You’re grounded!

Lets do some pilates on the spot here: If you are sitting down – how does it feel: the chair, your sitting bones, your lower back? If you are standing, how you your feet feel – in your shoes – on the ground? Taking time to notice this here can instantly create some nice changes, and let you breathe a little more deeply into your body.

Check out the amazing corn growing in my garden – it is flourishing! The benefits of being grounded are pretty clear here - yumminess is coming my way!

I was inspired to write this as this week I am teaching a lot of classes using the jumpboard, where being grounded can also really have great payoffs: you can really lift off the board the more you spread your feet and connect. Very fun.

In classes we talk a lot about feeling the “muscles underneath”. In the lower body we say, "Push from the hamstrings, the muscles in the back of your legs, to come to stand". To keep tension out of the neck and shoulders we say "Connect to the armpits, the muscles underneath the shoulders, to support your arms". When you feel this support from below, you can really lengthen up. When we feel overwhelmed, it is as though we are sinking: the shoulders lift up, the hips tense up, the spine collapses. As soon as you press down with your sitting bones your spine stretches up. As soon as you press down with your feet, you can feel the ground, you can connect back to where you are. By feeling the ground you can feel yourself.

Pilates, for me, has been a place where I can drop into myself and truly learn what grounded means and how important it is in order to do anything of meaning, and to truly lift off and fly. I hope you feel that too.

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