March Matness: Swimming.
Pretend there are baby birds on your shoulders. Do not squish the baby birds. Underswing, or lever your hand up (from the Lat and LT, SA, TM and IS). Imagine a small snowball under your belly. Keep your navel off of the snowball. Motion around the stillness. Reach your leg straight back – do not think up or bend it. Stretch it back straight – it will animate the center (via the stretch reflex). Last image: There is a glass of fermented milk on your low back. Do not move it. Modifications: On a box, Cadillac, Pilates Mat with your hands and feet lower than your body. You can work on perfecting the technique, prior to challenging the ROM. Pull back on the Mat pole to depress, abduct and upwardly rotate the
scapulae – to start out in the proper position, and initiate with the proper muscles (and to save the baby birds!). To encourage the external rotators, you can perform with the thumb up. Eventually perform it with the palm facing down. In these pictures the eyes and collar bones should be slightly more forwards, the belly up off of the mat and low back long. The eyes rotate around the ears, the ribs around the xiphoid. This skill is very difficult to do correctly. It is interesting in the water – you immediately feel your Serape… All photos © 2007 J. Stacey