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Hello, and welcome everyone to this class on the Franklin method introduction to the Franklin method. Franklin Method is a mind body method with the goal of improving your movement, your posture, and your psychological health. So let’s get going. The first exercise we’re going to do is tapping. So we take our hands and we tap our body.
And we tap up the right and down the left because that is more or less the direction of digestion, ascending colon, descending colon, then we’re gonna tap our lungs and our heart right through here. And you can tap with flat hands or fingertips or even loose fist, whatever you like. Then we’ll gently tap our neck with neck tapping. Good. Our skull.
Forehead, usually with fingertips. Yeah? And then we’re gonna tap our jaw. Exactly. Jaw tapping, and then we’re going to tap our legs. We tap the front of the legs all the way down to the feet. If that’s comfortable, this, I usually use flat hands, tapping the legs, then it’s tap the outside of the legs, so all around the legs.
And the inside legs you can tap fairly strongly. So if you wanna get back of the legs, exactly. Good. Then we tap our glutes, glutes, right? And then we’re gonna tap our lower back. And if you want, you can make a sound.
So you have outer vibration and inner vibration. Excellent. Very good. Let’s tap our diaphragm a little bit. Diagram. Very nice.
Wonderful. Doing great. Yeah. Please participate. That’s really important. So you feel an experience, not just, like, learn about mind body and body mind. Now you’re gonna take your arm.
We’re gonna take our left arm, and we’re gonna start tapping the arm from the fingertips. And we’ll go all the way up to the neck and then back like this and all sides as we did before. Nice tap. Good. And you can move your arm as you tap your arm. You’re doing great.
Excellent tapping. And then you’re gonna brush over your arm, and you’re gonna imagine first image. You’re gonna imagine that you’re brushing all tension out of your shoulder neck and arms and casting it away, but not hit your neighbors, but you’re throwing it into a hole on the ground where it’s going to be recycled to ease and relaxation. How about that? That nice mind body image? Okay. Good. Then we’re gonna shake our arm.
And just to up the challenge a little bit, we’re also gonna shake our leg on the same side. And, you know, with all these exercises, no right or wrong. You just do whatever is comfortable or whatever works. So balance is really a good thing to practice because, you know, that being able to balance is a sign of usefulness. So practice your balance, challenge your bow, take your arm forward, and your leg back, and vice versa.
Good. I hope you’re breathing. Yeah. Breathing. Good. That’s excellent. And before we do the other side, we’re gonna do something that’s really important for learning about positive change, because, you know, we’re into positive change.
So you did the exercise only on one side and on on the other. Do you feel slight difference between the sides. So side is a little more relaxed, a little more comfortable like that. Okay. That’s kinda good, but Is there any improvement in movement maybe also or balance? So let’s lift the arm on this IV practice lift arm and stand on that leg. And bending stretch leg. And just notice for a moment, how does that feel? Let’s compare that to the other side, Does it feel a little stiffer on this side you didn’t practice? So it’s a little stiffer, right?
Let’s go back to the side we practice. Maybe even do a hop, small little hop if it’s possible, or if it’s possible. And then hop on the other side. Now you probably feel a bigger difference. Right? So that’s interesting.
We do a little tapping and shaking, and we have a little more stability, a little more elasticity and all that. Well, this is actually scientific what we’re doing. If you’re thinking about athletes, what do they do before the race, the sprint, before they jump in the pool? Or before they, you know, put their legs in the block. They shake. They tap. What they don’t do big surprise is stretch. Because stretching reduces contract health speed of muscle. That’s because muscles are viscous.
And if you stretch them out, They’re a little more placid for a while. So that’s great to stretch, but maybe not right before you’re gonna do like very fast kind of movements or a competition or something like that. Yeah. Tapping, shaking is a great thing to do in the morning to increase awareness and improve how you feel during any movement you’re gonna do afterwards. So, wanna do the other side? You’ve been waiting for the other side. Stop talking. Let’s tap. Exactly. I agree. So here we go.
Now, an interesting experiment. Do you feel the hand moving or do you feel the arm being tapped? Or can you feel the hand? Can you do both at the same time? That’s something shorter. Yeah. Let’s brush.
Do you feel the brushing hand or the arm being brushed? Can you both at the same time? So this is an interesting one. Can we do both at the same time? So if you’re focusing on the hand moving, that’s called proprioception. And if you’re focusing on the arm that’s sensing being touched, that’s called exteroception. A perception coming from the outside, like vision or hearing. Yeah?
And probably you can do both exactly at the same time. You’re probably toggling back and forth really, really fast. Yeah? Good. Now let’s shake the other side. Challenge your balance. So if you’re in the mood and you wanna, you know, up your balance, challenge, then you can circle the arm.
As you’re balancing, and I’m a noticing we’re holding our breath a little bit. Never a good idea. Yeah. Good. Lots of oxygen in here. Let’s check everything like this.
