Pike stretchin' and ass movin'

[flexagon]

Contortion class on Wednesday was my first in, oh, about 16 weeks. It was only a 3-person class, so ElasticGirl (really, what else would I name her?) was fine having me work on my pike while the others worked on their backbends.

Apparently my problem is mainly in my pelvic tilt -- despite the slight anterior tilt & swayback that is my tendency, and the years I put into learning how to posterior tilt enough to satisfy coaches and handstand teachers, I don't have enough range of motion in the anterior direction either. SIGH. I spent a bunch of time tipping my pelvis back and forth, then putting my hands on a bar or bench and tipping it back and forth, then lowering my hands to a lower thing... at every step I lose range of motion, until (with hands on about 2 yoga blocks) my pelvis is pretty much stuck in one place.

The location of terrifying stretchy feelings is in the upper outer part of the back of my legs: not my hamstrings. Upon examination of Zygote Body, it seems to be exactly the lower insertion area of my gluteus maximus (or, possibly, the place where the lower part of my glutes are glued to the tops of my hamstrings in ways they should not be).

Speaking in terms of strict anatomy, what I need is to MOVE MY ASS.

Comments

[melebeth]

Move yer ass!!!

[melebeth]

I tried that exercise. Fascinating. Do people actually have substantial mobility with hands that close to the ground? Once I'm touching the floor, I have almost no mobility and can't even figure out the mechanics of the tilt!

[flexagon]

SOME people have mobility there, and it lets them lay their torso right down on their legs.

This makes sense though, it really makes sense for me. I can raise my leg a lot higher when it's externally rotated, which I thought was due to some kind of magic -- but, taking tight glutes as a working hypothesis, externally rotated would be easier because the glute is not being stretched!

It's weird, because I was always good at some twisty yoga stuff that was supposed to be glutes-y. Maybe I got some of that by compensating somehow, or it's a different part of the muscle that matters more for those poses.

[melebeth]

Huh. I'm going to need to play with the anatomy in my brain a bit.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

ooh, nice exercise! i can move my pelvis with fingertips touching the floor, but not really with hands flat (based on trying this right now, not warmed-up). cool way to have benchmarks for progress and goals.

[flexagon]

Yeah, it's cool. FWIW I feel like I can tip the pelvis back and forth now, while on two yoga blocks, just two weeks later (I've been doing this tipping exercise frequently). It's a small motion, but it's there. No idea how much progress this really is, in terms of things like being able to touch my face to my legs, but I guess the whole point of exercises is sometimes to be able to perceive small increments of progress.

[divergentcodex.livejournal.com]

Trying not to make mental pictures of the poses you were in, less I stumble into the traffic...