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Hello, and welcome everyone to this class on the pelvis. So this is a 1st class in a series of classes on the pelvis. And we are going to be using Franklin Method principles. And in the Franco method, the goal is to move better and feel better with the help of imagery, embodiment, self touch, proprioception, and, of course, movement. So let us get going.
The first thing we’re gonna do is just a little warm up. We’re gonna tap our body. So you take your hands and you tap up the right and down the left here on the abdominal area. This is sort of the direction of digestion ascending colon, descending colon, Then we’re gonna tap on our chest, heart, lung. Very good. Then we’re gonna do a gentle neck tap. With our fingertips.
And then we’re going to tap our skull and our forehead. Bring a little awareness to this area. Then we’re gonna tap our jaw. Tap the jaw. Very good.
Wonderful. Then we’re gonna tap our legs, the front of the legs, all the way down to the feet. If that’s comfortable, just as far as is comfortable, the outside of the legs, the inside of the legs, the back of the legs, all around the legs. Then we’re gonna tap our glutes. A little glue tap. You could do that with your fist if you want.
That’s a little glue tap. They’re gonna tap our lower back. And if you feel like it, you can make a sound as you do that. Like, as general, gonna tap the general area of our diaphragm. Free up the diaphragm. So good breathing.
Wonderful. And then we’re gonna take our left arm, and we’re gonna tap our left arm with our right hand side from the fingertip all the way up over the arm to that shoulder And the neck, and we’ll tap all around the arm, and you can move the arm as you’re tapping the arm. There we go. And then you’re gonna brush over the arms starting from the shoulder and you’re imagining you’re brushing all tension out of the shoulder and the arm and casting it away. There we go. Gone forever.
Then we’re gonna shake our arm And just to challenge our balance a little bit, we’re also gonna shake the leg on the same side. So balancing is a skill. We should practice because it’s a sign of usefulness to be able to balance. So we can as long as we can balance, we are young. So improving our balance skills, right, is rejuvenation.
Good. Looking good. Very good. And now just to introduce one of the tools we’re going to be using now and then, which is comparing the size of the body after you didn’t exercise on one side. So this is a great way for the brain to learn about improvement. So here we have the body before you tapped and choke in here afterwards.
What changed, what improved, do I like it, and so forth. So probably you feel a little more relaxed, but now we taste that in the movement. So we stand on that side. We just practice with our arm up, which raises the center of gravity, and we balance. We notice, okay, how elastic do I feel on that side? Maybe do a hop even if you feel like it. And then we go to the other side.
And we do the same thing. Maybe feel a little stiffer. And now you do a hop and you go, woah, not so comfortable. So there we are. This was a performance enhancement So a little bit of tapping and shaking, and we’re just thinking about, so who does that before a competition race? Athletes, Javier watch athletics, they do tap in shaking before the race and before they jump in the pool or before they get into the blocks.
They are doing that. So let’s do the other side. Great thing to do before a class, any kind of class, or if you’re going for a hike or running, Good. All around. And we’re gonna brush from the shortest amount of brushing all tension out of the shoulder and the arm.
And we’re gonna fling it away, but not at our neighbors. But far away to be recycled into ease and relaxation. Good. And then we’re gonna shake the arm, shake the leg. You’re welcome to challenge your balance I’m taking my arm forward in the leg back and vice versa or crossing my body, or if you really, you know, feel ready for a child, you can circle your arm as you shake it. Oh my. Okay. Good. Just give it a try.
There’s no right and wrong. And then we’re gonna shake the whole body. Let’s shake the left side of the body and the right side of the body. And, again, the left side of the body, and the right side. Now let’s shake the diagonal right arm left leg, left arm right leg, right arm left leg, left arm right leg, right arm, left leg, left, right leg. Okay. That was our little ticking tapping warm up.
Notice if you feel a little different. Yeah. Already a little more relaxed. Like that. And that’s why we’re gonna just take a half a minute to stand here and just feel our body and check-in. So feeling your body could mean feeling your breathing posture, tension level. And what we’re not gonna do, just for a moment, think about stuff. Right? We do that plenty all day. Think, think, think, supposedly about 60,000 thoughts a day. Okay.
That’s plenty. Now just for half a minute, we’re just gonna feel our body. Ex and welcome back. How did that go? Were we able to stay present in the whole period of time? So why is that an absolutely key skill if you wanna improve your movement? Being present, being able to feel your body. Well, quite simply, you can’t improve what you don’t feel. Right? So if you’re not aware of what you’re doing, then obviously, you’re not gonna be able to adjust, improve what you’re doing because you don’t know what you’re doing in the first place. Right? So the first tape is always Number 1 of the force saves in the Franco method.
What am I doing? Is this the best I could be doing? Are there better solutions? Number 2, what tools are available to me to improve. Right? And then use those tools. They’re outer and inner tools. Inner tools are imagery, for example.
Self talk, outer tools are using balls, bands, or a pilates reformer. And then did that work my intervention? If yes, great. And if not, go back to state number 2 and select another tool. So let’s get right, to the pelvis. So everyone please touch your pelvis.
