Practice: Healthy Spine Pilates

Marimba Gold-Watts [00:00:05]: 

Hi. My name is Marimba, and today we're gonna do a Pilates based practice with with a few exercises to help us find spinal articulation. All you need is a mat or maybe a towel on the floor. So grab your equipment and let's get started. So we'll start with a little spinal warm up. So have a seat on your mat, bend your knees, and place your feet on your mat a little bit wider than hip width apart. Place your hands on the backs of your thighs, and now start to round your back, rolling back partway. Use your hands for support, and then lift your chest up, sit up tall, and now continue lifting your chest up towards the ceiling and take an arch. 

Stack your spine back up, start to round again. Find a little bit more space in your spine, Come stack up, and then lift your chest up towards the ceiling, collarbones wide. Stack up, round back. Use your arms to help you, and then peel up. Stack up, lift your sternum and your collarbones up towards the ceiling, and then come stack up. Now, start to round back again. This time, go back to the point where you feel like your arms can straighten, scoop your abdominals in, and then use your arms for a little bit of assistance to come all the way up to sit. Let's do this again. 

Start to roll back through your spine rounding. Let your arms straighten and then curl back up through your spine. Now let's add on to this. If it feels good to have your hands on your thighs for support, stay there. Otherwise, reach your arms forward, and now start to roll back just partway. Think of reaching in opposition with your fingertips, and then scoop your abdominals, curl all the way back up to sit nice and tall on your mat. Let's do this again. Roll back. 

Think of moving from your pelvis first, then your lower back, then maybe your middle back. Scoop your abdominals, curl all the way back up. Let's do a few more like this. Roll back, send your breath out, really exhaling, and then curl back up. Sit up tall, and then roll back again. See if you can find even more articulation through your spine, and then curl all the way back up and relax. Now, either come to lie down or use your hands on your thighs, scoot your hips a little forward, and now continue all the way down to your mat. Place your hands down at your sides. 

Bend your knees. Bring your feet a little closer towards your body and then from here, tuck your chin towards your throat, nod and curl your head and shoulders, just floating your fingertips off your mat reaching towards your feet. Bring your body back down and now start to peel your hips up and off your mat one vertebra at a time, lengthening the tops of your thighs, finding length in your lower back. Peel down through your spine 1 vertebra at a time, and once you hit the bottom, nod and curl, floating your hands up and off the mat. Lower down, and then peel your hips up. I always think of this as sort of a rocking motion through your back. Peel down, find even more spinal articulation, and then nod and curl. Reach your fingertips forward. 

Think of sliding them just off the mat, and then come back down. Let's do one more peel up. It's almost like you're taking a very delicate necklace out of your jewelry box. And now, put your necklace down pearl by pearl by pearl, and relax. Okay. Let's come on up, and we'll transition onto our fronts for a little variation on swan. So come lie face down. Place your hands underneath your shoulders. 

Lengthen the back of your neck. From here, start to lift your chest up and off your mat. Press your hands into the floor. Find length in the back of your neck. Now, float both legs up, and then relax everything down on your mat. Lift your chest again. This may not be a big movement. Lift your legs up. 

It might be really tiny, but you're thinking of reaching the tips of your toes and the crown of your head away from one another. And then come all the way back down. Lift. Press into the mat. Lift your legs. And relax. Lift your chest. Lift your legs. 

Can you lift them a little higher? Can you reach a little further away? Use your hands for support, and then lower back down. Lift your chest. Lift your legs. Let's add on. See if you can lift your palms off. Maybe keep your fingertips on as they come back down. One last one. Lift your chest. 

Lift your legs, either come up to your fingertips or float your hands off the mat, and then come all the way down and relax, and just push back. And now let's transition into a seated twist. So come and sit again in a cross legged position. Cross your hands in front of your chest. Now, start start to rotate to one side, twist, almost like you're wringing out a towel. So your head and your seat are getting further away. Twist a little bit more, twist a little bit more, come back to the center, switch your hand on top. Let's go to the other side. 

Twist, twist, twist, come back to the center, switch your hand on top. Let's switch again. Twist. Now, imagine you're getting taller, but you're staying directly stacked up right over your seat, and then come back. Switch hands, and then twist. Twist a little more. Twist a little more. Come back to the center. 

Bring your arms out to your sides, and let's finish with the little mermaid. So take a big side bend up and over, place one hand down on your mat, and now start to rotate towards the floor, stretching through the side of your body. Come back to the center. Now look under your arm, rotate up towards the ceiling. This might be small. Come back to your side, and then bring your body upright. Let's go to the other side. Come up and over, pressing your hand into the mat. 

See if you can find as much space as you can on your opposite side. Rotate towards the floor. Come back to the center. Look under your arm. Rotate up towards the ceiling. Come back to the center, and then come all the way back up and just take a moment to sit. And now imagine you're reaching right through the very top of your head, and now float your head right over your shoulders. And then float your shoulders right over your rib cage and float your rib cage right over your pelvis and just take a moment to breathe and settle into your new posture. 

Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you found a little bit of spinal articulation. Take care. 

And remember, you are strong and resilient and the small moments matter. I'll see you soon.