Check your arms, check your legs, Very good. Okay. So now, are you ready? We are going to do the most challenging exercise. Things easy. Are you ready for the exercise instructions?
We are going to stand here and do nothing. But feel our body. So what does that mean? Feel your posture, feel your breathing, feel your tension level. And what we’re not gonna do is think about stuff. It’s the difference clear.
So we think, think, think, think, think, none of that, for one minute, just feel the body. Ready set and feel. Welcome back. How was that? Now, that was only 45 seconds. I mean, looking at the watcher, that was 45 seconds.
They did feel longer. Yeah? So, Let’s check-in here. Who was able to just be present and feel their body for that whole period of time? Let’s be honest. Yes. Know who was like, no. I drifted off, started thinking about something.
It’s fine. You know? And, who doesn’t even know what happened? But in the last 45 seconds. Okay. So this is a key skill if you want to improve your movement. It’s called being focused, concentrated, being present. But why? Why is this a key skill if you wanna improve movement, become more efficient, healthy? There’s many good answers. I’ll give you one answer, but there’s probably other ones, and you’re welcome to, you know, ask questions about this as well. Well, if you’re not present, you’re obviously not feeling what you’re doing. Right?
Yeah. If you’re not present, you’re not noticing that maybe your shoulders are tight, your diaphragm is stuck, your posture’s off, and if you’re not aware of what you’re doing, you’re probably gonna happily keep doing it, strengthening your problems. And that’s what a lot of people do. They have habits that are not great. And they just keep, you know, practicing these habits.
And one day ouch this hurts, that hurts like this. You know, my shoulders are tight. So probably not born with tied shoulders or with back pain, but that kind of evolves through our behavior, which is kind of good news, because behavior you can change. Right? Okay? So there we have it. If you want to improve your movement, the first step is noticing, okay, what am I doing that’s maybe not great? And we all have something. So everyone has something that if they were aware of it, they probably would say, wow, that’s not great.
I’m going to try something else. Look for better solutions for that. Right? So the name of the game is, right? How do we improve movement? That’s a big question. So a lot of people think, well, you improve movement, by exercising. Well, or, you know, doing sports? Well, there’s a lot of injuries in sports.
There’s even a lot of injury and exercise. There needs to be another ingredient there. Right? So let’s take a look by doing a practice movement. So this is a practice movement. We use this movement to learn a lot of things about mind, body, and body mind connection.
So here we go. The movement is simply shoulders up and down, and then we’ll roll our shoulders. So shoulders up and down and roll around. And using principle number 1, you’re being present while you’re doing this, you’re feeling yourself doing this. So up, down, and roll around. And up and down and roll around and again, up and down and roll around. Okay.
We just had, you know, one of our first movements in this class. Yeah. The question is, did we enjoy it? So let’s be very scientific about it and put it on a scale from 1 to 10. 10 is wow, that’s like movement Nirvana. I loved it. Like, that was Mr. Frankan, I love the Frankan method trucking shoulders. I do it every day.
All the way down to one, boring, not interesting, have much better things I can do, and then a 5 maybe kinda mediocre. I felt, yeah, kinda average doing that. So moment of honesty, how did you feel doing that? Anyone felt really great doing that? I love shrugging my shoulders and circling them. Okay. Not many takers, probably. Who felt not so good? Oh, it just makes me notice how high I am. Some comfortable.
I wanna do something else, you know, like that. Who felt mediocre? Boke? Okay. How did 7. You’re a 7. That’s good. That that’s good. 7. That’s that’s good.
So I’ve done this exercise with so many groups, with fessionals, pilates, teachers, yoga teachers, dancers, athletes, just lay people. And it’s always surprising about the same. It’s around, like, feel average. But the question is, do you want to feel mediocre? So today was mediocre and then, you know, yesterday was kind of mediocre. It’s probably gonna be I feel kind of average. You wanna feel average on average. Another average day.
You wanna feel great. When you feel better? Who wants to feel better? Who wants to do something about that now? Give it a try. There we go. Okay. This is building consensus. Very important. Right?
So for you teachers out there, yeah, you’ve gotta have some consensus, some motivation. Okay. I’m ready to participate, improving how I feel, because if you think about it, no one can force you to feel better. Right? In the end, it’s gonna have to be your nervous system, right, your system that’s gonna have to make that change. So, the skill of a teacher is not to always just tell the client what to do, but also to help them to empower themselves, right, to find the tools that help them not just during the exercises, but also in daily life. Yeah? So in the Frank Committee, we have four steps And this has also been adopted by many people who teach Pilates and other methods to the 4 steps.
So the first step in the 4 steps is absolutely acknowledge how you feel your current challenges. Right? We don’t ignore that. We don’t just It’s not just positive thinking. Like, everything’s great. No. Everything’s not great. My shoulders are tight.
You know, my posture’s off. I have pain here. We acknowledge that. That’s step number 1. Right? But step number 2 is, you formulate a goal. Like in life in general. Right? So if you want something like, oh, I think I wanna move to a different apartment house or something. This one’s too noisy, or I don’t know what, you know, you formulate the goal.
