Transcription:

Hi, props for today. A firm cushion to sit on, a rolled-up mat or a bolster and a couple of yoga blocks or their equivalent is all you'll need. We're going to begin on the cushion. Now, I've done a lot of meditating, so sitting like this is very comfortable for me. But if this is not a comfortable position for you, this sequence can be done with the legs crossed like this. It's just a little warm-up sequence. And when I say "warm up", I'm not actually talking about heat so much, as exploring little movements to see how your back and body are feeling today. The same sequence you might recall can be done in a chair as well.

When I lean to the side today, I feel a really nice stretch happening around here. So I'm just going to stay in this position for a moment and your position might be different. That is beautiful. Then I sit up straight, and now more formally, I turn to face this leg here. I lift my chest up, that's to straighten my back. And on the breath out I walk myself as far forward as I can while keeping the back straight. In other words, it's a stretch for this hip here and I breathe out and go a little bit further forward. Breathe in, breathe out and go a little bit further forward. And that's about as far as I can go today until this part of my back here, I'll just show you, starts to bend like this. But of course that's a perfect to good range of movement to explore too.

So then I lift myself out of that side. I turn to this leg, and because of the way I've got my legs folded, this range of movement will be reduced on this side. When we uncross the legs and change the legs over, you'll feel straight away what I mean. So I'm just gently moving in and out of these positions and I can feel it loosening up a little bit already. I pause here, that's as far as I can go on this side, and notice that I'm using my fingers to support me. Take a breath in and on a breath out. You'll find as you stay in these positions, what feels like an impossible position suddenly slowly becomes possible. So I'm just moving sideways a little bit as well as you can see. I breathe in and I come up and the third position in this sequence is, I straighten my back as much as I can. I breathe in and then watch. Once again, still using my hands for support.

I'm trying to keep my back as straight as I can, because if you look from this direction over here, you'll see the movement of the spine and the pelvis actually happens in between the thighs, and that's the movement that I'm exploring now. And when you get to about here or a bit before, or a bit later, you'll find that that movement of the pelvis stops. And so this part of the movement here is actually a back stretch now. If you want to stay a little bit in this position too, I find this very helpful. You can just rest on something like this.

All the while I'm trying to keep my bottom on the cushion, and then I'm going to lift myself up like so, put the block back, change the legs over. When your legs are in this position here, you'll feel that that holds the bottom in position so that when you bend to the side like this, it allows you to do a little lower back stretch on this side. That feels really nice. And then we will turn to this leg first this time. Lift the chest, take a breath in and on a breath out let the body go forward as far as you can. Don't move quickly, make sure you're supported. Let's say you come to here, you pause, take another breath in, another breath out, let yourself go as far forward as you can without bending your back. And then of course you can let the back bend too, which is necessary for me to put my chest on my leg.

Stay there for a moment, move around a little bit. All these positions you'll feel new and interesting things happening in this area of your body here. Breath in, come back up, turn to the other leg, breathe out, breathe in, and come as far over this leg as you can. And you'll notice that the leg that's closest to you, it's much harder to put the body on that leg's knee. I'm going to hold this leg down as well and I'm going to get a little interesting stretch in here by doing it. And I'm leaning on this arm, so no great intensity of stretch at all. They're little limbering movements.

Then I bring this other hand in to here like this. Take a breath in, and on a breath out we go forward as before. And wherever you come to, remember you can rest your head on your hands like this, or like this. And eventually on the floor, but don't be in too much of a hurry. And then once you're as far forward as you can move the body in between the thighs, then simply do little movements from side to side like this. This is one of our approved TV watching poses.

Okay, so now we're going to stretch the hip flexors. I'll move the cushion out of the way. I'll move this into the set here like this, and I'll bring my right foot forward. There's no reason to favor one leg over the other and the blocks are here in case you need the blocks to put your hands on. I find this very comfortable like this. Also, notice that I've got my chest and shoulder on the leg here like this. You can also do it like this. They're all just different ways of achieving the same end results. Then what I'm doing, I'm thinking about trying to play with the position of my hip.

So I've turned that back hip inside slightly now. You'll see that my foot is pointing in this direction a little bit. And that means that I'm on more on the outside of the front of the hip. And then if I come back to the center and have my foot pointing straight back like this and pull myself forward, you'll feel that that stretches the very front of the hip. And then if I turn this leg out slightly like this, so the toes are pointing like this. Now when I pull myself forward, it's actually stretching on the inside of the hip here. So we have a range from here, through here, to here, and somewhere there you'll find what we call your tight line.

