Short Box on Springs legs in table top.
Table Top Drop 90-90 legs into lumbar extension, lumbar bridge
Table Top into hamstring stretch
+ Forward arm extension/flexion
+ Flexion overhead
It probably has a name. And maybe I learned it? But my best learnings have always been organically discovered in my own body, first…then I start doing it in community settings when I’m developing some new class plan or the actually flow I’m thinking of that is going to be a regular in my repertoire…and voilá – what I’m calling a Table Top Drop into a version of a Hamstring Stretch. So far nobody has told me there is another, better name. And, I like Table Top Drop! So it is…
I started exploring how to improve my own lumbar extension because I really had no lumbar curve long before I broke my pelvis. And, it has only been in the last handful of months, I really understood and had the experience in my own body what it meant to do a Bridge the right way – nice and stable, neutral pelvis and the importance and role of shoulder stability to enable me to do this. Up until these last few months, I just thrust my hips up in the air, kind of isolating the action to just my pelvis, sadly.
Thankfully, I’ve been video taping me on and off since my Alexander Technique practice started evolving, like a video journal of how my body and head/spine awareness has changed from day to day, month to month and at this point, year over year. What aha moments I’ve had. The value of this video journaling has been so revealing and rewarding for me. So, this lower body flow in particular, began as a series of different types of work I’d do on myself and try out with clients during warm ups on the mat or springboard using a variety of props to help me and them really activate their posterior chain – feet (heels), ankles, knees and hips…hamstrings and glutes (ALL!) and their BACK! Adding in the importance of shoulder stability and the role of the arms as a cantilever to help them (and ME!) achieve this, key.
I taught this flow to a Pilates colleague of mine today. She was one of my classmates during my All Apparatus Pilates certification…she is now a gifted and talented teacher…and a priceless friend who helps me work through my own balance and stability challenges – remnants from the roller coaster that has been me surviving in my body to the capable human I’m becoming… Anyways…she can’t believe I figure these things out and then I think I can get others to do it, too. I’ve only taught this whole choreography twice and to private clients. But parts of this choreography in group classes?! D@mn straight, I have!