And the same thing we should do for our body. So let’s say you have, you know, tied back, do you have the goal? Like, by the end of this year, I want to have a released, comfortable back. Right? So we need to have goals in that area too. So, obviously, our goal for this movement would be maybe for it to be more relaxed, comfortable, free, inflexible. Right? Good. But now let’s look at the possible tools we have to improve movement. So I put them into 2 departments in course, there would be other ways to divide this tool.
An outer department and an inner department. So outer tools, inner tools. The outer tools or things like, let’s grab a band. Let’s do a stretch. Let’s tap with balls, and we’ll do that later on.
Let’s get on a reformer or you know, whatever like that. Let’s take a hot bath and get a massage, right? And then all good. And we love all those things, right? But then there’s also inner tools. So the inner tools of the things you always have with you, you’ve been given these tools, and those are things like self talk.
You’re always talking to yourself, inter speaking it’s called, or imagery metaphors and all that. So those tools are the constant tools. I mean, you’re not always on a reformer and you’re not always pulling on a band, but you’re always like during the waking state, imaging and thinking. Right? You can’t function without that. So let’s start with thinking, inner speaking, it’s called, or self talk. And let’s think about it.
So every day, we have about 60,000 thoughts. How many of those thoughts are you using to make yourself feel better? Or do you use your thinking to make yourself feel worse sometimes? Yeah. Have you all experienced that? Stop thinking that. Right. Exactly. So there we have it.
What we’re gonna do now is consciously bravely use like positive kinesthetic words to improve this movement. Yeah? So we’re learning about, okay. How does that work? Does it work? Let’s give it a try. So let’s say My shoulders are relaxed, you know, comfortable and flexible. Yeah? So those are just We could use all the words too. I’m just gonna say those. Right? Relax, comfortable, flexible. So here we go. Relax, comfortable, and flexible.
So I recommend, even though we said ear to speaking, say these words loud just for now, just for practice. So here we go. Relax. Comfortable and flexible. My shoulders are relaxed, comfortable, and flexible. Relaxed, comfortable, and flexible.
There we go. Okay. Very interesting thing going on. Yeah? So, you have, you say the words relax, comfortable, flexible, free, you know, that. And maybe you’re uncomfortable saying that. Maybe as soon as you say, relaxed, comfortable, flexible. A little voice pops up and says, no, that’s not true. Your shoulders are not relaxed, comfortable, and flexible.
They’re actually tight. And this is not working, right? And you go and like, what? So we have a problem here. Because you don’t get what you want, you get what you believe. So if you’re doing, oh, yeah, I’m gonna say my shoulders are relaxed, come from flexible, but in reality, is never gonna work.
It’s not that simple. I’ve had this for years, and my shoulders are really tight. That’s the actual self talk you’re using. That’s the actual imagery. You’re not really doing it. So I would like to encourage you for a moment to really bravely believe, you know, your words.
Let’s say, 70, 80%. Just give it a try. What do you have to lose by saying your shows are flexible? Something gonna happen? You say your my shoulders are flexible and comfortable. Are you gonna fall over or no? Right? Nothing to lose. Let’s bravely say those words.
Are you ready? Let’s give it a try. So my shoulders are comfortable, I have flexible shoulders. Relaxals. Why don’t we say I love moving my shoulders. I love rolling my shoulders. I love rolling my shoulders. Actually, the more I do this, the better I feel.
Yeah. Okay. There we go. Anyone noticed now this little more of a difference. You see that? A little more of a difference. But now still, this is an interesting one. Surprisingly, most people will get this or understand this better when we do it negatively.
So let’s give it a try. Let’s say different world, different day. Right? And we’re just gonna be negative about this. Same movement, different inner speaking. So let’s say, my shoulders are tight and gripped. Everyone move.
You’re tight. Stock shoulders. Your shoulders are stuck. Roll your stock shoulders, but they’re stuck. They’re stuck.
They’re great. They’re stuck. There’s no. That’s how it goes. Anyone notice a difference. So there we have it.
Now let’s go back. Oh, shake that out. Let’s go to flexible shoulders, flexible, free, comfortable, juicy, lalalala. Okay? So The take home message is the fastest way to change your movement is to change your mind about the movement. Yeah? So there we have it.
It’s not the only tool, but it’s certainly a powerful tool. It’s a free tool. It’s an ongoing tool. And it’s not about being, like, always super optimistic. It’s not necessary either, but, you know, like, okay, I’m gonna use that tool. You can use it when you walk down the street.
So great tool. Closely related to that tool. And very much used if you are a Pilates person, and also in yoga, and in dance, and is imagery. Everyone uses imagery for queuing, one recent image is great. There’s slamdunk science that shows this works.
