Splendid video Sue!
It prompted thoughts for a few warmups to this that can help stave off face-planting...
Building Awareness
1. Starting in the position Sue starts in (feet shoulder width apart, toes pointing forward -- this is called neutral position in most modern dance techniques, and is the most solid way for us to balance).
2. First, just stand centered like this for a moment, feeling your feet sink into the ground and your head grow to the sky -- no push for active, actual movement, but this will change your balance and body awareness. Breathe into your core muscles in your belly, and center your energy there.
3. Then, just shift your weight subtly back and forth between your feet, watching what happens to your core and hips as you do so.
4. Try it while imagining your knees as being very soft and warm -- many of us "lock" our knees instinctively when we think we're going to lose our balance, but this doesn't help!
5. Try it while bending your knees, and note the difference in your balance and the quality of the movement.
6. Then try it while imagining your hip joints as big, open, soft, half filled balloons, with warm air in them...
7. Then, try it by leading with your hips, stretching them as far out to each side as they can go. How does this feel different? How is your center of balance moving when you do this? And you can stretch your hips as far forward and as far back as they'll go, too, while keeping your feet planted on the floor. (And then you can do big hip circles front-side-back-side. Nice balance/warmup stretch for the hips.)
Building Balance
1. Then, pushing your weight farther off each foot so you're going from weight on one foot, to two, to the other -- back and forth. Where is the center of your balance in each spot? Again, how is this different when you plié (bend your knees) as you go through the center?
2. You can build on this by starting with just leaving a toe pointed on the ground and then adding height to the leg that's not holding your weight. Holding your arms out to the sides can help your balance as you increase height -- try this, as see how it opens up your core.
3. You can also try this exercise turned out from the hip, so your toes point outwards to the sides. But always rotate your leg from the hip, not from the ankle or the knee. (This will put you in second position in dancer parlance.)
4. As you move your balance from both feet to one feet, taking a moment to really feel the foot you're standing on becoming heavy and connected on the ground.
Into the Exercise
1. Start small with the figure eight, controlled but fluid, thinking about that balloon (I see it as a balloon that's a week or so old -- not tensely filled, but soft) in your hip socket.
2. As you swing your knee across and in front of you, bend your standing knee. Bent knees are more stable than straight ones! You can keep your standing knee bent throughout the full figure eight or straighten it each time your leg comes out to the side -- experiment with this!
3. Don't be shy about using the chair as something to hold on to, or a fence rail -- this exercise will be most helpful if you keep soft and relaxed like Sue does in the video -- if you're tense, it won't open up your hips and pelvis.
Three other stray thoughts:
1. If your hip joints are tight, it can help to stretch them first, especially stretching your hip flexor muscles, like the psoas, to open and unlock them. (I'm discovering that these are tighter on me than they've ever been before -- a function of becoming an old fart and sitting too many hours in front of a computer, I fear!)
2. Breathing! Think about this as you're trying each of these exercises -- very often we forget to breathe when we're focusing on doing something with our bodies. (Errrm...like riding...)
3. As a former dancer, one of the most challenging things for me in terms of balance when riding was to shift my reaction to losing my balance. In dance, we're trained to pull our balance up, so our feet can move underneath us easily -- this is actually a form of collection, really. Well, when I first came back to riding, I'd do that with such enthusiasm that I'd bounce right off the horse!
So, what I've been learning as my seat has been returning, is to sink down into the horse rather than pull up. What's helped me with this is imagining becoming melded with my horse's center of balance, melting into it, so he can collect for both of us. When he begins to collect, I work to amplify that and respond to it, but always with a sense of it coming from his lift, not mine. Even when I'm trying to help him lift his back with my eight and energy as an aid, I'm always thinking about it as emerging from him, if that makes sense.
Hope this is helpful, I babble on as usual!
Thanks, Sue!
Best,
Leigh
Ooh, ooh, one last thought -- I bought a yoga ball for Circe and Stardust to play with and had fun with it before I brought it over to the ranch. I'm gonna get me one of these puppies -- just sitting on it while watching TV or chatting and working to find your balance on it is FABULOUS! It will work your core muscles, your hip flexors, quads and hamstrings lots and lots!
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verbal explanation.. I hope the video speaks for itself.)
so I'm not as flexible, high, or balanced as i could be.. but you should get the general idea.
