practice session 20 min

10.3. Practice Session: 20 min — Transcript (English)

Summary:

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Transcript

So we’re gonna start standing up here.

And as usual, we want to make sure that the outside edges of the feet are parallel to each other.

We’re looking from above.

Hips width apart, draw the shoulders down, spread through the fingertips.

Back of the neck is long.

Legs are quite active here, but again, nothing’s ever overly active.

Continually drawing the shoulders down, spreading through the fingers.

Heels also can grip towards each other as we lift the arms forward and up.

Not to the point where the chest starts to buckle.

Hinge into the hips and knees.

Shift the weight to the left foot.

Step that right foot back long onto the tiptoe, as long as you can.

You can always take a variation shorter if you’d like to.

Spread the fingers as you extend the arms forward.

Continue to draw the shoulders back and down towards your hips.

The legs are anchoring away from each other here.

So top of that right foot presses down and pushes back.

The sole of the left foot presses down and pushes forward.

With that anchoring, you start to undulate the spine to the side and lift the chest diagonally forward and up.

So it’s kind of a circum-linear motion as the chest lifts upward here.

Continue to spread the fingers, extend the arms out to the side here now.

Make sure the arms are on one straight line.

Lean forward now to get a nice line with the spine in that back extended leg.

Really extending through the fingers, making sure they got that nice straight line from fingertip to fingertip.

And then from the center of the chest as the lever, turn to the left, try to keep the chest in midline. legs continue to anchor away from each other as you’re doing this.

Continue to draw the shoulders down as well.

Think of the lever in the center of the chest as you come back to the center now.

Extend the arms forward and up.

Shift the weight forward again.

It’s a very gradual shift, not with momentum.

Reach that right foot forward.

Again, feet are parallel to each other.

Shift the weight now to both feet, straighten through the legs.

Allow for the arms to come forward and down.

One more time, draw the shoulders down, spread through the fingers.

Light grip together with heels once, just to calibrate in between each side.

We always keep things marginally active.

Again, arms extending forward, fingertips extend.

Hinge into the hips and to the knees.

Shift the weight now over to the right leg, with that right knee slightly bent.

Reach that left leg long back.

Don’t throw it back, control the movement.

High to the tiptoe of that back foot, grip the legs away from each other here.

The sole of that right foot very much grounded, pressing down and forward.

The tiptoe of that left foot, pressing down and backward.

And again, with that anchoring of the legs, you can undulate the spine a little bit from side to side as you move the chest and sternum in a circum-linear motion forward and up.

And as you come up, the arms just involuntarily come up with the chest.

You don’t feel any squashing to your back here.

And then the arms come out to the side, spreading through the fingers, a nice straight line with the arms.

Now come forward a bit to get that spine in line with that extended back leg.

Continue to activate the legs away from each other and the arms are in a straight line as you move from the center of the chest, turning toward the right side now.

It’s a twist towards the right.

Again, trying to make sure that you’re levering from the center of the chest.

Try not to lead with the arms, in other words.

The arms just move as a bipartite to the movement of the chest.

Now come back to center and extend the arms forward and up, spread through the fingertips here as the legs are actively pulling away from each other.

First, lean down a bit and then tilt.

Keep that right knee slightly bent so your quads active there and then lower the other foot beside the right foot equally.

Straighten the legs.

Arms are still extended up first and then slowly lowering the arms down.

And once in between here, we just move through the neck, Draw the shoulders down, draw a spread through the fingers, drawing down.

Now, reach the fingertips down to the floor as you bend the knees, stepping that right leg back quite long, first onto the tiptoe, and then you can slowly slide back and lower the knee down to the ground.

Get that leg as far back as you can because you wanna try to get that extended foot to stabilize first.

So the knee and top of the foot and on the right back leg are down.

Continue to press the top of that foot down so you see how much activity is in that from taking the pressure off the knee.

The sole of the right foot also presses down and back.

So top extended right foot leg presses down and forward.

So the left foot presses down and back.

Left forearm comes to the knee.

Right hand comes to the waist.

Keep that left knee over the top of the left toe.

Don’t make it a right angle.

Actively pull the legs toward each other as again as you undulate the spine from side to side, moving a circum-linear motion forward and up.

So lead with the chest as the hips drop, as the legs pull toward each other.

It’s important we just don’t fire the upper torso up because that goes to the lower back.

We want to extend the lower back with that, with the movement of the chest moving forward and upright.