You know, science is always looking at, okay, what really improves movement. Right? And we know imagery combined with movement provides better results suspendous movement without any mental support. So I think that anyone who wants to improve their movement should at least learn the rudiments of imagery. It’s complex subject, and you can learn much more than just in this class in our Franklin trainings and so forth, but this is a little introduction. And the first question is, well, what is it? So for example, you know, in Pilates, you know, you have, but also as I said, yoga, spread your arms like eagle wings or your clavicleer smiling or something like that.
What is that? Yeah? What is really going on? What you’re doing is Right? When you’re using imagery, you’re generating a sensory experience in your mind that is affecting your movement and your psychological state. So you are creating a sensory experience in the absence of the normal stimuli for that experience. So let’s everyone also at home or wherever you’re watching. Imagine you’re standing at the beach. I don’t know if you see the beach, but we do have a beach back there.
I don’t know if that’s the perfect beach right now to stand on, but it’s a beach. Right? And and the sand is nice and warm, and the sun is shining on, you know, your body, comfortable. You might hear the seagulls, you know, what do they they squirt or squack, or what do they do? It’s not chirping, really. You know, Okay. And then, you might hear, you know, hear the wind or feel the wind. It’s just the the smell in the air. You know, it’s fantastic. Can you generate such an image?
Most likely you can. Are you at the beach? No. Is there sand in your room hopeful. I don’t know. Maybe, you know, probably not. So you generated that sensory experience, and it’s probably having an effect, and you feels kinda nice to be understand. So, penetrate your legs, you know, and you’re standing on sand.
Now compare that to standing on cement, like a cold cement surface. Do you feel the difference in your legs right away? Right? So there we have it. It’s a powerful tool. It’s a cognitively self generated sensory experience.
That affects how you move, but also affects your psychology. And we know from research, and we’ve done this research ourselves, you can improve flexibility, you can improve strength, you can improve force absorption, which is a very important thing in Movement Teaching. I think slightly neglected, improving force absorption, because that’s how you you know, make sure you don’t hurt yourself. And then, of course, also coordination speed, but in the psychological department using image, you can prove tration, confidence, motivation, all kinds of things. And now comes even better news. Just the fact that you’re using more imagery, and for example, Pilates uses a lot of imagery is mood regulating.
So using imagery is mood regulating. In other words, more imagery less like think, think, think, think, think, think, think, is good for you psychologically. Okay. Lots of words. Let’s give it a try. With, our movement, and then we’ll also use other movements. So shrug your shoulders up and down, and let’s for a movement for a moment.
Moment of movement. Imagine our shoulder blades are slippery bars of soap. Yeah? Have you ever, you know, slippery, you know, the experience? So sleepy bars of soap, and they’re sliding up, and they’re sliding down. Slipy bars of soap. There we go. Did you like that? Was that okay?
So that’s called a metaphor. And, again, we use metaphors a lot in teaching. In fact, I don’t know. You probably can’t teach without metaphors. So what is that? Of course, it’s an image. But it’s a borrowed sensory experience.
So you had, at one point, in your life, the experience of using a slippery bar soap, and now you’re using that to just transpose it into your shoulders to improve movement. So why not just say relax your shoulders? Well, maybe someone can’t do that. Doesn’t work them, but you tell them, sleepy bar of soap, then they go, okay, sleepy bar of soap. That works. And that sleepy bar of soap image is gonna affect lots of muscles as opposed to just, for example, saying, okay, I think you need to relax your left trapezius a little more. Maybe more engagement in the, you know, inferior part of the serratus and also the ascending to pieces. Yeah.
Get that little more going on Right? You just say slippery bar soap problem solved. You know? So that’s why we use it. We’ll get to Anatomical at the image in a moment. Yeah? But now the thing about that, it’s very personal.
Right? So soap, I don’t know, I have a soap allergy, right? Doesn’t work for you. So as a teacher, if you’re a teacher, it’s good to have a repertoire of metaphor. So let’s imagine there’s strings attached to the shoulders. And the strings you’re pulling your shoulders up, and then imaginary scissors come, and they cuff the strings, and your shoulders fall down. Isn’t that fun? Yeah? Exactly.
Like this, and there we go. Now imagine your shoulders are helium filled balloons, and they’re floating up and now, you know, have a little pinprick and like the also fun, right? Yellow, well, it’s isn’t fun? So and this is another function of imagery. It’s gonna keep you with the program.
You go, oh, wow, this is interesting, then you, you know, focus on your body. Yeah. I wanna try that. Yeah. Boom. Hey. That works. So it’s a tool to improve focus. Let’s lift your arms. Let’s try something else.
So imagine now there’s wind blowing from the beach, right? Strong wind, and the wind is blowing a against your arms from behind and lifting your arms up. Woosh. There we go. Can you feel that the wind blowing against your arms? Blowing the arms up like that. Excellent.
Very good. Of course, you could also think your arms are a string of balloons floating up like that. There we go. And you see every image, of course, will create a slightly different movement wall. You can imagine strings attached to your fingertips, lifting. Your fingers up like that. There we go. And you choose what you like.