Here it is. And so why do we have a pelvis? What does it do for us? Yeah. Let’s think about it. Well, first of all, it’s kind of the center of her body. Right? And that has consequences. So a small shift in your pelvis has consequences for the whole body. So twist your pelvis shape, you know, this whole body changes around.
Now if you move your wrist like that, it doesn’t really move the whole body. You see that? So I can move my fingers with the whole body kinda stays the same. But if you have a twist in your pelvis or something changed in your pelvis, the whole body, spine legs all the way down to your feet, head, changes. So very consequential how you’re posturing and moving in your pelvis. Right? So there. And, of course, besides movement, the other function is connecting the upper and lower body or the lower and the upper body.
So there’s a lot of load transfer forces going through the pelvis. Right? And of course, it contains the pelvic organs. It’s very important for birthing it’s important to absorb force, right, to absorb shock when you’re walking running like that. Right? Cause you don’t want that shock to go the spine or, you know, to your brain. So it has to help with force absorption.
So many important functions. Yeah? So, before we get going, let’s look at the movement aspect a little more. So how can you move your pelvis? So the pelvis as a whole If this rear pelvis can shift to the front, to the back, to the side, and, of course, it can shift in any direction So we’ll just say it can also shift diagonally like that. So shifting in space. Let’s give that a try.
So we’re gonna do a little pelvic dance. So you can put your hands through your pelvis, bend your knees and hips a little bit. We’re gonna take a pelvis front and back and to the right, and left. And then we’re gonna go diagonally to the right, diagon to the left, and shift back. Excellent. And front and back, and left and right, diagonal left, diagonal right, and shift to the back. And, again, front and back and right and left, the angle, the angle to the back, front and back, and left, and right, the angle, the angle to the back last time, front and back and right and left to angle the angle to the back, front and back, and right to angle to angle to the back.
Okay. However, the pelvis can also rotate around various axes. So you can do something called an anterior posterior tilt or and tear post rotation. You can also rotate in this plane, in the frontal plane, and, of course, in the transverse plane. So let’s give that a try. Lots of post movements in the pelvis, and we need to know these movements if you wanna train the pelvis, train the muscles, and the facets of the pelvis. Right?
So to do anterior posterior tilt, it’s very helpful to bend your knees and hips just a little bit. Yeah? Good. So let’s end here and post your tilt or pelvis. And when we do that, we’re obviously also changing our lumbar spine. So if you cannot enter your posterior rotator your pelvis, it’s going to be very challenging to train your pelvic floor or your lumbar spine. So there’s a variety of imagery you can use to help with that movement.
So put one hand on your belly and one hand on your lower back like that. And imagine your hands are big soft pillows. And you’re gonna push the front pillow away and then the back pillow away. So you’re gonna push these pillows, and that’s helping you to rotate your pelvis. You get that anterior post your tilt. Yeah? So maybe you don’t need that help, but, you know, some people may need a little imagery assistance here.
Or you can imagine your tailbone, the very bottom of the spine, swinging front and back like a little pendulum. How about that? Yeah? So you can also do that. So very important if you wanna train your pelvic floor, help your lower back, and by the way, pelvic floor and lower back, right, they’re working together. They’re so called antagonist for certain movements. So tightness in the public floor meets tightness in the lower back and vice versa.
It’s all connected right through there. Then, of course, you can also move the pelvis in this plane. So in this plane here, You can do that either like this or you can hike your pelvis like that. I know it’s a little bit odd. It’s actually a pretty good exercise. For these muscles here on the side, the gluteus medius key muscle also for walking, and for stability, So you can do that.
And then finally, we have rotation. So I guess you can kinda rotate your pelvis like that, but that’s gonna twist your knees. You can also take a step like this and rotate your pelvis around the standing leg. And you might go, okay. Interesting movement.
This is a movement. You do hundreds of times a day. Every time you turn around, just do that, turn around to the right, you’re gonna use this. So you take a step, you swing your pelvis around here, like, take a step, swing your pelvis around. Like, you feel that? You’re doing that all day long. Use many muscles to that.
One of the muscles that you may have heard of you used to do that is called the Puriformis. Right? And, of course, you wanna have a balanced fear of form is mostly because it attaches to the sacrum bone because otherwise, it’s gonna twist your sacrum, twist your pelvis. So let’s go to the other way. So all the way around.
And as you do this, notice is one side more comfortable than the other. Right? So if one side is more comfortable, it may mean, right, that you’re turning more in that direction in daily life. So supposedly, we turn around about a thousand times a day. If you’re always doing it more on one side, that constitutes training. Right? So training is what you do on a regular basis, not just in a studio, but what you do in daily life. Right? So if you’re always turning, did you feel a little difference there? Yeah.
If you’re always turning the same direction, it might imbalance the muscles, which, of course, is something you don’t want. So let’s get into the anatomy here a little bit. Here we have a pelvis, and the pelvis is made of four bones. 2 pelvic halves, there are sometimes also called in dominant bones. I don’t like that name too much.
It means no name. Right? So let’s just call it pelvic half. And the pelvic calf is made of 3 fused bones. An elium, this one here, this big broad flat bone, right, too, there. Then you have an ischem. These are the ischial tuberosities. We call them sit bones. We’re just gonna call them sit bones.
