Last time, everyone, lean, and around and stacked. And then we can take that leg down. And I hope you enjoyed that. Nice little stretch, little challenge, a little bit of everything.

Thank you for taking class with me.