F 03 Vertical Inflection EN

Standing with the feet about hips width apart and if you’re looking from above the outside edges of the feet are parallel to each other.

As we start to hinge at the hips keep the weight centralized over the heels bending the knees so that the inner part of the bottom part of the rib cage kind of connects to the inner part of the thighs.

Reach the hands around to the back of the calves and place them lightly first onto the the back of the calves, giving a little bit of a hug in with the arms in towards the legs.

And now put a little bit of pressure with the back of the hands to the calves as you start to flex the upper spine.

And you can also broaden the shoulder blades as you do this.

The head here just moves as a byproduct of the upper spine flexion, so it doesn’t move independently from that.

You’re wanting to keep the lower part of the back flat here.

So if you find it’s difficult to do that, if you feel a bit of a pull or tension or rounding to the lower part of the back, then it’s recommended to bend the knees a little bit more.

You continually offering resistance with the back of the hands pressing to the back of the calves and the arms hugging in towards the legs and the shoulders drawing back down towards the hips.

But in all of this resistance, we never want you to feel that it’s too much.

You should never feel like you’re tired from this resistance.

Wherever we offer any type of active instructions like this, it’s important that you stay active but not overly active.

Now we move from spinal flexion to spinal extension, meaning that we want the lower part of the back straightness to match the upper part of the back.

And as we come up, you may have to compensate given the hamstrings are a little bit tight and get up a little bit more to be able to control the extension of the movement.

And the head again stays or sort of comes up in as a neutral byproduct of the spinal extension.

Remember we’re not moving the head independently of this movement.

It just comes up straight with the spinal extension.

And again here we’re continually offering pressure to the back of the calves as we squeeze the arms to the sides of the legs and the back of the neck stays straight, flat and neutral.

To release now we’re going to flex again and in that flexing again continues to offer activity with the hands to the back of the legs, arms gripping to the sides of the legs, gain weight centralized over the heels.

So if you feel you ever come too far forward, move back a little bit.

And as you roll up here, we want to draw the shoulders down to resist the upward movement.

And at the same time, as you start to get up a little bit more, the crown of the head starts to shoot up back at the neck stays flat.

And you can offer a little a little bit of a resistance downward through the soles of the feet, resisting upward, if that makes any sense.

So it’s a very foundational feeling, spreading through the fingertips a little bit at the very top of the movement to keep the entire structure of the form stable.