And then you have the pubic bones here in front, pubic raymide, these branches, and then these things here in front of the pubic tubercles and the pubic symphysis. And then you also have a sacrum, which is made of 5 fused vertebrae and transverse processes, 5 fused transverse processes, and then you have the tailbone, which is usually 4 vestigial vertebrae. So two pelvic caps, anomonas, sacrum, which is the spine, but functionally belongs to the pelvis, and then a tailbone made of four bones right through there. And there are joints. So you have the 2 sacroiliac joints back here.
And then you also have the pubic symphysis here. So there is some movement in the pelvis, not a lot, but this little bit of movement is actually really important as, we shall see in a moment. Yeah? So there we have it. But now we’re going to discover the most important point maybe for exercising the pelvis the hip articulation, hip joint. So everyone take your fingertips and put the tips of your fingers on top over the hip joint or point to your hip joint. So that’s the place where the leg meets a pulse. So 1, 2, 3 touch your hip joints.
I’m not gonna show you where they are. Because this is good for learning purposes. So often when I do this, when I teach this, people will be touching out here. That’s not quite where it is. Or up here. That’s kind of the gut in there. Right?
The hip joints are actually here. So crease your hips like this by flex your legs. And then you have this crease here. Slide your hands along that crease like this This is called the inguinal line because here, you also have something called the inguinal ligament. And if you go to the middle of that line, that crease and just a little below, that’s where your hip joints are.
Big surprise. So much closer together much more in front than most people think. So why would it be important to know where your hip joints are if you wanna improve movement? Well, I would say it’s very important because just for one, we know that if you don’t use your hip joints, well, you’re gonna be compensating in your knees gonna be compensating your lower back. You think you have issues in your lower back or your knees. No. It’s you’re not really using your hip joints very well. So if you’re still struggling with that location of the hip joint, I have a leg bone here, and I put some tape on the femur head so you can see exactly where the hip joint is. You see that in the middle of that crease right there.
Tada. So this is where you have that hip joint. And then we take the pelvis like this. You can see that the sockets, you see how close together, those sockets are very close, and I put this in here. So this is where you’re gonna have that hip joint right to there. Yeah? There we go. Good. So let’s practice that.
And then we’ll be even more precise about it. So put your fingers here in the hip joint. Let’s lift our right leg and see if we can circle our knee from the hip joint. So what I mean with that, without twisting your spine, your support leg like that, so this is called disassociation, the ability to move your leg somewhat independently from the pelvis, which is very important if you wanna save your back. Right? You wanna be able to do that. And, of course, breathe at the same time.
So breathing involves air going in and air going out. And this should happen regularly throughout the day. About 20,000 times. Yeah. So when something gets a little challenging, don’t hold your breath because that’s actually not good for your pelvic floor. Increases the pressure on your pelvic floor.
Your lower back doesn’t like it either. So we’re always breathing in preferably through our nose and out do throughout all the exercises. So let’s take our other leg and we’re gonna circle our leg in the hip joint. And again, there’s no right in wrong. So if you fall over whatever Fine. Yeah.
It’s just learning. You remember learning is happening when you can’t quite do it yet. If you if you already can do it, you’re not learning. Right? So let’s see if you can swing your leg from the back from the hip joint. There we go. You’re looking very good.
That’s excellent. Are the shoulders relaxed? Is your breathing free? Exactly. Very good. Now let’s look at a more precise way of finding the hip joints.
So here we have a pelvic half. So just the half of the pelvis, that in omenobomb. And here we have the hip socket. So if I put the green, you know, femur head into the socket, you can see that the green is just above the red. Can you see? The heap joint is actually pretty much above the seat bone.
This is a great way to be precise about the location of your heap joint. Okay? So even if you know your anatomy, it’s always good to be more precise about these things. So it’s, oh, I know about the oh, To be really clear about this takes a bit of practice. So let’s touch our right sit, Bob. It’s right sit, Bob.
It works a little easy if you lean forward because that’ll pull the gluteus away from the sit bone and you kinda touch it. We’ll just do the base you can. And you’re touching that hip bone and then you draw an imaginary line upward, like straight up vertical up, and that’s gonna go through the hip joint. Then you take your other hand and put it in the middle of the ingle crease on the same side. Now you draw a horizontal line back and where the two lines meet, boom, that’s your hip joint. Can you imagine it? So there’s a ball in the socket there, and let’s try our hip circles again.
And now we have a very clear picture of that femur head moving around in the socket, and we are breathing. Good. This is so exciting. I’m being very clear about my hip joint. Good. Swinging front and back.
And this, of course, is also just great for the health of your hip joint to move it around every day is that distributes the joint fluid, the synovia, which is the nourishment of the joint. And that’s what we need. So stand on the side. We practice a moment, just stand on that side and feel your pelvis with your hands on the pelvis on that side, the right side. Just notice how toned you are there.
So kind of leaf that in tone. Compared to the other side, you might notice you’re more sagged. You feel that heavier, even the lower back is more arched. You see? So just embodying a little bit of anatomy really helps a lot. So in the Franco method, we say, embodying function improves function.