So who liked the balloons? Who liked the strings pulling on the fingers? Right? Who liked the wind blowing from behind? Yeah? You like all of them. Right? You’re like, yeah, that’s that’s good. And I have another one for you.
We can match in our arms to be feathers. So the wind is blowing against the feather. So your arm is a feather, and the wind is blowing against the feather and blowing your arm up like that from behind. Yeah? So I’ll give that a try, and here we go. And, so now you have very interesting combination of metaphors. So the wind blowing, it’s called an outer global metaphor because it’s outside your body and it’s everywhere. However, the feather is inside your body.
So that’s an inner low cool metaphor. So we’re combining outer, and the outer is affecting the inner. So you have an outer focus affecting the inner focus. Now it starts to get complicated. Yeah. You see? So it is a more complicated science and encourage you to learn more about it.
This was just a little introduction. The problem with metaphors is, as we said, if you had a bad childhood, feather experience, that’s not gonna work for you. You have to find the imagery that works for your if you’re a teacher, client, students, and for yourself. So not just hand me down the images that everyone uses, But, okay, finding out. So it’s creative. So there we have it. Let’s do the negative version just to compare.
So your arms are heavy and exhausted, and they’re like, you know, chains made of let. So lift your arms. And even if I say, no, no, your arms are not chains made of lead, and they’re not heavy, it’s still a fake. Do you feel that? So you can’t say not.
We call that a blue elephant. So I want you to, like, not hold your breath not tighten your shoulders. Stop tightening your shoulders. Right? You know, as soon as it’s like, don’t imagine a blue elephant. Yeah. Exactly. Don’t imagine a pink renaissance. No. No. No. No. No. And of course, immediately you do that.
So be careful with that as well. Let’s check it out. And one more time, the wind blowing and whoosh, and up like this and back down, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Okay. Which brings us to anatomical imagery. And of course, why use anatomical imagery? That’s a big question. I mean, who’s interested in anatomy? I just wanna feel better and move better.
We have a slight problem here. You’re made of anatomy. You are anatomy. My bones, joints, muscles, fascia, organs, and so forth. That’s what you are. And so if you’re not interested minimally even in what you are and where things are, you’re, you know, gonna have a problem.
Most people don’t get interested in certain joints or areas until they have a pain. But then it’s, you know, late in the game. And we also know that the, more clearly, can visualize your body and understand your body geometry where things hour, the better you move. Yeah? So even there, we’ve we did some research with people at Park and since it improved their body schema, so their body geometry, And we discovered, oh, that helps them move better. They visualize their pelvis better.
They’re gonna move better. But also, a professional athlete, a professional dancer. If they don’t know, where their hip joints are, it’s going to be difficult to do good leg movement. And I just talked at a university dance department, and many of the dancers didn’t clearly know where their hip joint are. Is. Right? And they’re doing these leg gestures. So it’s very important to know a little bit of anatomy.
Okay. So let’s visualize or feel And that’s another huge department. Of course, there’s different types of imagery, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and beginners tend to like more visual. And if you’re more advanced, if you’re a teacher out there, you’re probably like kinesthetic, imagery, and feeling the movement. So feel or see, your shoulders moving as you lift your arms. There we go.
And probably everyone can feel something, you know, there’s something moving there, right? So let’s be a little more complex, Imagine your shoulder blades moving as you do this. Can you imagine how they are moving? How are your shoulder blades? Those things in your back moving when you have your arms? Can you do that? Now most people, I can kind of feel something. I don’t know exactly how they’re moving.
So let’s take a look at that. I happen to have two shoulder blades here. How lucky? Yeah. On the windowsill, who put them there? Must have been me. Okay. Okay. It’s this three-dimensional movement.
We’re just gonna look at one dimension now. The shoulder blades do kind of an upward rotation like that when you lift your arms. So why don’t you lift your arms? And watch me move the shoulder blades. And this is called action observation imaging.
So you’re watching the shoulder blades moving. And that’s gonna help you through this movement more efficient. Now look what happens if I’m not gonna move the shoulder blades and you lift your arms. So you see that? Already, even just that, you’re getting more stuck. So you’re seeing the shoulder blades and are not moving and going like, Right? So let’s do it.
And they’re also doing protraction and post rotation. It’s complex. Yeah? So here we go. Let’s do one more time. Open rotation. Good. You’re doing great.
Upward rotation. Very good. Okay. That’s very easy. No problem at all. Good. Let’s move on. Now how about visualizing the clavicles moving?
Yeah? Let’s add some muscles. Imagine the inferior part of the serratus anterior shortening as you lift your arms and the superior part lengthening. Okay? Very good. Imagine the subclavius muscle lengthening. Yeah? Subclavius. Good.
Can you a little more on the right side, subclavius, yeah, and you a little more on the left. Subclavius, a little more lengthening of the subclavius, better. Good. So this, of course, is when it gets strange. When, you know, maybe you’ve experienced this, I certainly experienced a long time ago when I was training a dancer, suddenly things are being said where you go, what? You have no idea what the teacher is talking about.
