Today in Class....

It felt like a perfect class today.  Maybe it was my new leotard but it just felt great and I am feeling stronger and stronger, especially in the stomach work (my weak spot). Esther is getting ready to push me out of the training nest.  I have my guinea pig next week and will teach her a full class, watched by Esther's eagle eye.  Then...off to start my own classes! Gulp!

I am not going to give you an exercise today.  Instead I ask that you hop over to the 'The Tilt!' page (in the sidebar at the left) and have a try at that crucial movement.  Happy tucking!

See you next week....I'll let you know how it goes!

Today in Class....

One of the great things about the method is that it is about working with your unique shape to make it strong, shapely and supple.  It doesn't matter if you do not naturally have a dancer's physique. It does not matter if you are not very flexible.  All you need is the desire to work hard and your body will transform into one that is lifted, toned, energised and with strong muscles that will hold and support your bones, joint and organs...and beautiful.  In class there are women of all different shapes and sizes, all ages, all abilities (and there has even been the occasional man!), all of us giving a couple of hours a week to ourselves and our bodies, trying to be the best we can be. Class celebrates each of us for who we are.  As Esther said last week, "we don't want all our tomatoes to be regimented!"  Nor do we want our bodies to be.


Hear, hear.

Today's Exercise:

1. Sit with your hands on the floor between your legs, your knees bent, feet on the floor.
2. Slowly extend your legs out straight, keeping them off the floor, until fully extended, toes pointed. You will be balancing on your sitting bones.  Make sure your pelvis is tucked into the tilt position. Feel the effort you need to exert to keep the top half of your body from leaning back too far and to keep your bottom half off the floor.  Aim for your legs to be about 6 inches above the floor.
3. Slowly raise your right leg up and lower your left leg until it is just above the floor.  Hold.
4. Lower your right leg and raise your left leg until they are even.  Hold.
5. Now lower your right leg until it is just above the floor and raise your left leg. Hold.
6. Bring both legs back to being even again. Hold.
7. Repeat entire sequence.

This is one of what we call the escape/no escape exercises.  It works deep into the core muscles of the abdomen, especially the low ones that are sometimes hard to work, as well as using the entire system of muscles in the torso, legs and even the arms. Comprehensive, hey?!  Keep the motion slow and smooth for maximum benefit, maintaining the tilt to protect your back.

Happy New Year!

Hello....

Hope your 2012 is starting off bright!

So good to be back in the studio.  Esther was full of energy after the break and class
was a vigorous!  Lovely to meet Margot's daughter Lydie...Esther does love to stir it up, goading us to be competitive and trying to stoke up little rivalries....sometimes we are all like school girls!  Great fun though....and it does get us working our hardest (and yes, I almost always rise to the bait...and yes, Lydie is a natural!).

It seems that most of us who are regulars to class (some could say devoted) have a certain determination and drive.  We seem to thrive under Esther's whip and want to be our best.  Funny how some of us just get hooked....

Esther and I were speaking today about how the exercises are about empowering women to feel sensual for themselves, to feel good about themselves. She said Lotte loved to know that she was firm and toned and that she would please her lovers...and be able to enjoy them more for being in such great shape!  It was about more than that, though.  It was about being strong yet feminine, having a body that you were the master of and that served you well, and the confidence that comes from that.  How wonderful to enjoy having your body, to feel great walking down the street, putting on clothes,  just moving.  Grace, suppleness, strength: the dancer's joy in her body can belong to us.  It can be ours with just a little dedication.

What a wonderful gift.

Today's exercise:

                                                         

1. Stand sideways to barre, outside leg lifted, knee bent to the side and toe pointed at the standing leg.
2. Fold the lifted knee across the body towards the barre.
3. Open your leg out to the original position then stretch your leg keeping your thigh high, really feel the stretch, toe pointed.
4. Bend your lower leg in again and start at the beginning.  Across-back- stretch-bend. Repeat ten times.
5. The last time hold the leg out in the stretch position.  Really feel the stretch.  Hold it there.  Now teensy little bend-stretch, bend-stretches.
6. Repeat on the other side!
7. Well done!
Put your hand on the top of your thigh as you do this and boy, will you feel the muscle working! Make sure you keep your hips square and centred.   The work you do to keep your standing leg and hips in the correct position is as important as the work your 'busy' leg is doing! This is a big part of the effectiveness of the method - the small but intense work your muscles do in the tension between where your body wants to go and where you are telling it to!

Thursday 22 December

And another year draws to a close...

Fun class today with Christmas exercises: 'Santa with his sack', 'the Turkey' and 'Stirring the Christmas Pudding'.  Glad they only come around once a year, especially the 'Turkey'!  Ouch!

                                                                                     ...and afterwards mince pies and cookies and chat!

Lots of reminiscing...Ahhh the good old days…the classes in the fisherman’s lodge at Great Shefford, behind the Green Door in Newbury, in the doctor’s surgery at Hermitage…Esther is amazing and she certainly used to get around.  The funny thing is how her students speak with such love of the days when studios wireless than salubrious.

The Green Door was above a dental technician’s and you had to pass shelves of teeth to get up to the studio.  Once up the ceiling was so low you could hardly stretch your arms above your head and if you needed the loo you had to go back downstairs, out the front door around the side of the building to the back.