Okay, then I'm going to bring this hand around to this side here like this, because that allows me to get my shoulders actually past the knees. You may not get that far. And then what I'm doing, I'm using the muscles under my arms here to pull myself forward. And I'm exaggerating this movement just to show you what it's doing. I would normally move a bit more slowly if I was stretching myself. But just watch, as I pull my hand back to my hips, see how that pulls the hips forward and down towards the floor like this. And here too we can do a little contraction. If I get into the full stretch position, which is here for me today, I pause, let everything go soft. And then I put my awareness into this back leg's knee. And I think about pulling the knee forward towards this front foot here. So I'm effectively pulling it through the floor, five, four, three, two, one, stop. Stop the contraction. I let my tummy go completely soft.

I moved my hands into position where I can get a bit more leverage in pulling myself forward. I take another breath in and watch, on a breath out I ease myself a little bit further forward. Now, if you get more deeply into the stretch as I am here, you might find that your hips are no longer level with the floor. So I'll push myself back out of the position to relieve the stretch, and then move this foot here further forward. And if you look at my hips now, they're closer to level and this gives us the better stretch overall.

So once again, I'm pulling myself forward, forward means toward my nose in this case. And I'm getting a stretch in here as well as a stretch at the front of that back leg. I'm also gently moving sideways and adding what we call little pulses or pulsations because they too change the sensation in the hip itself. Also, you can try twisting so that the back leg's hip comes forward a bit more, that also intensifies the stretch. And to come out of this movement, simply push yourself backwards like this until the stretches on both legs are relieved and then change the legs over like so.

Now what I was doing. It's a bit easier to see this chest on the leg thing on this side, like so. I'm going to walk this front foot a bit further forward because I'm feeling a bit looser on this side. I twist the back leg's hip forward and then have a little play with the turning the leg inside like this. I feel that actually here above this hip. Come back to the middle position, so the foot is pointing straight backwards like this and pull myself forward. Forward always means in the direction of my nose. And then if I turn the leg out a little bit like this, you'll see that when I pull myself forward, and you'll certainly feel it when you try doing it yourself! So follow me of course.

Pull forward so that the stretch is now on the inside of your back leg. And then come back to wherever is the tightest line. Now the tightest line for me today is right in the center. So I'm going to go back to here. I'm going to put my hands on the inside now that I've found that tight line, and each of us needs to find our own tight line on any given day. And then I'm going to pull myself into the what we're going to call now the start position. So we've done all this limbering movements. We've had a bit of a play, found the tight line, and now we're about to start.

So in this position here, I'll move my hands back a bit to improve my leverage. I put my awareness in the back leg's knee, and I try gently to drag that knee forward towards this foot as though I was dragging it through the floor for a count of five, four, three, two, one. I let that tension go. I relax completely, particularly let your tummy relax completely. Take a breath in, and on a breath out, lever yourself a bit further forward, so that back leg's hips gets a stronger stretch. You can also use the muscles here at the back of the leg to pull yourself forward. And when I'm doing this for myself, I'm normally pulling myself forward with the hamstring on the front leg, as well as the muscles under the arm. And breathe, and breathe. To come out of the stretch, change your hand positions, so you've got the best leverage to do that and push back like so.

Next, the hips. Very important muscle in the outside of each leg's hip, called piriformis. I've got this part of my leg actually on the bolster or the rolled up mat itself. And look at the position of this leg here. In order to get that leg back, and I'll explain why we do that in a moment, we take a breath in, and on a breath out, lower yourself over the knee, like so, and you'll find that the stretch in here, if you're feeling one, goes away. And so while you're leant forward, make sure you're following along with me, reach this leg back as far as you can. It doesn't have to go all the way back, but the further it goes back, you'll see it makes this part of your back straight.

Then lift yourself up on your arms like so, and then this next movement is the crucial one. Watch what happens in both hips. You move sideways. As in my case, I'm moving the center of my body in the direction of that foot, and I'll change my hands over as well. And I'm just going to rock backwards and forward here to show you that movement. This is the part to keep in mind. It's this movement here we want. We want to maximize that. And once we've gone as far as we can, change your hands to a position where you can pull yourself in this direction, and on your leg, find what we call the mid-shin line. So somewhere halfway between here and here roughly. I take a breath in and on a breath out, keeping my back as straight as I can, I let myself go forward like this. And you'll find there's a massively strong stretch in my case in this front leg's hip, the right hip, when I get to about here. So we stop there.

Again, just move gently like this, just adding a little pulsing movement to it. Pull back on the hands. You won't need to use any force here at all, and on a breath out go a little bit further forward. Now that's the beginning position. Pause there for a moment and feel the muscles in the front leg's hip goes soft or at least softer. Now there are two contractions. I'm going to lift myself up to explain these two. Two contractions to do here. One is this knee here, press it down onto the rolled up mat. I'm going to do that now. Five, four, three, two, one, stop. And the second contraction, the contraction that's more important probably is put your awareness into this side of the foot here and try to sweep the foot down onto the floor and away out to the side here as though I was doing this with my leg through the floor. So I'm doing that now. Five, four, three, two, one, stop.