That means it’s not as, oh, I know the hip joint. No. It means having a physiological, a felt, or seen experience of a place in your body and how it works That’s how you improve movement. So you can read books all you want, but unless you embody, you’re not gonna improve movement with the help of anatomy. So let’s do the other side. So left seat bone, up from the seat bone, back from the middle of the ingle crease, and we’ll do our best to move our leg from that place. Again, there’s no right and wrong.
We balance or we don’t. It’s all just practice and swing your legs front and back. Looking good. Very nice. And shoulders are relaxed as well. That’s terrific.
So this for a moment, just touch your femur heads and let’s bounce on our femur heads. So imagine you’re bouncing on your femur heads. Boom. Boom. So and if you like metaphors and those of you who do pilates, who use a lot of pilates, metaphors and pilates, Did you know that metaphors in themselves are very good for your mood? So if you use a lot of images and mood regulating, it’s a good thing to do. So less thinking, thinking, thinking, more imagery. And metaphors are basically things you’ve experienced somewhere in your life that you’re applying in your body to improve a movement or improve movement quality.
And this is an interesting one. This is supposed to be little buoys. You know, that flowed in water miniature walls, right, water, water like this. They bounce to the water. So imagine your femur has to be buoys You have the water here, and the water’s kinda going up and down like a little bit of waves and try to really get on top of those femur hits.
And it’s a great image for dynamic posture. So because you’re it’s moving posture, But if you get on your femur heads, you probably have pretty good posture. Let’s shift back and forth like that onto the femur heads because you don’t wanna be behind your femur heads or in front of your femur heads or always on one femur head like that. You know, you wanna kinda feel that bounce bounce bounce. So this is a little imagery intermits. So there. Okay? There we go.
So let’s onward with this. And, you know, I was always told when I was saying Dan’s training a long time ago to square my pelvis, you know? Might have heard of that square pelvis. And I had the image, you know, of the pelvis being something square. So I decided one day to take a closer look at a pelvis. And if you look at the pelvis, it doesn’t really look that square.
But if you take a square and you put it something that’s more square on the pelvis, you get it entirely different shape. Can you see that shape? Right? So what does that look like? Well, this looks like a spiral. Yes. That is true. So the pelvic half is actually a spiral. Can you see the wind chime? Yeah? This guy looks like a winch. Like this.
Can you see the spiral? So it’s a spiral. It’s also an arch. Can you see the arch? It’s like an arch. Yeah. It’s an arch. It’s actually a double arch.
You could say it’s it’s a figure 8. Can you see the figure 8 in there? To Figurate. It’s a wheel, not a great wheel, but it’s a wheel. So those are all metaphors that do reflect the shape of the pelvis like that. Now let me just show you with this rod.
What I mean? So you have these two spirals in your pelvis, And that means the top of the pelvis faces like this and the bottom of the pelvis faces like that. So there’s nothing square here at all. So illegal like that, the sit bones go like that. You see that? That’s the shape of the pelvis, right, to there.
Good. Let’s just practice that for a moment. Good. So this is the top of your pelvis. So with your hands go like this, That’s the top of the pelvis, and then this is the bottom of the pelviser like that. Top bottom, can you imagine the spiral?
Yeah? So it’s interesting. That’s the actual design. So you have 2 spirals, and your spine is a wave. Right? So your spine is a wave. You have sacrum, lumbar lordosis, right, thorax, nickel like that.
You have a wave and 2 spirals. That’s the design. Those are metaphors that actually reflect the design. Very good. So now we’re gonna work with that. But first, we have to think about, okay.
Why does the pelvis have internal movement? So we’ve practiced the external movement shifting around, rotating on the hip joint, Right? That involves moving the hips, moving the lumbar spine. But what about internal movement? So if you look at this movement here, There’s a little bit of movement in the sacroiliac, pubic symphysis. So you have a little movement in the sacrum and sit bone like that. Why does the pelvis have that movement? It’s not much. And it’s not at all like the shoulder, the most mobile joint of body. So the shoulder serves the hand to move the hand around in space. Right?
This joint different story. This is very much about force absorption dealing with forces. So a little bit of movement, but important movement. Just think of the life challenge of a pelvis. We all have challenges in life.
The pelvis has a challenge. It lives between the 3 longest levers in your body. You’ve heard of leverage, I’m sure. So you have the spine. You have two legs.
And you’re the pelvis in between. So one leg is going this way and the spine is going that way and you’re doing all this movement or who knows what you’re doing. Right? And you’re the pelvis. I mean, woah. Right? So the pelvis has to adapt to survive. So it has to adjust a little bit. If it’s just rigid, it’s gonna break, and that’s why ideas that promote rigidity in the pelvis are not good for the pelvis or the adjoining joints. So you have some movement because of that.
You also have movement in the pelvis for birthing, obviously. Right? You have to widen the pelvic outlet, but you do a similar much smaller action Also, when you go to the toilet, of course, you have to widen the pelvic outlet. So you need some movement for force absorption, for going to the toilet, for right adjusting to all these forces. But to understand the force absorption part, I’m going to do a little demo. So I think we don’t teach force absorption enough. So force absorption is about healthy dealing with the forces that, you know, are generated in your body and at your body.