And that, of course, doesn’t work. That’s not good anatomical imagery. So the disadvantage of anatomy is that you have to introduce it. Otherwise, it makes no sense. And you have to introduce in a specific way. If you want to improve movement, lectures don’t help movement, specific way, we call that embodiment.
So a person can feel visualize what’s going on, understands function, and improve function. Yeah. So in the Franco method, we say embodying function improves function. So that’s what we have to do. We’re going to do a little process to see how that could work. And I picked these smalls because it’s such an odd one.
You were gonna, like, subclavius who cares about that? Let’s see if we care about that. Sarah, please take your left hand and put on the front of your right shoulder, move your right shoulder forward. Tap, the clavicle here gently. So most people now will be able to feel that there’s a bone here. Yeah. So I have a clavicle. Interesting.
A skirt bone. You’re tapping that. It’s right here. Yeah. Good. And then you’re gonna tap that. Good. And then you’re gonna lift your shoulder and you’re gonna take your fingers like a scoop scoop, and you’re gonna scoop under your clavicle.
So you’re gonna put your fingers under the clavicle. Underneath the cloud. It’s gonna scoop under the cloud. And right there is the subclavius. Then we’re gonna rub underneath rub underneath there, and then you’re gonna slide your fingers as you take the shoulder back in front.
So slide your fingers under the clavicle Good. And you’re welcome to breathe. So breathing happens when air goes in and air goes out, and it should happen regularly 20,000 times a day. Exactly. There we go. Few more times. So if you wanna imagine, you know, you’re you’re gonna imagine your your fingers are moving through clay, you know, warming up clay.
And if you if you need clay becomes softer, right? So that kind of idea may be like that. Very good. Maybe roll your shoulder under the clavicle there. Good. So that’s good. And then drop your arms.
And let’s do a comparison. Anyone feel a difference between the sides. So probably shoulder more open. We like that. Children more drop, but now lift your arms.
Does anyone feel a difference in mobility of the arm. Yeah? You feel that? Wow. Shoulders more flexible. The shoulders more open. And we did it all without stretching. And I don’t mind stretching at all.
I’m just saying there’s many ways to improve your range of motion, just by improving your embodiment of function. But now we’re even gonna top that experience by staying on the same side, same shoulder. We’re gonna take our left hand and put it on top of that right shoulder. Thumb is touching the neck. So now we’re on top of a muscle here called the trapezius. And we’re going to squeeze that muscle a little bit like that, and we’re gonna imagine we’re squeezing water out of a sponge.
You’ve all had that experience probably. You know? We have our cleaning chores in the kitchen. So we’ve had the experience or maybe in the backup So we’re using that memory squeezing warm water out. And then we are going to swing our arm and every time the arm’s at the front, we’re gonna squeeze and when the arm comes back, we’re gonna let go.
Very good. And then we’re gonna take our hand away. And now we’ve worked with the trapezius. We felt that we were subclaves, and now you have a huge difference, probably. Do you like to be a person with more drop and relaxed shoulders? Yeah?
Exactly. You do. You see now you have the experience. This was your shoulder before, and this is the shoulder after. So this is what you kinda created this morning.
And this is what you could be, you know, like that, through this exercise, but just through embodiment. Then stretch your arms forward and see, think the arms maybe even get a little longer. You feel that? But now even more surprising, maybe you notice this a little bit subtle. If you gently and be careful, swing your right leg forward and compare that to your left leg. Does anyone feel a difference in the hamstrings even?
Yeah. Or in the hip joint? You feel that? So hip joint flexibility. So the whole side has been positively affected, and we call that non local effect. So you do something up here And it gets better down there. You do something down here, the foot, and it gets better up there.
On the whole side, there’s also some transfer to the other side. Take your right arm up. Notice your balance, do a hop, compare that to the other side, and, you know, you’re gonna be safer on the other side. So your subclavius is a great muscle to work with very simple, but it’s actually another advantage to it. It’s innovated by the same nerve. The diaphragm innovated.
So if you breath into the right lung, you might sense it’s a little more expansive than the left lung for your breathing just slightly. So it even improves breathing. And this is an example of interoception, right, focused on breathing, interoception. So we had a little bit of everything movement proprioception, contraception, and interception. So anyone feel like doing the other side? Yes.
Anyone remember how to do the other side? Okay. Take your right hand, go to the front of the shoulder. So this is called chunky. So if you take the Frank and make the classes, we’re gonna show you how to chunk anatomy teaching so that people will be embodied in the end. So what is the sequence step by step, how many elements have to be in there so that everyone has the experience.
So hand in front, you just don’t say touch your subclavius. That would be what we’re. Right? Touch the front. Take shoulder forward. Tap. Now you feel that bone. Create a scoop with your fingers.