I twist myself back to the mid-shin line, take a breath in and on a breath out letting everything stay as soft as you possibly can, go as far forward as you can. Now, I'm going to put my elbows here. That's a strong enough stretch for me today, and I'm going to rest my head on my hands and make these little pulsing movement that makes that area feel much more comfortable today. I can make the position a bit more intense by pulling back on my hands like this, see what it does to the hips. It rolls the hips over. And rolling the hips in this direction is what stretches that front leg's hip. And I always like to stay in the end position; it's been about 30 seconds now. That's about right. But I, more than some fixed time, what I do is I wait until that hip actually goes soft, and it just went soft then.

I always wait for a couple of breaths after that softness has occurred. We think that's when the remapping is happening. And to come out, put your hands in a place where the leverage is strong and we'll do the other side. Change yourself over like this. Now the left hip goes on the bolster and make sure that the leg is not over the end of the bolster like this. We'd like to see; more important, we'd like to feel that this part of the leg is also supported. And remember, in order to relieve the stretch on the back leg, we take a breath in, lean forward over the front knee like this, and that will allow you, you'll feel it straight away. That will allow you to get this leg as far back as possible. And as I mentioned before, it doesn't have to be all the way back, but the further back it gets, the straighter your spine will be, and it makes holding good form in the exercise easier. Then watch the center of my body is here. Now move the center of your body to the mid-shin line like this.

And I'm going to show you this, we call it a hip translation movement. It's moving the hip sideways like this is what gets you into a good start position. Then find the mid-shin line and on a breath out, let yourself go forward to some extent. I'm a bit tighter on this side today. Now notice how I've spread my arms apart. The reason for doing that is it's much easier to hold your body's weight when the elbows are straight than on bent elbows. So this is just an easy way to do it. Couple little movements here, feel what's happening in there today.

And I wait, and please wait yourself until you feel everything goes soft and it's just starting to go soft now. You can't make this happen. You just have to breathe and let your tummy go soft. And eventually at some point, the muscles that you're stretching will loosen. They'll go slightly soft at least. And when you become a bit more used to working with your body this way, they'll go quite dramatically softer. There they've gone soft now. The two contractions you'll recall, and they're always best done from the stretch position, so that's from here today. I press the front leg's knee straight down into the bolster for a count of five, four, three, two, one, stop.

I then do that leg sweeping through the floor. So I got my awareness in the outside of my front foot and I'm pressing it down onto the floor, but I'm also trying to sweep it out towards you. Five, four, three, two, one, stop. Once again, let everything go soft. Take a breath in, recheck that your tummy is completely soft and on a breath out, go further forward towards the mid-shin like this. Now the mid-shin line is half a piriformis stretch and half a gluteus maximus stretch. It's a very powerful stretch indeed.

Breathe, and breathe. I can feel myself going softer, so I'll let myself go a bit further forward. And now to relieve any tension that might be left in the hips after doing that piriformis exercise, we're going to sit like this, spread our legs wide apart like this. You'll find it a bit easier to do the exercise if you lean back. So I'm just leaning back a little bit and then much try to keep your hips on the ground. And oh, what a fantastic sensation that is! Now I'm going to sit up a bit straighter like this, that always makes the exercise more intense in the hips. And then, oh, that feels absolutely lovely. Move slowly, move slowly, and if dare I say gracefully. You can have the legs a little bit wider apart, that changes the angle and changes the sensation. And do it three or four times on each side. And you'll find that when you get to this position here, any tension left in this hip from the last exercise just vanishes and the same on this side.

And then simply let the legs go out to the side like this. And here's another little relieving movement for the same muscle group. I like this one myself very much. The last exercise we're going to do is a little rotation. Sit with your bottom bones pressed on the floor and wriggle from side to side like this until you can feel both bottom bones pressing on the floor. Then reach this arm behind you and watch the shoulder, take the shoulder up over and down the body, lift the chest, that's critical. And then hold the outside of the leg like this. Pause there for a moment. Breathe deeply, and then watch, as you breathe out, the next time try to lever yourself around a bit further. It's absolutely critical to keep the middle and upper back lifted straight.

So I'm actually lifting my chest and the middle and upper back straightens as a result. I'll show you what that looks like on the other side. This arm back, shoulder up back and down, chest is lifted. Hold the outside of your leg like this, lift the chest again because it always collapses a bit. Breathe in, and as you breathe out, watch bend the elbow and pull yourself around. Lift the chest again. And I always like to come back to the first side just briefly, because it makes everything feel very comfortable. Okay, that's it for today. See you next time.

Program 16: Hips, hip flexors, piriformis, rotation

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