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Class 6 Lab

Welcome to Class 6 Lab.  Today we will be stretching and lengthening the the lower core so you can come to see what it feels like to have it released. It will be up to you to keep it released by not hanging onto it. Do your best and email me with your questions.

1. Assessment
  Start by simply standing with your arms at your side. Make sure your feet are a hip's width apart and facing straight forward. Make sure your knees are straight, but not locked. Just stand there and breath for about a minute. How labored is your breath. How stable are you on your feet? How heavy do you feel within gravity? Are you naturally balanced between the balls and heels of your feet? Do you stand more on one foot than the other? Just make a complete assessment of how your body feels before you begin reorganizing it with stretches.

2. Adductor Stretch

Place your feet in such a position that your soles are touching eachother.  Bring your knees down as close to the floor as you can get them. Maintaining a straight back, lean slightly forward into the stretch. Hold this stretch for a count of 30 and perform it three times in total.

3. Modified Trikonasana

Spread your feet 3 to 4 feet apart. Turn your right foot to a 90 degree angle from your body and your left foot to a 60 degree angle from your body. Spread your arms broadly out reaching away from the side of your body. Now swing your pelvis to the left as you extend your upper body over your right leg. As you do this, bring your right hand down and grab onto your right shin. You should be feeling an intense stretch in your right hamstrings and adductors (inner thigh). If you are not, it is most likely because you are not allowing your pelvis to swing out to the left. The feeling your going for is hard to describe. It is as if you are swinging the sitbones to the left away from your right leg and this is where the stretch comes from. Play with this stretch and see what you can do. Repeat it on both sides twice. Hold each stretch for a count of 30. When you have time, hold the stretch for five minutes to really realign the connective tissue!

4. Spread Legged Forward Bend

Spread your legs about four feet apart making sure that your feet are facing straight forwards. Now perform a forward bend and hang comfortably in this position for up to five minutes if you can. Stick your butt up into the air and feel a stretch on your adductors and hamstrings. You may use a cushion to rest your arms on if your hands will not reach the floor.

5. Manual Palpation of Adductors and Pelvic Floor

I want you to explore the entire length of your adductors paying special attention to softening them at their tendon attachments up on the pubic bone (the hard bone just above and to the side of the genitals) . If you feel your inner thigh up at the pubis, you will feel that one tendon sticks out above all others. This is one of the adductors and it is directly in the center of all the other adductors. So you will palpate your way around the adductors using that as your center point. If you palpate all the way up the adductors as far as they will go, you will reach their attachments on the pubic bone. On the outer side of the pubic bone are the attachments of the adductors. If you allow yourself to slip over to the other side of the pubic bone, the inner side of the pubic bone, you will be on the attachments of the pelvic floor. Spend time exploring this area. Tighten it a few times so you can see what that feels like. Use the Law of Contract/Relax to release it even more. Unglue the connective tissue restrictions and tensions that you feel. Don't forget to palpate all the way down the adductors of the inner thigh. Notice that the adductors like to become stuck to the quads on one side and the hamstrings on the other. Try to unstick them.  Learn all you can and come to me with your questions.