So what are these 2 forces? It’s really only 2. Right? Already said it. So you have gravity pulling on your body. So you should take a step, that, you know, you’re gonna have force because of gravity and momentum, but you also have the muscle forces inside your body. So those are kind of the forces you’re dealing with. How do you safely deal with them? So I’m gonna take my hands and I’m gonna clap them together.
That kinda hurt. Yeah? You wanna try? No. You don’t have to break it. Here we go. Let’s all clap. Ouch. Okay. That was a lot of force. Impact on our hands.
My hand is that little red even now. Yeah? But if I do the same thing with the sponge, yeah, you wanna try? Yes. Yeah. Even harder, it’s not gonna hurt. Yeah? You see? Not gonna hurt. And now you’re thinking at home well because it’s a sponge. Right? But we have to answer the question. What is happening here? What is the sponge doing to reduce that impact.
This is the moment for thinking. Right? Yes. It is increasing the time over which the force is decelerated, which means in any given moment, there’s less force. So you’re driving your car and you only have 3 yards to stop or you have 30 yards to start, it’s a huge difference. So your body is really good at allowing a little bit of joint movement to absorb force. Let’s do another example of that.
Everyone take a step and when you do that, you notice you bend your knee. Right? So why are you bending your knee? So a lot of people will answer, well, I’m bending my knee to absorb force, and then I answer, is it the knee absorbing force? Hopefully not much who’s absorbing the force. The knee is bending to create the time over which the quadriceps muscle absorbs the force.
So muscle and fascia are really good at absorbing force mossals, eccentrically, fashion, more elastically like that. And actually 80{08333bab68e0686bc73f751d713fa62282d5f4fe4cc6001c554e5bb20454a8c9} of daily life muscle function is force abortion is eccentric action to absorb force. But sometimes we get about that, and when we train muscles, we’re often thinking of concentric. Right? So We train the quad by, you know, extending her knee, but in daily life, the quad is exactly doing eccentric action, like when you’re walking, to absorb force. Yeah? So let’s experience that in our pelvis. So the movement of the pelvis for all these reasons hit above, can be experienced by using your hand like this as a model. So use our hands because we can watch your hands helps us to learn about anatomy.
So it’s especially the pelvic outlet, the sit bones. They’re going to widen when you flex your hips. And when you come back up, it’s they’re gonna narrow. And widen and narrow. And it’s actually useful to do some self talk or inner speaking when we do this.
So we can say narrow, We can say the word wide and narrow. Everyone say wider pelvis, narrow pelvis, wider pelvis, narrow pelvis, wider pelvis, narrow pelvis, wider pelvis, narrow pelvis. If you wanna metaphor, this is a nice one here, wider pelvis, narrow pelvis, wider pelvis, narrow pelvis, wanna give it a try. Yeah. Water pelvis, narrow pelvis. Exactly. Wider pelvis, narrow pelvis, wider pelvis, narrow pelvis. Excellent. Very good.
Now let’s touch our seat bones. And see if we can feel them moving out, sit bones out, sit bones in, sit bones out. Do you feel anything sit bones in? Cipons out, cipons in, cipons out, cipons in. So pelvic outlet is whining. Cipons are going out.
Teal is going back when you flex your hip. Now, this is not an exercise. It’s a function. So a function is something that’s built into your body. Right? So it’s not something you can’t, like, oh, that’s just an exercise. I’m not gonna do that today. No.
When you flakes your hips, your seed funds are gonna go out. And sometimes we base learn about that when we impede that function. So please squeeze your sit bones together don’t let the move and now flex your hip joints. Right. Well, you can’t flex your hip joints. You’re probably gonna just go like that.
A lot of people do that. You know? You say, Okay, everyone. Please squat me. Just know. Right? Got it. Now, it’s okay if your niece are like this, but now imagine your niece are like this, and you have these tight hip joints because you’re gripping your pelvis, your knees are gonna go forward.
And, you know, that’s how you inch your your crochets. Right? And of course, dancers do that a lot because they, you know, they’re being told. I was told. Right? So tighten here, squeeze everything like that. Squeeze your glutes. And then you’re supposed to do something called the plie.
And if you do that and all this is gripped, it’s gonna shove your knees forward. That’s why dentists have a greater prevalence of ACL injuries, then, you know, the teacher’s gonna well, meaning teacher is gonna come push back here. You should probably try that to feel it. Come on. Just so you feel how bad it is. Right? Really? No. I think it’s a good idea.
So squeeze your knees go forward, you see? And now take your legs and push them back Notice how your hips feel and now come up. So that’s how you damage your hip joints. Right? So we can see that we can actually you know, promote problems in our body by an incorrect embodiment by misunderstanding how these things work. And by the way, the other aspect is you know, to contract your glutes when you’re not moving, your glutes are not postural muscles. They’re not interested. Your glutes only will start firing if you have 2 or 3 times the body weight. So if you contract your glute and think, oh, this is a postural kind of thing, that is not a good strategy.