The lodge was damp and cold and there was no door on the toilet-only a bead curtain.  Moisture ran down the walls and students would try to dry their mats by the gas heater, steam billowing around them. It was so small that the students had to cram in like sardines.  That is why the section of stomach exercises we do in the centre is called sardines now: from everyone lying together in a neat row so they could all fit!  

In Hermitage a doctor so believed in the benefit of the exercises she gave Esther the lobby of the surgery rent free and she ran classes there between surgery sessions!

Funny. Some of the fondest memories are of these days. Who needs posh studios with wall to wall mirrors (Lotte didn't like mirrors in studios anyway) and smart lobbies?!

Esther during the Christmas class in her quirky, warm, dry and light filled Hungerford 

studio (with high ceilings as well!).   Her students are so spoiled!

A little exercise to see you into the New Year:

Stirring the Christmas Pudding

1. This is a 'No Escape' exercise so usually would be done sitting on the floor under the barre with your back firmly pressed against the studio wall, both arms pressing upwards on the barre, chin on your chest, head curving forward to ensure your back has maximum support.  If you do not have a well-fixed barre then sitting like I am in the photo above is the next best thing.  This is the position teachers use to lead this part of the class. 

2. With your legs lifted off the floor, knees bent just more then slightly, toes pointed, balancing on your bottom, imagine that you have two christmas puddings in bowls beneath your feet. Circle both feet inward as if you are stirring the pudding (the left foot clockwise, the right foot anti-clockwise).  This should be as if your calves/feet and toes are a wooden spoon as the main motion is below the knees.

3. Now repeat this, rotating your toes/feet/calves outward.  Quite often students find one way harder than the other.  Holding this 'No Escape' position works the deep core muscles of the lower abdomen, an area that can be hard to work.

A very happy holiday season to you all!

May your 2012 be joyful....see you then! 

Thursday 15 December

Today in Class...

Thinking about Lotte's philosophy:

be honest

be selfish

be yourself

Wondering about how life would be if we all lived by this.

At least you knew where you stood with Lotte, from what I know of her,

although it wasn't always the most comfortable of places!

A nice counter-philospohy to the ones many of us are raised with: 

be selfless, be pleasing, be good.  

And a darn sight more interesting!

A little exercise for you to do while you ponder:

The JCB!

(see blog of 24 November!)

1. Kneel in front of barre (or back of a heavy chair), knees apart, hands on the barre, arms straight, bottom on your heels.

2. Stick your bottom out by rotating your pelvis

3. Now scoop as if your pelvis was the scoop of a JCB digger by tucking your pelvis and bottom in and then lifting off your heels, pushing your bottom up in a fluid motion.  Feel the work in your thighs especially.

4. Now tip your pelvis as if it was a scoop dumping a load of gravel, then lower yourself, sticking your bottom out as if there was a wire attached to it from your heels, drawing you back down to the original position.

5. Repeat this scooping in a fluid, even and controlled way eight times, making sure your arms stay straight; bottom out - scoop, tuck and lift up - tip your pelvis, push your bottom out and dump your gravel - then back down to your heels

6. Happy pondering!

Thursday 8 December

Today in Class....

So, why do people come to class?  

Talk of this today.  

Interestingly, no one said, " to get slim."

Lots said that they loved the challenge of the method.  They loved the striving for perfection, for getting the exercises just right.  They loved getting that tiny bit better or stronger each week.

Of course, everyone eventually said how they really noticed after the first few weeks of coming to class twice a week that their figures seem to compress, their legs and bottom and torso noticeably slimmer and firmer...but after that they were hooked on the quest for perfection within the exercises and the mental and physical challenge of working so hard.  After a class they really know they have done something!

Amazing...we are all sadists!

Today's Exercise:

Inside Out

1. Stand sideways to the barre or the back of a chair, holding on with your outside arm (bring it across the front of your body). Both legs slack (knees slightly bent).

2. Lift your inside arm up over your head, arching to the outside, ballet style

3. Slide your outside leg away from you and lift off floor sideways, keeping toe pointed.  Floor-off, floor-off, floor-off ten times. This is a very small movement, a matter of two or three inched. Make sure you keep your hips square and do not let them slide towards the barre/chair or lift with your leg.  It is the tension between holding a correct position and lifting your leg that really works the muscles in your hips and legs and right the way up the waist/torso.

4. With your leg lifted in the 'off' position now do little, controlled bend-stretches, about ten. 

5. With your leg still lifted in the 'off' position, flex your foot (happy foot) and lift-lift-lift. 

6. Can you hear your muscles sing?!

Thursday 1st December

Today In Class....

Talk of how long we had all been coming to the classes...  

Some had been coming for 20 years…two for over forty! 

That is why the method works so well….

it is always a hard workout, no matter how many years you have been coming.  

The muscles are still engaged and even though it gets easier and you get stronger ,

there is always room for improvement.  

Masochists queue up! 

Exercise for the day:

1.  Sitting on your bottom, lift your legs into a V shape, holding a tucked, tilted position with your pelvis to protect your back and keep your stomach muscles engaged. Hands on floor to stabilise you.

2. Working very hard to maintain your tilt and to control your core bend both legs into your chest, toes still pointed.

3. Now extend your legs again, this time with your left leg low and your right leg back to high. Hold.

4. Legs back into your chest. and extend again slowly, this time right leg low, left leg high. Hold. 

5. Repeat this 8 more times, really working hard to ensure that you are keeping tucked and working the stabilising core muscles. This strengthens the very deepest and lowest muscles that are so important yet so hard to really work.

6. Well done!