Transcript for:
For Pilates Sake - The Saw

[musing music] For Pilates Sake Intro [Music] V: welcome back everybody, we are For Pilates Sake  Matilda and Veronica and today we will be covering   the saw. it is flexion of the spine as well as  rotation with stabilization of the pelvis and   the legs and of course mobilizing the spine and  the arm bones. so Matilda's going to demo and I'm   going to take her through it. her legs are as wide  as this mat and everybody's got a different opinion on   how far the legs go but we like it just a little  wider than our hips her feet are in flexion so   as long as her joints are in alignment ankle, knee and hip joint .we don't have this, you know,  windshield wiper thing happening, or losing the  flexion so that we can find some strength in the   front of the shin as well as length through the  achilles and the calves. so she's going to sit up   nice and tall, just like in spine stretch, if we  have to seat that person onto higher platform or   bend their knees, of course you do what you got to do, because you want them in perfect alignment. so   her arms are out to the side she's going to inhale  rotate, whichever direction you want. she going to   take that back arm drop it a little bit rotate it. and that back arm acts like a wheelbarrow arm   to help push her forward. then she's going to  inhale take her arms out to the side. nice chest   expansion. rotate and then exhale flip that back  palm up, pick it up, to bend you forward. so she's   bending and she's rotating simultaneously. so often  what we see, maybe you can show it Matilda. she   you're going to inhale twist and then we just  get people go "I got to touch my toe" so they just   lean over, hinge at the joint and then they just  over stretch one side of their spine. M: should I do   it on this side too? V: yeah do it on that side too.  so that yeah, so then you can see she just leaning   and her bum ends up coming off. okay. so now I mean  that's not really a twist. that is a lean. so let's   do that again and actually to modify I want to  show you something. you can either put your hands   here or even behind your head and sometimes I get  people to do this first cuz the arms just get too   much. so she's going to inhale to rotate and then  I'm going to say Matilda, on your exhale take your   elbow towards your pubic bone. I mean you're not  really going to get it there and then that then   she's in her alignment here. she's around her  central axis. we'll do the other side, inhale to   rotate, exhale to flex and then if you wanted  to now you can take your arms away and shoot   one arm forward and one arm back and then she's  got her ear in line with her pubic bone. and like   I said before, she is twisting around her central  axis. so I'm going to get you to face the camera .  okay, and then you can really see what  I'm talking about. so you go for it ,we're going to   inhale to rotate on your exhale flip that back  palm up have it help to push you forward and   she's going to twist and bend and bend and twist  until all that air is out so she can explode her   lungs back up the tall. and maybe you caught  that, she kind of lost a little bit of that    stabilization of her legs. M: and it's different  with the feet lower, it's wild . V: oh yeah ? V: little   harder ? M: yeah okay, just different - feels different. V: so you're looking for equal weight on both butt   cheeks so often as someone twists towards the toe and can I just say, you don't need to   touch your toe it's just a direction that you're  going towards and the only reason, I believe, your   pinky is touching your toe is because you have  twisted and bent and bent and twisted so much   that you happen to get there, not because you have  to touch it. so that's what I have to say on it do   you have anything to add? M: I love it. M: there's about  30 or 40 ° angle that the arms come behind you   before they affect your shoulder girdle and then  your spine. so this is kind of it's leading to    what's going to happen in saw. so what happens  a lot is we hit here we're going to feel our   triceps without losing the organization of the  shoulder girdle. typically people if they want   to come higher and they don't change the spine  their shoulder lift and then they got the range   but if you keep your shoulder girdle on your  rib cage and you come back you'll feel it kind   of stops. then it has to affect the spine so in  order for you to get your arms up higher you have to   start to create flexion in your spine so now  it's triceps and spinal flexion that brings   your arms up so here is your saw so if Veronica  just took one arm in front of her that's what   the back arm is doing and the other one is  drawing back in and supporting the squareness   of the shoulders. so that it becomes the spine  that does the flexion and the rotation. but that's   actually quite helpful. V: now I was going to say  if you do that correctly, once, you're going to   feel ,holy triceps. M: yeah , yup V: yeah right so the  arms and the shoulder girdle are really much   a passenger . they're part of it, but they are not  the drivers. M: Yes. V: so that's where you see people really   overreaching and now they're in their neck and now  the spine really didn't get their true flexion or   rotation we just overstretch the tissue of the  upper back. M: and that's the reach your pinky to  touch the toe. not being driven from the right place. V: right, from your  center, your spine. okay. M: I think that's all. V: I think   that's all we have to say about that. M: thanks  for joining us. V: bye guys , see you next episode