Supple Hips, Supple Spine, Supple Mind

Suppleness means no wasted effort. It’s a quality we can access through taking the time to savor our movement, to feel satisfaction in our movement intent and action. It’s a chance to discover how we organize for movement and life. A supple body supports a supple mind.

Transcript

Hi,

Welcome to Body Centered Inquiry.

This is Meg Ranaldi and welcome to this guided somatic movement session,

Supple Hips,

Supple Spine and Supple Mind.

For this session you'll be on your back on a carpeted or padded surface on the floor or a firm bed.

Please have a rolled up yoga blanket or bath towel for head support.

Bed pillows are too soft and actually stop the integrative movement we want to encourage in this work.

You'll need a thick rolled up blanket or 6 inch roller for beneath your knees.

You could also use a yoga bolster.

Something that allows for support of your lower back as needed.

Wear clothes that are warm,

Comfortable and allow for ease of movement.

Jeans and tight clothing restrict our movement and often our breathing too.

Remove extra jewelry or your glasses.

Have sock or bare feet.

Turn off the tech other than what you need to listen.

And let's begin.

Please come to lie on your back.

Take time to let yourself arrive.

Have your eyes in a soft gaze or closed.

Have your legs long resting over your support or your feet standing with knees pointed toward the ceiling.

And have your arms long by your side if that's comfortable and easy for you today.

And breathe.

As the title implies,

We're exploring suppleness here.

Suppleness not only as an end result of a good movement session,

But also a quality that you can carry throughout the session.

It implies no wasted effort.

And it's not connected to any particular movement or any kind of movement.

It has to do with a movement that brings you satisfaction and allows you to savor what you're doing.

Begin to allow your in-breath and your out-breath to become more even.

Take your time here and allow for a cycle of seven breaths.

You can pause the audio and take your time.

Savor slowing down.

And as your breathing becomes more even,

Begin to become aware of the support beneath you.

The earth is always there to meet us.

It's a dynamic relationship that we can count on.

Acknowledging ever-present support can allow us to let go a little more.

Take your time.

And when you're ready,

Bring your feet to stand.

Have your feet hip-width apart,

About the width of those bony parts of the front part of your pelvis.

Bring your hands to those bony parts and be aware of where your feet are in relationship to the width of those hip bones.

Take time to feel the four corners of each of your feet.

Allow your feet to be clearly planted on the ground.

Have your knees pointed toward the ceiling and make sure your knees are not resting on each other,

But also spread comfortably wide with your hip bones.

Have your arms long by your sides.

And from here,

Begin a gentle roll of your pelvis toward your head so the small of your back rests into the ground more.

And then gently allow your pelvis to roll back to where it started.

It's a small movement.

And notice when you breathe in and when you breathe out.

Do this movement three or four times,

Slowly rolling your back toward the floor.

The back flattens a bit into the floor or into the ground and then the pelvis rolls back to where you started.

You can make it even smaller by attending to the nuances of how you even begin the movement.

How do you organize yourself for movement?

Any movement.

Mind and breath reveals itself in every movement we make.

Allow your jaw and face and eyes and throat and tongue to be at ease.

And when you're ready,

Take a rest.

Rest with your legs long,

With your support beneath them or with your feet standing on the ground as you wish.

What feels like rest to you right now?

Be aware of the support that's always there to meet you and your breathing and your eyes closed during a soft gaze.

And rest.

And remember that you can pause the audio at any point and make this time and this session yours.

Maybe you only do half the session today.

It's fine.

It's your learning.

It's your time.

Bring your feet to stand again about hip width apart,

Feeling the bony protrusions on the front of your hips,

Using those as your guide.

And bring into your sensation the four corners of each foot.

And begin now to roll your pelvis toward your feet.

Keep it small,

Easy and gentle.

We've been entrained that big powerful movements are the best or the most important or give us the most feedback.

Big powerful movements are created with many small movements done with awareness.

So a power and an agility and a strength in a movement is only as good as the awareness of each tiny movement that makes it up.

Roll the pelvis back to where you started and again slowly with curiosity continue these movements three or four more times of the pelvis toward the feet and then back to where you started.

And be aware of your breathing,

The support beneath you.

When do you breathe in and when do you breathe out?

What supports your movement?

So here I'm allowing you or giving you permission to let go of a lot of breathing prescriptions that we all have been told or taught which are valuable.

But there's another layer that's also valuable which is noticing what you're doing and noticing what kind of breathing pattern actually supports you in taking action in your movement,

In being supple in your life.

And when you're ready take a rest and you can always pause the audio to linger longer in places that interest you or ask for your attention.

Breathing the ground to come and meet you.

And the rests are very important in this kind of work.

The rests are an opportunity to savor or experience satisfaction.

Oftentimes in our daily lives and I'm as guilty of this as anyone is we tend to go from activity to activity to activity.

In this work what we're being asked to do is slow down and notice when something has had a beginning,

A middle and an ending and then there's a pause.

It's the way our heart beats.

It's the way our breathing works.

It's the way nature works.

But we often forget the pause.

And now bring your feet to standing again.

If you're ready and if you're not continue to rest.

If you're ready bring your feet to standing approximately hip width apart and both feet clearly connected to the ground.