Scoop underneath Rob. Imagine you’re rubbing clay, for example. Right? Clay is gray because Klay has the property that if you touch it and gravity becomes softer, which is kind of similar to your muscles. Right? So you’re reducing what’s called viscosity. Then you take your shoulder back in front.
So this is called protraction retraction or just front back shrugging. And I hope you’re breathing. So, auction is free included in the price of this course. Right? So you get as much oxygen as you want, maybe even a shoulder circle. Can you feel how that clavicle is like doing this kind of stirring motion, very good, then just put your hand on top of the shoulder. Let’s continue right to that.
Let’s do a little squeezing of the sponge. Good. And, again, one of the functions of the imagery is to keep you with the probe instead of daydreaming and looking around like this. Yeah. Good. And they’re gonna swing from the back and just imagine you’re squeezing water out of a sponge. How many repetitions? Well, it’s up to you. 5 to 10 repetitions. But you know, it’s the interesting thing.
Once you start practicing more imagery, you get a lot better, and it changes your brain. So imagery is fabulous brain training. Right? So crossword puzzles, great going for walk, wonderful, but using imagery in combination with movement is an app sweetener for your brain. Because you’re using so much of your brain to generate these images, you’re creating new synaptic connections. This is really, really good for you. Okay? So there we have it.
Let’s do a quick review. We started with tapping. Then we did our concentration. And understanding, well, if you can’t feel what you’re doing, you can’t improve what you’re doing, or the other way to put it, paying attention, is the beginning of change. I’ll tell you another story around that. So every morning, your bank account is full.
You said, no, that’s not true. It is full of what attention? So you have a day of attention to spend. What are you gonna pay attention to? Are you gonna pay attention to little positive things you experience? Are you gonna pay attention to all the negative things? Right? I know we have days where it’s like hard to you know, focus on the positive, but you do have this account of attention.
Use it up through your day, and that’s your life. Your life is what you pay attention to. I mean, it’s not complicated. You what do you do every day? You move you feel and you have thoughts and images. That’s like the main content, whatever else you do.
So in the Franco method, we say, let’s first improve what you do most of the time because then you’re gonna get mostly better. Very wise. Right? So instead of going, yeah, I’m first gonna, you know, go and do some complex thing like that. No. Okay. What’s the quality of my thinking? Can I upgrade how I feel and we learn now in this course? You can. Right? And then let’s learn how to move efficiently and safely.
No matter what modality you do. So improving your body function, body schema will help you with whatever you do jogging, swimming, running Pilates. Right? Okay. So there we have it. Of course, there are other things too, like breathing. And in the Franco Mesa, we have classes on breathing, 1000 breads today.
Probably good to know a little bit about that. So there. Then we looked at some of the inner tools because the outer tools are more well known. Right? So the inner tools, the ones you always have with you carrying with you, you’re never gonna like, oh, my brain is over there. It’s always there. You know, ready to help you if you would like it.
And we discovered you can improve your movement with inner speaking and does research on this. So this is not just Ma and athletes queue themselves. Right? Winning athletes use inner speaking, use imagery. We learned that there’s metaphorical imagery and anatomical imagery. You learned the advantages and disadvantages of that, and we added self touch. Right? Because this helps you to feel your body better improve your proprioception.
And if you have better proprioception, you can move better. So a lot of people think, well, if you wanna move better, I gotta gain strength. And, yeah, That’s kinda true. But you also gotta gain coordination. And, also, you have to improve proprioception. So if you can’t feel your body well, you can be strong as you want.
You still won’t move well. And especially if you have, you know, like, back pain and things like that, you get distorted proprioception, wrong proprioception, lack of proprioception. So training, improving your proprioception for all you teachers is super duper important as well. Let’s do 2 more examples of the four steps and then we’re done. Yeah? So let’s take and because we’ve been standing here like this. You wanna so much standing like that. You know? But let’s remember the human body is made for upright position standing walking that. Yeah? We are kind of made for that. Not for this static like this, but we, you know, we’re pretty good at this.
So let’s lift our legs. So here we have leg lifting. You know, something you do when you go on a hike, walk upstairs, or you’re doing, you know, a plot is exercise. You’re gonna be flexing Right? Let’s start with some positive self talk to improve that. Yeah? So let’s say, my hip joints are flexible. Right? Lots of joint fluids, synovia.
Yeah. You gotta be a huge fan of synovia because synovia is, like, really important for the health of the joint. So flexible free joints. Everyone say flexible free hip joints. Flexible free hip joints.
But now let’s compare that to tie hip joints. My hip joints are so tied today. Everyone lift your tie hip joint. Anyone feel the difference? Yeah. It’s huge. I mean, what a huge difference? It’s like, what? You know, is that really like that? So beware of what you’re saying there. Right? So some people say, well, well, this is like brainwashing to say, like, yes, it is.
