Tutorial #2194

Teaser

10 min - Tutorial
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Description

Find your relationship to gravity in the Teaser with Wendy LeBlanc-Arbuckle. This is one of the most loved and disliked exercises in the Pilates repertoire, and Wendy shows how the sequencing and set up can set you up for success. She also makes sure you are asking yourself the right questions before you do a Teaser so you can find an awakening in your body.
What You'll Need: Reformer w/Box, Hand Weights

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(Pace N/A)
Jun 28, 2015
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Transcript

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Hi and welcome back. We have another really great treat for you today. I'm here with Jennifer and, um, we're going to do one of the all time favorites and [inaudible], which is the teaser. Yea. And which is also one of the most frustrating extra exercises, right? It's like, how am I ever going to get my legs to go straight? Oh, how am I gonna get my spine to lift? You know, when will I get out of my shoulders? You know, and all these things that we've all been through and it's just part of the rite of passage. But the thing is, are you asking the right questions? Mm hmm.

Because if what you're doing is when am I going to look like that person? Or when am I going to do it? Right? Or all those other things that are, that make no difference at all. And just keep you stuck. The thing to keep noticing is where are you thinking from and what questions are you asking? So what do we mean by relationship to gravity gives us lift?

Let's look at Mr Bones for a second. Okay. And we've got therabands kind of looking at certain ways of fascially connecting us. How does our body connect with gravity and how does, how do the bones connect to one another and how does the back open so the belly can drop back toward the spine? How does the leg relate to the spine?

That gives you a completely different feeling of teaser. So the blue theraband is symbolizing grounding the grounding, which actually begins, yes, it begins here at the chest. It's like Jen and I were looking at that, this widening and opening of your clavicles. Go ahead and you can trace your cloud knuckles right here. Soften and widen your going under the clavicles and you're widening out to the side. And notice that takes you to your shoulder blade just like that, which is the waterfall of your exhale.

Your shoulder blade glides on your ribs as you exhale. It's an amazing feeling to get in touch with. We're developing a felt sense of what does our body feel like and how can our brilliant Pele's body guide us in a whole new expression of what is the teaser. So the waterfall begins here. It releases down the back and that's what the blue theraband is doing.

All the down the back moving through the spine to the sit bone, tailbone along the back of the leg. The hamstrings have got to be involved in your teaser. If you're just working with your hip flexors, if you're working with just your belly, you missing a huge piece that is part of your internal lift and your grounding. So that feeling of the waterfall down into your foot, that relationship, like with Jen sitting right here, just sitting down is grounding. But we don't realize how much, how much we try to lift ourselves off of our sitting bones. And that creates a whole lot of effort.

So same with standing like mister bones. He's got the grounding and the lift happens. Inner Ankle, the green theraband, inner ankle, inner thigh, hamstring. That's why I wrapped it around a little bit right here. So you can see how the back of the leg relates through the, so as through the front of the pelvic floor to the spine and it goes all the way up to the inner ear, the lift of our cranium. Vestibular. It's the balance system.

How does that create lift from grounding? The red theraband is symbolic of the legs, relationship to the spine, to the Lumbo Dorsal junction, which is where breathing and walking happen. Pretty amazing. And how often do we lose that ability? And we walk like this or like Vat with the knees.

So this is, these are all huge connections and so what we're exploring right here is not a small thing. How do your legs, how do you straighten your legs? We're going to look at that. If you straighten your leg too fast in your teaser, you will be stuck forever. Sequencing is everything set up is everything. So let's take a look at it together. Jen, we'll look at, first of all, we're going to start with thanking Mr bones by and check out backstroke tutorial because here we are again, the sense of how does your back of your arm, the waterfall, the back of your arm connects to the waterfall down the back. So Jennifer is going to do this with her knees bent because we want to first of all, look at softening your back to round forward.

