key points inflect

3.9. Key points: Inflect — Transcript (English)

Summary:

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Transcript

In this lesson, we’re going to talk about the key points related to the inflect focus.

We use the word inflect to refer to spinal movements.

It’s kind of like spinal inflection.

It is quite uncommon to use this word in relation to the spinal movement.

It’s much more commonly used in linguistics or in mathematics, so a function, for example, can inflect and also an intonation can inflect.

And in any case, inflection is some kind of change of direction with a particular meaning, where there is a significant change accompanied by a certain change in shape of something.

So in this sense, in the inflect focus, we want to acquire control over different movements of the spine, because generally speaking, the spine can kind of bend forward and bend backward.

But actually, there are so many nuances in how we can control our spine, it’s not just forward and backward.

For example, for the posture, what’s very important is the your shoulders in or your shoulders open.

So control and awareness over movements of the spine is very important for spinal health, you know, for the health of your neck for maintaining good posture.

And so in the inflect focus, we’re just being very, very meticulous in how we follow the movement dynamics of flexion extension, flexion in various forms which feature this movement pattern.

So let’s just take a look at a form, which we’re going to do in the next practice lesson, where we will really try to focus on all the key points related to how we perform this movement.

So many inflect forms and Baseworks are done on the floor.

And when it is done on the floor, you typically will start from a reclining transition like this, like what you see Satako is doing right now.

So we will cross the shins in in the middle of the shin here.

So not at the ankle, not close to the knee, but in the middle.

And the ankle will be 90 degrees.

And then we slowly lower the legs in the shape onto the floor and also the knees also 90 degrees.

So knees and ankles are 90 degrees and then one arm forward, another arm forward.

This form is in many ways similar to the one we’ve done in the previous segment, the simple cross inflection, but here the position of the legs is different.

So look here, Satyakova will just, for a moment, cap the hands on the floor, and you can see the position of the legs from the top.

So depending on your hip mobility here, the position of the legs may be slightly different.

For example, the knees may be almost flat on the floor, or they may be much higher. but something that defines the position of the legs is that the shin which is closer to you, so in this case it’s going to be Satoko’s left shin, is perpendicular to your midline.

So when you look down at your shin it should look like this, so not like this, not like this, it should be 90 degrees perpendicular to your midline and ankles are 90 degrees and Satoko here, she is kind kind of walking her feet out.

In order to or in it depends on how your legs landed in order to achieve this square pattern.

So see it looks like her shins and ankles are in the box.

See the knee and the foot, they are at the same line.

And then the shins are like this.

We’re not crossing, but we’re trying to have our shins 90 degrees and ankles 90 degrees.

And in this position, it becomes more easy to use the edges of the feet to press. forward to create traction and to really activate the muscles around the feet.

And from the perspective of working on mobility and flexibility, this is a great exercise to work on the mobility on the hips.

But because we’re talking about the inflect focus, we mainly hear focus on the dynamics of the spinal movements.

Once we’ve made sure that our legs are positioned as we want.

We lean back and we bring the arms forward.

And again, our dimension before that, very often in Baseworks, you find yourself in this position.

So notice here how the lower back is straight and it’s the upper spine, which is flexed.

And the neck is also flexed together with the upper spine because neck is the part of the spine.

So this is one of the things that we want everybody really to be aware of in Baseworks that the neck is a part of your spine.

So we start rolling forward, rounding the upper spine.

Upper spine flexion, the lower back stays more or less neutral, hence gently cupping the floor, no pulling on anything, which is ground our ourselves a little bit with the fingers.

And then she begins these movements, micro movements of the rib cage, moving from side to side.

That really helps to release tension in the neck between the shoulder blades, in the lower back in the hips.

So if you have very often tight neck, tight shoulders, tight lower back, this is great to address that.

But in terms of the movement dynamics, here, the upper spine is rounded and also the shoulders are in.

And then from here, we begin to extend for room flexion, we go to extension.

And what happens is that the spinal flexion extends. and also the shoulders that were in, they open.

So the shoulders begin to separate, go away from each other.

In a way, you can imagine when we do a star form, the shoulders are maximally separated away from each other.

It is as if somebody were pulling on your arms, and then from there you just kind of bring the arms down, right?

But that results in this really, really open chest.

And also So you can imagine that your upper body here is flat.

You know, you want to make it as flat as anatomically possible and the spine as straight as anatomically possible.

With this position of the legs, most people will be able to bring their spine further than 90 degrees.

This is very significant.

This is also why we chose this particular form to talk about the inflect focus because sometimes, For example, if your legs are just in front of you like that, if you are inflexible in your hamstrings, it may result in you having to lean back in order to accommodate the straight spine shape.

And in terms of what’s happening around the hips, that completely changes the dynamic.

But here, most people will have less than 90 degrees, meaning that the gravity is helping you, right?

because the gravity is pushing your lower back down, assisting in hip flexion rather than opposing it.

And once we found this straight spine position, again, we’re moving the ribcage, using the micro movements to try to really find the position where the upper body is completely flat and spine is straight.

And then we run the upper spine, we bring the chin to the chest and we undo the movement we used to get in.

So we lean back and legs become light, they come up the floor.

And we return to the reclining transition here, and we usually do the other side.

So these were the key points for the inflect focus when we work with the flexion extension, flexion movement pattern in Baseworks.

What often happens in these forms is that when you extend the the opening of the chest is incomplete.

So for some people, they stay in this kind of a little bit closed position.

What often also happens is that the neck is not moving together with the spine.

So for example, looking from the side, sometimes when you extend the spine, it looks like this, right?

And we want the spine and the neck to be in one straight line.

Also, sometimes what happens, maybe not in this form, but in other forms, where the leg position is a little bit more demanding in terms of flexibility.

If your pelvis is in this position, the flexibility does not allow you to bring it here or here.

So it’s like a little bit like this.

What happens is that the spine begins to bend from the lower back.

And it’s not immediately obvious that you actually need to lean back like that in order to accommodate the straight spine position.

We recommend that at first, maybe you try to do these forms with flexion extension flexion next to a mirror so that you can actually kind of look to the side at yourself and visually confirm whether your spine is straight or not, whether your shoulders are really away from each other or not, whether your neck is in line with the spine or not.

Because at first, sometimes you may think that everything is straight, but actually it is not.

But of course, eventually in Baseworks, we want to be able to do all the movements without the mirror.

But at the early stages, especially when there is no instructor next to you to give feedback, you can use the mirror.

Also, you can try to ask someone, show them the video, and say, look, this is what it should look like.

I’m going to perform it.

Can you please check whether what I’m doing actually looks like what it is in the video?

And as with any forms, we really recommend that you do it several times on different days, alternate, return to the practice lesson that you have already completed, and see how it changes your experience in each form.

So on this note, let’s move to the practice lesson and try to perform this form.