Actively pulling the legs toward each other here at the same time, you’re gonna lower, slowly, hands come down to the ground, tiptoe of that back foot, right knee comes up, take the left leg in towards the chest, lower the left shin down to the floor, let’s set it up, lower the forearms down to the floor.

Again, forearms are parallel to each other, right underneath the shoulders, the top right extended leg top of the foot is pressing down, the outside edge of that left shin is pressing down.

The forearms press down and forward and start to flex in the upper spine again here. the legs pressed down at the same time the spine flexes and you really want to make sure that the neck doesn’t get tense in this.

The neck is just relaxed, it just moves as the byproduct of the movement of the chest and sternum and spine.

Legs are actively pressing down, but again never too much.

To release, extend the spine first, palms down to the ground, Tiptoe the right foot, lift the knee, tuck that left thigh in towards the chest, step back.

Souls of the feet are trying to come to the floor, but if they don’t, keep the tiptoes up a bit and the knees bent, as you can see in the variation here.

Whichever you’re doing here, activate the feet away from the hands, the hands away from the feet, and try to keep the spine straight.

So in order to get the spine straight, you may need to bend the knees and you may need to have the heels off the ground.

It’s very important that the spine straight is the most important thing.

The heels down is not.

That’s just a byproduct of your level of flexibility.

Now take that right thigh in towards the chest, slowly lower the sole of the right foot down, then lower the left knee down.

The top extended leg, top of the foot presses down.

Again, the knee is hanging over the top of the toes. the legs toward each other here as we stabilize first.

Lean forward first here so you can first anchor and stabilize the legs.

Then take that right forearm onto the right knee, left hand to the left hip.

That forearm is also pressing to the knee and your shoulders are also pressing down.

At the same time, you undulate, the spine moves or the sternum moves forward and up again, so we’re trying to get the extension out of the sternum and so we don’t go to the lower back.

And you can challenge yourself a little bit here to continue to sink into the hips if you’d like to, but keep lifting out of the sternum and keep drawing the shoulders down.

Now to slowly release, we’re coming forward.

Palms come down to the floor.

Tiptoe the left foot comes up, right thigh comes into the chest, right shin now goes down to the the ground, extend that back left leg long, top of that left foot presses down.

Forearms come down, setting up with the leg foundation first, the outside of that right shin presses down, the top of the extended leg foot presses down, and then we start to flex into the upper spine as the forearms press forward, the shoulders draw back, and again the knee, the neck just moves as a byproduct of this movement.

We’re not actively moving the neck.

Legs are active, upper spine flexed, forearms pressing down forward, both legs pressing down.

You really feel this into the groin and the extension of the hip on the left leg in the front of the hip.

Now release the flexion.

Come to the hands.

Tiptoe of the left foot comes up.

Tuck the thigh into the chest, soul of that right foot lowers to the ground.

Left foot comes forward.

Hands come to the back of the legs.

Bend the knees here if you need to.

Feet are still hips width apart here.

Outside edges of the feet parallel to each other. hands pressed to the back of the legs, arms squeezed to the side of the legs, upper spine flexion in.

So you don’t need to be so far down here.

If it doesn’t feel good for you, you can come more upright, you can bend the knees more.

Feet parallel, outside edges of the feet parallel.

And then we extend.

Now as we extend, we might release a bit of grip with the arms, but still, I mean with the back of the legs, but still grip the arms into the side of the legs.

So that flexion to extension again originates from the sternum area as the spine goes straight.

Move the neck from side to side here a little bit too just to make sure there’s no tension that comes up.

Chain comes into the chest, flex the spine, and roll up.

The feet come a little bit wider than hips width apart now.

Raise the arms forward.

And the feet can also be slightly pointing away from each other here.

It feels a little bit better for you.

Hinge, try to hinge over the top of those ankles.

Bend the knees, elbows connect to the insides of the knees, create an opposition as the knees pull in towards the outside of the arms and the arms reject that pressure by pushing out.

So the shoulders do continue to draw back towards the hips.

So there’s all these different directions of activity going on as you lower down.

Now, if you don’t have a lot of flexibility or mobility in the hips, you’ll be more upright.

Otherwise you’ll come into the squat.

Most important thing is that your spine is straight.

If you feel any rounding to the lower back or upper back, You’ve got to come up more and make the adjustment, as you can see here demonstrated.

But continually offer resistance, arms to legs, legs to arms.

And then release the arms.

Slowly extend the arms forward, try to slowly lower yourself down to the floor without dropping.

A little bit challenging, take some time.

