Thank you, Hydie and Melody...as you can see, we are "playing" with gravity, rather than "fighting" gravity. By allowing your body to sense weight, through the "waterfall" of your shoulder blades to your sitting bones and tailbone into your feet....you "wake up" a natural energizing uplift from your inner ankle, inner thighs, internal belly along the front of your spine to your inner ear! We call this distinction "Down the Back" and "Up the Front"...and the internal support of "Shoulder blades to internal belly" are the natural Powerhouse of breath supporting your movement. TEASER BECOMES EASY!!! Try it for yourself! xwendy
Thank you, Jodi...what I would suggest that will make a HUGE difference in your embodiment of what I am talking about, so you are releasing into gravity's support....and can then translate it to clients....is to watch my Stretch-eze Matwork video on Pilates Anytime. You will get a "felt sense" of TEASER with the band's support of how you use your body's relational connections from foot to head...and that will help you speak it to clients, xwendy
This is brilliant! Really helpful tips Wendy! I love the way you are describing the lift and then gravity pulling down in the exercise..i will be sure you check out more of your excellent work!
Thank you so much, Lucy...as you can see, instead of me "telling Laurel what to do...pull your shoulder down, pull your belly in, etc"..I am speaking to her body's deep intelligence, in relationship with gravity's support. This is what I call our "movement brain" and is what my vision of 3Core Connections Perspective is all about. How do we build on the genius of Joseph Pilates' teachings with a more updated understanding of how our bodies work, and how gravity can be a force that supports us (effort with ease), rather than something to "fight", which creates tension. Please stay in touch and let me know what you notice, xwendy
This is such a great tutorial. Thank you! I'm still struggling a lot with doing a teaser on the reformer though even with these principles. Would you have any suggestions.. or better still, a reformer teaser tutorial coming up?
Thank you, Sook. Stay tuned, because I will be coming back to Pilates Anytime to film a tutorial for Teaser on the Reformer in the Spring! In the meantime, since we are playing with gravity as a partner that helps us to find grounding and internal lift, hold a 3# weight in each of your hands and feel your shoulder blades become heavy with the weight. Can you sense that, as you curl forward in your teaser on the mat, holding the weights, your low belly connects with your heavy shoulder blades? This is the support for your legs to extend in teaser. The weight on your hands is giving you not only support to curl up, but also a sense of holding the Reformer strap in the Teaser on the Reformer. See more about this in the next response box........