Have your arms comfortably spread a distance from your body wherever that's comfortable for you.

And begin to press in with the left foot.

Allow the left side of your pelvis to tilt to the right.

The left side of the pelvis peels from the floor a little bit.

Again no need to make it big.

You'll learn much more about yourself from small movements done with big awareness.

The right foot remains flat on the floor.

All four corners of each foot are connected to the ground.

The right knee sways a little bit to the right but remains mostly oriented toward the ceiling.

So the right leg is not opening out.

It just accommodates the shift of the pelvis from left to right.

And then slowly return the left side of the pelvis to the floor or to the ground.

And once the pelvis has returned to the ground press in again.

And do this movement three or four times slowly.

Notice any need to rush or get somewhere.

The reward of awareness is awareness.

You can simply initiate this movement.

Go gently,

Feel how the movement travels from the bottom of the foot through the ankle,

Through the lower leg bones,

The knee,

The upper leg bone,

Into the hip.

Go gently.

Be kind to yourself.

If this work is nothing else,

It is learning how to embody kindness toward ourselves.

Breathing,

Being easy in the jaw,

The throat,

The tongue,

The eyes.

And have both feet standing.

Have a clear connection through both of your feet to the ground.

Have your arms long by your side and spread comfortably away from your body.

And now press in with your right foot and begin to allow the right side of your pelvis to slowly peel away from the floor.

And it can be the smallest movement of simply initiating the movement and no more than that.

Allow your weight to shift easily to the left side,

Following the diagonal trajectory of movement from the right foot up to the left shoulder.

There is a necessary rotation in your spine that allows for this movement.

So we're using the power of the pelvis and your connection to the ground to slowly invite rotation into your spine.

Return the right side of your pelvis to the ground and then resume this movement of pressing in,

Slightly rotating through the spine.

Three or four times.

Allow the bones to rest each time you come back to the ground.

Be aware of the trajectory of movement from pressing in with your right foot into the ground.

The movement travels through the muscles and bones of your foot,

Leg,

Pelvis and into the spine.

It's all connected.

And you invite a supple quality into this movement.

Your head might even naturally move to the left a tiny bit.

You don't have to make that happen.

You can just allow it to happen if it wants to.

And when you feel complete with those movements,

Take a rest.

Be aware of your quality of mind and your breathing and how much support you actually allow yourself to feel beneath you.

And rest some more.

And take time to notice how these movements have changed your shape on the floor or your perception of yourself.

Being aware of how small movements supported by breath and ground can change our mind and change our everyday experience.

And one last time,

If you're ready,

Bring your feet to stand the same width apart,

Feet firmly on the ground.

And if you can,

Bring your arms up overhead on the floor or as far away from your body as you comfortably can right now.

And think about lying on a compass,

The face of a compass.

South is at your feet,

North is at your head,

East is on your left,

West is on your right.

South is at your feet,

North is at your head,

East is on your left,

West is on your right.

Now begin with your pelvis to connect those places on your compass.

Roll your pelvis to the south and then to the west and then north and then east and then south again to where you started and then come back to the middle.

So you're moving around the compass,

Touching each point with your pelvis.

Keep it small and safe and gentle.

You've already touched all four points on the compass in this session.

We are now putting the four points together.

And notice the quality of your movement.

How would you go about making it more supple?

Go in one direction around the compass,

Pause,

Breathe and go around the compass the other way slowly with as much care and attention as you did when we were doing each point by yourself.

Be aware of how your rib cage,

The front,

Side and back of the rib cage is invited into the movement as the spine follows the rotation of the pelvis.

It's our pelvis that guides much of our movement,

Not our head.

This is a chance to drop out of your head and deep down into the ballast of your movement.

The more that we can understand the power of the pelvis,

The less effort we use in our movement,

Less effort and more suppleness.

Allow your feet to be connected to the ground,

Allow your breathing to be easy.

And enjoy that a few more times at your own pace,

Keeping it simple.

And when you're ready,

Take another rest.

Notice your breathing,

Your connection to the ground,

Your quality of mind.

Take time to notice what's present for you right now.

In your own time,

Gradually come up to sitting and standing,

Continuing to be present to that quality that you evoked in this session,

The quality of suppleness.

Be aware of the quality of those first steps as you begin to walk around.

Go gently.

Thank you.

That's the end of this session.

Reviews

this was kind of incredible — I went in with no expectations, but tight hips and a sense I needed to try something different that my go-to move which are deep yogic stretches or routines. I am amazed at how deeply grounding and opening these simple, focused exercises were. I feel so much more balanced and open. I will be returning often!

Fabulous! Will definitely do this session again Thankyou so much!☺️🙏💜

My hips and pelvis are a little forward. In my taichi practice, my teacher is always asking me to tuck my pelvis so my coccyx is plumb. I found this meditation and somatic practice helpful in finding the ground with my upper pelvis (north), feeling some roots growing there now.

Genius. A revelation. Helped me so much with hip issues. Thank you.

So beautiful 😻
Suppleness will become one of my words for 2023
Thank You

Thank you so much 🌷🌷🌷for the wonderful somatic session 🦋it is so relaxing to do the small movements and think about nothing 🗺 stay safe 🙏 Namaste

Love this, am amazing experience!! Thank you!! 🙏🏻😊