And then back to your reclining transition, lower to the forearms, chest presses forward and up, chin draws in towards the chest, Extend the ankles, balls of the feet, press diagonally forward and up.

Bend the knees a little bit here, soles of the feet come to the ground, right hand cups the right knee, left hand cups the left knee, hang back first.

So you’re just hanging off the knees here comfortably.

Then allow for yourself to tilt back with that same comfortable hang. and now release the hands.

Originating from the shoulder, press the palms of both hands forward, starting right and left.

Keep the upper spine active, slightly flexed, chin drawing slightly in.

And then extend the ankles.

And extend the knees if you can.

If you can’t extend the knees, you stay with the knees bent into a variation.

Keep yourself stable and balanced.

Continue to draw the shoulders down, chin draws down.

Activate through the legs.

That’s what makes it kind of possible to do this, rather than just the focus on the abdominal wall only.

Use the Distributed Activation potential of all the muscles.

Bend the knees now.

Slowly lowering down, controlling every transition. forearms come down, chin comes in, chest presses up, ankles extended.

Then the right knee, turn it out to the right side.

So all of the right foot comes in close to the inside of the leg.

It can even go a little bit beyond the knee closer to the shin, depending on your level of mobility here, extending that left leg forward.

You’re still back onto the ground.

We’re making sure that we keep that center line as we come up here.

So we extend forward, originating from the shoulder, the movement, the left palm presses forward.

And then the right palm presses forward again, shoulders draw down, and the movement forward comes from the shoulder.

Extended, left extended leg, that helps to anchor as you go into the transition.

So it makes it easier to stabilize and come up.

And then slowly we’re rolling forward.

And as we roll forward, the hands can just go either out to the side or in front of you.

Outside edges of that right foot presses down to the floor and forward.

The extended left leg ball, the foot presses forward.

You can also press the back of the calf from that left leg down to the floor.

With the upper spine flexed, you can do the micro movements into the spine.

Again, the neck is not going into any kind of tense position.

Otherwise, it just follows the movement of the spine.

And then we’re going to go from flexion to extension again.

Remember, flexion to extension always originates from the sternum.

So you feel always the sternum moves forward and up, and the spine becomes straight as a bi-particle of that.

And we continue to activate the legs, irrespective of it being flexion or extension here.

The legs are always staying active.

Right outside edge of the foot, press it down and forward.

Left ball, the foot presses forward.

Shoulders continue to draw down.

Back of the neck is neutral, extended even. and you can challenge yourself to go a little bit deeper into the forward bend if you want to, but it’s not really the point here.

We’re trying to keep the legs active, the shoulders drawing down, the neck extended, and neutral and relaxed.

Now, flexing the spine to roll out.

Continue to activate the legs here.

So when we go from extension to flexion again, the legs don’t get lazy, they still stay active all the way through.

To this point where we suspend, the ankle’s still extended.

Now the other leg extends out forward, we slowly lower to the forearms, the chest and sternum presses up, the chin draws in.

Legs and ankles active, crossing the left leg now, bending the left knee, I should say, and then sole of that left foot comes in close to the knee or a little bit forward, depending.

But not too far back, it doesn’t have to go close to your sacrum or pubis.

Lower the legs down actively.

Activate the legs here a little bit forward.

So the outside edge of that left foot presses down and the ball that right foot extends forward.

Now one arm at a time coming forward.

Shoulders draw down, palms press forward.

But the movement of the palm pressing forward comes from the shoulder.

And we start to flex forward.

Legs are still active here as we do that.

Right leg extending forward, outside edge of that left foot is pressing down. spine flexes, hands go comfortably to where they’re able to go to the side or to the front.

Move a little bit from side to side here, continuing to activate through the legs.

Continue to draw the shoulders down now as the sternum moves forward and up.

So we go from again flexion to extension.

God knows how many times we do these flexions to extensions and extensions to flexions, that they’re very important and the quality of those is very important.

Continuing to stay active everywhere.

Continue to draw the shoulders down.

Fingers are lightly cupped.

There’s no reaching or grabbing or gripping.

The back of the neck is extended.

The crown of the head is extending diagonally up and forward.

And then go ahead on the flexion, the spine flexes.

The neck just moves naturally with that.

The legs are still active as we tilt back.

We find that tilt tipping point there.

Arms are extending forward to counterbalance the weight.

As you can see here, in these transitions, we’re trying to make them as smooth and agile as possible.

Four arms lower down to the ground, chest presses up, chin draws in towards the chest, extend through the ankles.

Slowly crossing the legs. and rolling up.