Wednesday and Sunday this week, we'll work with the spine. This is a lesson designed to balance the flexors (muscles that pull you into a ball) and extensors (muscles that arch your spine, help you look up). We accomplish this balancing, and really a re-allocation of tension, by using twisting. Twisting incorporates all the movements that we make: to twist, there is an element of side-bending (lengthening one side and shortening the other), an element of folding, and an element of extending. The puzzles in this lesson are a wonderful way to find more space between your vertebrae, and people often are measurably taller after this lesson. 
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A very quiet and slow class today. Please do less than you think you should, and remain committed to including your core, center, ribs, and whole self in the movements, even when the instructions do not say this!

Lessons that focus on the pelvis are always beneficial for everything below and above. When the hips move well, the knees are able to stick to their job: hinge. When hips don't move well, then we often find knee pain, some times ankle disorganization, and often issues with the jaw, and spine. The pelvis is at the root of much. My trainer, Richard, used to say "you are where your pelvis is" -- try moving around and see. If you put your head in a room, for example, are you really there? What about if you step in? 

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In this lesson we clarify the location and movement of the hip joints and find more availability in the ankles, and participation in the low ribs, sternum, and upper chest. Now, of course, that means that the primary place of focus in the hip joints is only the beginning, and learning to facilitate the movement in the hips by softening the rest of you can transform your walking, sitting, and general sense of well-being. 

Two recordings available atpatreon.com/heatherdanso
. We spend more time on some of the stranger movements at the end.