applied practice lab ignition 2 suspension a

6.6. Applied Practice Lab: Ignition 2 - Suspension A — Transcript (English)

Summary:

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Transcript

Standing with the feet a little bit wider than hip-width apart.

If you’re looking from above, the outside edges of the feet will be more or less parallel to each other or the toes could also be slightly pointing away from each other, if that’s more comfortable for you.

Lean the weight back into the heels as you bend the knees and hinge into the hips and make sure that the lower back does not arch and the buttocks don’t stick out.

Draw the tailbone slightly down, allowing for the lower back to be flat, centralizing the weight over the heels with the knees slightly bent, feeling it into the quadriceps.

As we get ready to lift the arms here, you want to imagine that there’s strings that are tied to the arms, where somebody would just be gently lifting the arms upward if there was a string tied, for example, to the wrist, so that the arms reach up and out to the side.

So as we start to lift here, allow for the wrists to go completely limp, and allow for the arms to be lifted, for example, as if you were a puppet, being controlled by marionette strings as such.

Once the arms are up to shoulders height, you want to torsion the wrists in and face the palms forward as much as possible, lightly cupping the hands.

As you can imagine that you will almost be like gripping onto a small physio ball, if you know what that is, or just a small ball of sorts, with the fingertips slightly gripping on the hands, trying to point that ball forward to the front part of your body.

Now the arms don’t go higher than shoulders height.

And even though the wrists are torsioning in and you’re feeling that activity in the forearm, it really, the muscles should be active when you torsion the wrists.

The rest of the arm should be quite relaxed.

The shoulders should not be hiked up to the ears, nor should you be actively really gripping or pressing out with the arms.

The only thing is the torsion of the wrist is creating a strong feeling into the forearms.

Imagine the arms are being very light here.

So we’re going to change the position of the arms here.

As we start to lift the arms upward, we’re trying to bring the palms to face upward, and the fingertips toward each other.

So you can imagine that there would be a kind of fluffy surface underneath the palms of the hands that you would kind of be pressing up into there.

As you can see from the side there is an example.

Now the elbows and arms should not be completely straight.

The elbows should be slightly bent and there should be more or less a circular type of shape in the arms with the fingertips pointing toward each other.

Again, the shoulders don’t lift toward the ears here.

The shoulders stay down and relaxed.

And we also want to check to make sure that the butt doesn’t stick out and the lower back doesn’t arch.

We want to keep the knees slightly bent, not straightening them, to always sense that there’s an activity in the thighs, quadriceps.

Again, we’re working toward that feeling of lightness in the arms.

Continuing this practice over time.

The arms do get lighter.

Initially, if it’s a challenge, you’re more than welcome to bring the arms down once slowly and then raise them back up to the same position when you feel you’re ready.

As we release the arms now, you can imagine that the hands are stroking through a liquid or water, you could say, as if you were maybe in a pool, doing a kind of a stroke through the pool, visualizing that maybe there’s a kind of a liquid.

As you stroke the arms out and down to the side, you coordinate the movement of the knees straightening with that.

Once the arms reach the bottom, allow for all of the tension or activity to drop.

So feel the weight into the heels, the knees are straight.

And go ahead and close the eyes.

So we just want to sense here after having held the arms up for some time in these very still positions.

How the body responded to that, and how your body is feeling today in terms of energy level, resilience or stamina as we get ready to go into the main practice.

Inward focus.

Body relaxed.

Breath calm.

The mind just neutral.

Starting to open the eyes now.

And we’re going to bring the feet together about hip-width apart.