Guess why? Because when you bend your hips, these muscles have to lengthen because the glutes are hip extensors. So if you contract your hip extensors with the purpose of having good pelvic posture, good luck with flexing your hip joints. Right? You can’t shorten a muscle or hold it and lengthen it at the same time, so your choice. So let’s check that out. So, yes, the glutes will kick in if you do a deeper squab, obviously, of course, we’re just standing there. Right?
A little bit of hamstring tone is going to be plenty. So there we have it, but now Let’s move right on. So we saw the sit bones go out, but this is one bone in the adult. What is the other side of this bone too. So this here is called the anterior superiorly spine.
This spot right there. So what does this point here do when the sit bones go out? What would you say? It goes in. Right? It’s not like the pelvis is gonna explode like that. So when the C bone goes out, the other side here goes in. So basically, this bone when you bend your hips is a spiraling spiral.
The movement is three-dimensional. We don’t have time to go into all the dimensions, but we’re just gonna start with 1. So the pelvic bone is a spiraling spiral. And we’re gonna stand that a little better in a moment when we talk about dynamic alignment. So let’s shift our way to the right side. Touch your right seat bone.
Touch your right ASAP. So you’re kind of on the right side. And what we’re learning about here is the Franklin method bow and rhythms they’re called. It’s a termite coin over 30 years ago to describe the natural way the bones and joints move to promote safe, efficient movement. So to shift their weight to the right, you’re touching, your ASS, have you found your ASS in your hip bone? Yeah.
And when you bend your leg, bend your hip, you’re gonna feel the sit bone go out. Do you feel that? When you stretch sit bone in. So if you want, you can say loud sit bone out, sit bone in, sit bone out, sit bone in. Can you feel it? Sit bone out, sit bone in, sit bone out. And at the very end of the stretch, you’re gonna feel the ASC go out as the sit bone comes in. You feel that’s a bit subtle. Yeah? And the first thing that happens when you bend is sit bone out and air says will drop in just a little bit. You feel that? Yeah. Good. Good.
That’s subtle, but you can feel it. Good seat bone in ASS out. Set bone out ASS in. SIPoning SSCS out. Yeah. Very nice. SIP on out SSC. Now block that for a moment.
Hold your SIP bound. Don’t let it move. And, you know, bend your leg or flex your hip joints, you can’t. Right? It’s not gonna work. So seat bone now, we can slide our hand like that. You see, to help us along. So exactly and SIPO node SSE in SIPO and slide and slide and slide and slide and slide and slide.
Very good. Shake out your leg. Now let’s do some comparisons For a stand on the side you practiced and notice how stacked you are, how lifted you are, right, feel your lower back, maybe do a huff, Good. Now compare that to the other side. Anyone feel lower back is more arch, pelvis is more dropped. Do you feel that? Right? So we just improved our alignment but how did we improve our alignment? We improved it through embodied correct function. So what’s the purpose of good posture?
The purpose of good posture is to have good movement. So you can create good posture through good movement. Right? So posture should just be a moment during a good, efficient movement. But now let’s also test this. Left your hips like that, lift your legs.
Notice how your hip joints feel. Swig your right leg forward. Notice how that feels. When you lift your leg also to the side, compare the thigh. You feel the difference?
Yeah. It’s much easier. The hamstrings might be freer on that side. Feels different. So the whole side is released. Where does that come from? So I thought that flexibility comes from stretching. Now we got some flexibility just from improving organization.
Well, yes, you can improve flexibility with stretching. But maybe a royal road also to improve it is to improve function because if your body is discombobulated, your brain is gonna tighten muscles to keep you safe. As soon as you get better organized and things are coordinating better, the brand will say, okay. That’s better there. We can free things up a little bit.
So it’s a great natural way to improve flexibility. Let’s go to the other side. So we’re having seat bone out as seen, so we shift your weight a little bit to the left SIPO not ASSA in, SIPO in ASSA out. I recommend saying this loud. Yeah. The bone rhythm of the pelvic calf.
SIPAN out ASSA in, SIPAN, SIPAN, SIPAN, SIPANING ASSM, SIPANOUND ASSAN. Sapening SSL. Woosh. Woosh. Woosh. Can you feel it? Woosh.
Exactly. Yeah. So can you see that pelvic calf and how it’s moving, three-dimensional movement of the pelvic calf? There we go. Wonderful. Good job.
Shake it out. So these bones are moving. Take hands like that. Now we have a more precise image of the pelvis. So it’s not just out like that.
So the little finger is gonna be the sit bone. The thumb is gonna be the ASS. And so what you’re gonna have little finger out thumb in and little finger in thumb out. So you’re gonna have, like, the exactly. Yeah?
Do you feel that? So you have internal exhortation of the public caps as you do this. So what that means is, right, this is driven by muscles. So touch the front of the pelvis here So the muscles here at the front of the pelvis, especially on the side here, are called the transverse abdominis and the inner oblique abdominal muscles. And when you flex ships, they’re gonna actually activate to pull those pelvic caps in. It’s also called inflare the pelvic caps.
So we’re gonna slide our hand in as we go down and slide. And just imagine these muscles contracting. Contracting. Contracting. Can you feel anything contracting? Yeah? Contracting. Contracting.