Beautiful. Yeah. First of all, she was softening and widening her back. Feel the waterfall down the back. Feel the shoulder blade to deep belly. How does the breath support the softening of the thighbone in the socket to the inner ear and then slowly roll down. Notice how the weight in her hand is giving. Why don't you say a little something about what are you noticing about the weight in your hand?

It helps get my waterfall down the bathroom. So right away she's saying it's really helping her to get the waterfall down the back. And when you get the waterfall down, which is the related relationship all the way from your arm through your spine to your feet, that gives you lift. That's the up right. And notice that this is turning on hamstrings or turning on like crazy. Good.

So now give me those and now go ahead and get your straps. The other piece that we want to really emphasize again is how is breath creating the root of her arm and her leg? How does the waterfall down the shoulder blades sit? Bone tailbone to the tripod of the foot, create lift through the front of the spine. How does the waterfall of the shoulder blade and the lift of the low belly connect?

So that's what breath connects. Centering connection. So feel the back of your arm and feel that internal support to create lift. So notice that that softening of bent knees gave you an even deeper relationship. Wide Back, deep support. Core coordination. Instead of hardening.

How do we get connected foot to head. Right? And now down and up, but where? Yup, go all the way down and come all the way up. Yup. And this time as you come up. Yes. So now we'll play with our movement. So feel how, how far do you go? How far do you go that you don't lose the grounding and the list?

It's not too far. It's just a deep relationship between what's happening through the breath and centered movement. Yeah. Beautiful and down. Good. Yeah. And one more. She can't wait. Another one can't do too many teasers. Right? And then small circles once again, out to the side, but how far out to the side you see you're in relationship with gravity, with yourself, with the reformer. It's becoming part of you.

Very different than doing something to it and it's doing something to you, right? You're in relationship. Breath is moving you. Fabulous, beautiful. And release down Gorgeous Jen, and then come up to setting. Wow. What's that? Beautiful. Yeah. And wasn't that fun? Yeah. That's good. You know? Yeah. You want it to be fun. You want it to be fun. You want it to feel good.

It's not about torture. It's really about enlivening awakening. That was what Joseph [inaudible], he said, right? How do we have whole body health? How do we become alive? Return to life. Yay. What a great idea.

So look at our backstroke tutorial. Notice how we built that together and how we took that into teaser. It's all about how you're rooting your arms and legs to your spine and how breath is coordinating a beautiful, rhythmic way of being with ourselves. Yes. Thank you so much. So beautiful. Thanks. Great.

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Comments

2 people like this.
Thank you Wendy and Jen. Great job. Wendy can you show both the back and front of Mr. Bones please. Also Wendy the video you did in your studio of now you approached this on the caddy would be so helpful to include in these tutorials. I found the video about finding the teaser on the caddy changed my approach dramatically. Thanks so much. Love you both!
Thanks so much, Lynn, I will definitely following your recommendations with Mr. Bones! I am also placing a link to the "teaser" video I did on my video blog on my website that you referred to as an assist for people who are wanting additional assist to deepen their understanding of how to build the teaser...//www.pilatescenterofausti n.com/_video_blogs/pilates_exercise s.html
1 person likes this.
Thank you Wendy. I use that assist with many of my cliens and they cannot believe how much it changes the feel to this exercise. It's just wonderful.
1 person likes this.
Thank you! Wonderful new insights into teaser.
thank you, Melanie...as you can see, we are using "just enough support and effort" for the movement that wakes up our innate mindful biointelligence!
Wonderful mental cues to get into the right setup. Working the back of the body to root yourself is very helpful!
Thank you, Vanessa! Yes, opening our back to breath awakens the support of our kidneys, which relax the adrenals, so Down the Back is a major way we can de-stress and cultivate our true nature!
This is amazing thank you ! I will watch more of your videos just found them.
Thank  you so much, Caroline!  I have been encouraging a more embodied approach to Pilates for many years, and as you are sharing, WE ARE AMAZING, when we develop more awareness of how we are approaching a movement.  That way we create deeper changes that our body can take into movement in life! 

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