Have you ever really felt your core?
Not your low back when you are doing a plank.
Nor your shoulders or your neck.
Have you ever really felt the muscles in your mid section engage?
I did sit ups as a child.
Sometimes 500 in a night.
Feet underneath my bed locking me in, listening to the rocky soundtrack and nooooooo pain, noooooooo gain.
AGHHHHHHH!
I never had a six pack.
At most I had a four pack.
Well maybe after I became a keto sponsored athlete I had a misaligned six pack.
I never felt my core engage though.
Even when a trainer would nod their head yes and say you can feel that can’t you, did I ever feel my core engage.
I don’t fall for Jedi mind tricks.
I will look you straight in the eyes and be like, what are you talking about?
I never felt my core engage in pilates.
I did the exercises.
I bought the equipment.
I did the videos.
I sang kumbaya.
I drank the cool aid.
nothing changed.
Then one day I read a book and I applied it’s theory.
Everything changed.
It was between year one and year two of putting my eggs in the pilates basket. The pilates anatomy book has a section dedicated to the pelvic floor. It seemed like I was wasting my time engaging the front of my pelvic floor when really I needed to start at the bottom of my pelvic floor. Rael had an explanation on how to activate those muscles. Those muscles are called the levator ani muscles. Try to guess what levator ani means.
Here it is - anus lifter.
Ya I said it.
I needed to lift my anus first.
Who knew?
Not I?
Most don’t.
When I took my mat certification I asked my examiner what she thought about the cue.
She asked me what people would think if you said it in class.
I shrugged and said, its anatomy what’s the big deal.
She suggested I never say it in a class, she didn’t know me too well.
I was in excruciating pain day in and day out. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel my core engage until I began to learn how to engage these muscles.
Then one muscle engaged, then another, then another.
Then one day I could sit up again.
Then I could stand, then play tag with my daughter. Then climb trees, then rollerblade 25 kms one day without doing cardio or even working out before that day.
Before reading that book, nothing worked. Rael is a fountain of knowledge and without him I would not be standing today.
I would be stuck fighting those Jedi’s with their head nods and high eyebrows.
His description and knowledge gave me the framework while a student suggested to me to explain it using a coffee bean. Raisins were squishy and made them feel squirmy.
So as I laid down on my back with my knees bent, feet flat, sit bone width apart, I began to breathe.
I inhaled through my nose and exhaled through my mouth and as I maintained my neutral tilt I began to imagine sucking a coffee bean up my rectum. Not at 100 percent force but subtly bringing on a stronger and stronger contraction, I felt the bottom of my pelvic floor engage and I never turned back…