Contracting. Now stand and notice your pelvic posture. What do you feel more lifted, more tone? Do you feel that? Isn’t that great? Yeah? Very good. Now what happens if you would do the opposite? I was taught the opposite.
So I was taught always flatten here, widen here, So flatten the front of the pelvis like that and now bend your legs or flex your hips. But, you know, just go like that. Right? Okay. That’s fine to do that, but when you come up, okay, so when you go down, you have shortening contraction, And the pelvic floor muscles are doing a lengthening contraction. Yeah? When you come up, the pelvic floor muscles doing a shortening contraction, and now you’re having lengthening here. Yeah. So for these movement, if for these move for this movement, these 2 muscle groups are antagonist. So slide your hands in, pelvic floor lengthen, slide your hands out. For shortness. Yeah?
How are we doing with that? Good. Shake it all out. We’ll take one more step in the world of bone rhythms. So this is another bone rhythm that you probably heard of, which is imagining the pelvic calf to be a wheel. So this has been very much adopted by the world of Pilates. Right? So a lot of people use it.
This idea comes from the Frankenstein method many, many years ago to imagine the public half being a wheel as you lift your leg. But let’s, you know, take this step by step and look at how this image evolved. So When you lift your leg, you might think, okay. This is purely an action in the hip joint. But what also happens is that the hip socket on the side you’re lifting your leg, is gonna adapt a little bit to help along. Right?
But that doesn’t mean that the whole pelvis is going to go backward like that. Yeah? It’s only on this side where you’re lifting your leg. So let’s start on the left side for this. So touch your seat belt. And your ASAS on the left side.
And we’re gonna lift your left leg. Does anyone feel the seat bone go forward as you lift your leg? And I’ll go back a little bit. You feel that? So everyone says sit bone forward, sit bone back, sit bone forward, sit bone back. Seat bone forward, sit bone back, sit bone forward, sit bone back, sit bone forward, sit by back. Now also feel the ASAS.
When you lift your leg, you feel the ASAS going back a little bit. It’s going a little bit to the back. You feel that? And I’ll come a little bit forward. And please breathe. And seapum forward ASS back, seapum back ASS forward, seapum forward ASS back, seapum back ASS forward, Then put your hand flat here on the side of the pelvis.
And just imagine your pelvic calf is a wheel turning post yearly backwards. So it’s speeding backward. It’s good and forward. And backward and forward, and backward and forward and backward and forward and backward and forward. So you can hold one of the wheels.
Right? To help you feel that backward and forward, it helps that wheel backward and forward and backward and forward. Now let’s do a little comparison. Stay on the side you practiced, left side, lower back length, and pelvic lifted. How does that feel? Yeah. All the side more sacked.
So we’ve lifted our pelvis without the instructions lift your pelvis. Because if you tell someone lift your pelvis, they’re gonna do it with voluntary muscle interaction. And as soon as they stop, thinking about that. They’re gonna let go again and their partial strategies out the window. So you you want to have a natural way to create that difference.
So lift your leg. Compare the left leg to the right. You’re gonna notice the hamstrings again on the left leg are gonna be a little freer. K? So thank you very much for the wheels.
It’s good to have wheels. We’ll do the other side in a moment, but just put your fingers on the ASS. And then when you lift your leg, you’re gonna feel how the ASS goes back on the side where you lift your leg, but not on the other side. You feel that? Yeah?
So you have the rotation on that side, not on both sides. I would be doing this. So let’s do the other side. Write seat bone, write a s a s, and we’re gonna have seat bone forward a s s back, seat bone back a s s forward, and please breathe occasionally, seeping forward, seeping back, seeping back, seeping back, seeping back. Can you feel it? Yeah. Seeping forward a s s back, seeping back a s s forward.
Put your hand on the side and go, wheel goes back, wheel goes forward, wheel goes back, wheel goes forward. It’s to both sides. Right? And you’re gonna have wheel back on this side where you lift your leg. We’ll back on the side. You lift your leg.
There we go. Now put both hands on the ASS. And just swing, take your leg forward, and you see the ASS on the side, you take your leg forward, it’s gonna go back. But not on the other side. You feel that?
So the two sides of the police are not doing the same thing. They’re actually counterbalancing. I was taught something completely else. I was taught, okay. In good alignment, these two points and this point here are on one play.
Right? And that’s great if you’re not gonna move. Right? So that’s great, you know, alignment instruction for a wall. So the goal is wall is kind of stay where it is. You know, hopefully tonight, tomorrow it’s gonna still be there. That’s not my goal. Right?
I move around. So I need to have counterbalance. So the only way you can balance is by counterbalance. So if I lift one leg like this and I don’t do anything, I’m gonna fall over. Right? So I have to counterbalance.
But then you might get, you know, worried, but where is the center then? I need to have a center. Well, look at the sponge. Here are the 2 pelvic caps. Okay.
Good. You’re gonna help me. Anyone see the center Show me the center. Yeah. Exactly. So you have a center, but it’s a dynamic center. You see? So the public caps are moving around the center, but the idea that, okay, we’re gonna keep this point, this point, this point, like, aligned like that. Well, if you’re not gonna move, that’s fine. But if you’re gonna move, that’s not gonna work.
