Corkscrew

We're going to take a look at the corkscrew. I think this is the 10th exercise and return to life and we've got Amy haven's here and why do we do the corkscrew? The corkscrew, if you read return to life is an exercise that Joseph would say strengthens your shoulders and massages the internal organs. Another way to look at the cork screw is to know that you're going to be strengthening your abdominals. It's sort of a build up from a lot of exercises that came before it, so expect to work your abs, expect to need to be coordinated with a lot of other body parts as well that would have come before this. And let me show you how it goes. The setup arms are very close to your body. You're pressing into the mat.

You're going to need them, so kind of be straight and strong with your arms. Your legs are also straight and strong. Amy's got her feet completely together. She's using your inner thighs, so she's already committed to doing this exercise for you, so she's ready. What that means if I kick continue up the body is that she's not tucking her pelvis. She's not arching her back. She's just level but committed, connected. Her ribs are not forced down but down. She's breathing easily.

Good. Okay. And so from here, knowing that she's ready, she can slowly begin to inhale, lifting her legs to 90 degrees. We'll start it by going all the way over into sort of your rollover position, right? That's what I meant by you building on things. So in this position, there are some variations on it, but I'm going to keep it horizontal. You need to know that you can make horizontal pretty comfortably from there. That means your hips are level, you're not hanging out on your back, but rather you're engaged in your abdominals and there's a little bit of sense of engagement of your hamstrings. It doesn't mean grip so much it, it's almost as if you're pressing the ceiling away a little bit from here. Actually, let me say one more thing.

We're going to be swiveling a little bit from side to side. It sometimes looks bigger than it is. So I want you to know that it does need to be level, so get an instructor or someone to make sure that you are starting in that way, that your hips and feet are level from that place, you will swivel your legs. Let's say to the right to start, and when you do that, the hip level doesn't change. Nice job. Hip level doesn't change. Can you show what it would look like if you dropped one hip?

That's a real normal thing to do where you let one side drop it. Instead, you're just going to literally shift your knees over to one side. From that place you're going to roll down one, that same side, so she took her knees to the right. She's going down the right side of her spine. She makes contact with their pelvis. She swings the legs around and by swings, I'm going in slow mo right now. She's going to come up the left side of her spine and then ended up in the middle. It's almost like a big teardrop.

Then she'll come to me the other way or to the left. Her knees just slide left. That means she's going to feel like she's rolling down the left side of the spine. She circles the legs around, finds the right side, and up. She goes on that side, ending up in the middle again like a tear job. Let's do it again. She inhales and shifts knees to the right, roles down the right side, exhaling, circling the legs around and then all the way back up and finally coming back to center. Inhale, shift to wards me and roll down must be the left. She finds a pelvis, she circles around and up she goes.

So there's a bit of actually gaining if you'll keep going, gaining pelvic stability. That's it. Although her pelvis is moving, what it means is that she's able to separate her upper body from lower body. As you watch her going, or as you practice this, when you let your legs go round, you shouldn't have big spinal changes. You shouldn't have your shoulders coming up off the mat. They're gonna stay imprinted. They're gonna stay pressed down. Your arms are strong, your legs are strong. They're not buckling anywhere.

That's going to be the full version of this. There's lots of modifications, but this is the one that you're heading towards all the way around. Up she goes, and then to finish it, just like you're coming out of a roll up, you're going to roll down your spine, enjoy the stretch, the internal massage, Avi organs, bend the knees, and that is the corkscrew.