So that’s dynamic alignment. And, of course, this this story is much longer. It’s only beginning. And then you go into the lakes, then you’ll see, you know, counter rotations all the way down to the feet, and it’s just lovely. Gets you all organized. And, maybe one more thing.
So why is the body using all these three dimensions to generate and absorb force? Well, just think about it. So if I want to generate force, right, and I’m just gonna use one dimension. So I’m gonna throw this sponge At Lindsay behind the camera, right? You’re not worried about your cameras because I’m using one dimension, but if I were to use 3 dimensions, you know, maybe you’re getting a little worried about the side camera. Exactly. Yeah. Because you know I have more power.
The same thing if I would catch this sponge Right? If I do one dimension, that’s like amateur, if I do 3 dimensions, so the body knows that the body is using 3 dimensions. Right, to generate and absorb force. So let’s feel it one more time. So pelvic calf on the side, your lifting is going to go back like that.
That’s the internal movement inside the pelvis. And it’s more complex than that too, of course, sacroiliac joint. So for that would be the next day. But I have a, you know, just a quiz question here. What’s the first movement you do when you lift your leg? Is it lift your leg? No. What’s the first movement you do? You have 2 shifts.
The first move is not lifting your leg because you’re going from 2, you know, feet, a large basis board to a smaller basis where So first thing you do is shift, right, then you’re going to counter rotate the 2 pelvic caps as a balance to your pelvis. So you see that stability is involves a lot of movement. Right? So the idea, oh, if you don’t move your pelves now, you’re stable. No. That’s if you’re a bright good instruction for a while, not for human. So the human, okay, the idea is good stability is kinda a efficiently take my center of gravity, which is now over this wide base of support over this smaller base of support and do it really smooth and efficiently. So stand a little wider and see if we can do that, right, wide base of support, sand of gravity, easy, and now we have to shift that over a smaller base of support.
So if your practice, you can do that smoothly, right, without falling over is the idea. Yeah? That’s the key to good movement. If somebody’s not, somebody doesn’t look right, doesn’t look good, then probably it’s exactly that. So taking the movement from one basis forward to the next, that’s what movement is efficiently. So just give that a try.
Can you do that in one going? Or do you shift and then you takes a while for like that, you know? That’s kind of the key. It’s gonna look good if you can go whoop. I’m there.
Whomp. I’m here. Right? There we go. Good. So let’s shake it out. So let’s take some balls to finish up here.
So These are, oh, yellow, water filled balls. Who would like them? Have a little more warm. You want those? They’re pretty, aren’t they? And so What college do you want? Let’s do red. Red. Okay. So these are spiky balls and very nice propio safety stimulation through there.
Is that good? And I’m gonna take these here. These are the water filled purple balls like this. Yeah. Very good. So we’re just going to do a little bit of hip function extension, review all the things we did, so sit bones out sit bones in. But we’ll just tap a little bit.
So let’s start by tapping our hip joints as we do that. Very good. Then let’s tap on the side a little bit like this. Then let’s tap on the back like that. Good. A little bit of tapping.
And we’re breathing. So do you think we can do our little pelvic dance while we’re tapping? That’s anyone remember the pelvic dance. I don’t know. What was it? Yeah. What was the pelvic dance? Okay. So you can tap anywhere you want. Right? So let’s do nice and slow. So we’re gonna go front.
And back side and side, the diagonal, the angle to the back. Great. Front and back or the side or the side to angle to the back front and back. It doesn’t matter. Just do, you know, move your pelvis and tap. That angle. The angle.
Very good. And tap all around. Tap your legs. Tap your lower back. Make it sound. Flex and extend your hips, sit bones out, sit bones in, lift the leg and tap. Good.
We’re breathing. Tap your diaphragm. Good. We will do one more hip flexion. One more squat. We’ll put the balls in our armpits like this.
There we go. Now we look very elegant, and what we’re gonna do is stand like, oh, he said, we’re gonna go shoulders up, enter up your shoulders down, and flick your hip joint, sit bones out. And again, and and again, and and again, And, again, and, let’s see if we can do this both on operators. Adjust them. Exactly. Okay. So put those in armpits like this.
Okay. And what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna circle our legs and our hip joints, imagine our shoulders, melting down over the balls. Good. Let’s try the other side. You’re doing great, by the way. This is not so easy.
Good. And for breathing. Okay. Last one we’re gonna do from the heap joint swinging from the back. We’re also gonna shugger shoulders front and back. Great exercise.
We’re breathing. Shoulders are just melting over the balls. That’s fantastic and other side. Excellent. Then take the balls away. Put them down.
Let’s go back to our just feeling and not thinking. So notice your posture. Notice your shoulders. Notice your back. Anyone feel like posture has improved.
A lot, right, pelvic position, lower back, everything. What about is it easier to just feel and not think It’s more fun to just feel. And that’s a huge success. See if we can achieve that, right? Cause that’s the name again. What do you do all day? You’ve you feel and you think and you image. Right? So if you feel better, life is better. And we’ve just achieved that while we were learning a lot of anatomy.
So I can only congratulate you. Excellent. And have a wonderful rest of your day. Keep practicing your povas. Get some dynamic alignment going and see you next time.