Exactly. Exactly. And you know why men many people can’t do mental imagery or don’t like to, because the only way you can do mental imagery is by changing your mind. If you’re not willing to try out different minds, I’m imagining a banana, I’m matching an apple, No. No. No. I can only imagine the banana. Well, if you can’t change your mind, you can’t use imagery.
If you’re the super expert, I know how it is, and this is, you know, I think not gonna work for you. So you have to be a little open. I’m gonna try different things thinking this, thinking that. Let’s see what works best for me. Yeah. So self talk kinda worked here. And we have another class, by the way, in the catalog there, where we’re gonna talk in more detail. About the hips and the pelvis, but now this, little quick thing.
So the Franco method is well known also in the Pilates world for something called the bone rhythms. So the bone rhythms describe the natural way the bones of joints move to create safe and efficient movement and a lot of pilates, but also yoga teachers, dances have adopted these bone rhythms to improve their movement and in their teaching. And one classic image that has, you know, Basically, being adopted by the Pilates world is imagining your pelvic calves as wheels. Right? So these are kinda free speeds. So the pelvic half’s being wheels that are spinning backwards as you lift your leg. So I came up with that idea over 2 decades ago. I know the Franco method is over 30 years ago started out.
So it’s a pretty, you know, honed and tested kind of thing. So the idea that your pelvic caps are wheels that spin backwards rotate backward as you lift your leg. So why don’t you put your hands here on? Your pelvis. And you kinda like rotate your hands to imagine the wheels are spinning backward as you lift your legs. Yeah? And you’re welcome.
If you wanna try the wheels on like that, you know, it’s good. Speeding backward. So there we have it. Excellent. Now that would be the metaphor version. Yeah. Everyone gets to try the spinning wheels.
Exactly. He wrote. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. They’re pretty too. Yeah. Exactly. You’re doing great.
So that would be the metaphor version, but we can also do the anatomical version. So if you touch the front of your pelvis here, There’s these, bony points that are kind of protruding, and they’re called the anterior superiorly expanse. It doesn’t really matter. Can you find them? So here it’s soft. No. Out here, no, just here in front.
You found them. Now notice this. You can really put your finger on there. When you lift your leg, that point is gonna go back. You feel that? But only on the side you’re lifting, you’re like, you feel that? Mhmm.
So that’s gonna go back. Interesting. So that actually means that the two sides of the pelvis are not moving equally. Right? They’re moving differently. And that what’s called dynamic alignment. So, I was taught static alignment.
Static alignment is kinda alignment. You would teach to a wall. Right? Where if that point stays over that point, and it stays like that hopefully all night, and we come back tomorrow, it’s the same. Right? That’s not the case with you. So if you’re going to think, okay, these two points, you know, the ASAS, anterior superior, expines, and the pubic bone, they’re all on one plane. You know, that’s one of the image you get.
And that has to stay there when you move. Well, that’s not gonna work. Right. Because when you lift one leg and you wanna be stable, a lot of movement is involved. So lift one leg and notice all the things that happen. When you lift the leg? What’s the first thing that happens when you lift the leg?
It’s not lifting the leg. Right? It’s a weight shift. Yeah. Okay. So you have to move from 2 feet as a base of support to one foot as a base of support. That’s one thing.
And then suddenly you have this huge lever, the leg moving forward, which is going to compel that pelvic have to go back. So you have different movement, right, and left, and then you can balance. And okay. Let’s change your mind about that static alignment. Keep these two points on the same level.
They have to stay the same as you lift one leg. You’re not allowed to move anything there. Let’s just keep that like that. Then lift your leg. You can’t. You literally can’t. Right?
So humans stabilize through movement. So the idea that stability is happening when you’re not moving something is biomechanically, sadly not quite correct. I daresay. Yeah? So we have to counterbalance all the time to move. So that’s one example. So to improve the lifting of the leg, we had self talk, we had a metaphor And we also had the anatomical imagery. Let’s review so by eggs or eggs are floating up like this on their own.
They’re light. They’re easy. Float them up like that, imagine a string attached to your knees, pulling your knees up, imagine a balloon under your knee floating your knee up? Yeah? Can you imagine that?
Good. And now imagine the pelvic has to be wheels spinning backward. You can saggerate. They’re spinning really rapidly. Right? Boom. Boom. Good. There we have it.
So good. Now, notice your pelvic posture stand. Anyone feels somehow the pelvis is more lifted. Yeah? Like that? Okay. So let’s move on. And last thing we’re gonna do, last example of the four steps And I choose as many things I could choose lower back.
That’s an important one. Everyone’s cheering, lower back. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Good. So first, we start with how does a lower back feel? And we have a whole class on the lower back, but this is just a quick little thingless.
Like this. So how does the lower back feel? Good. Is there room for improvement? Yeah? Okay. There’s room for improvement. So let’s everyone just flex and extends your back for a moment and say I have a flexible, comfortable, free and bounce back, say that flexible, comfortable, free back.
Let’s compare that for a moment who know my back is stuck, my back is tight. Anyone feel the difference. Huge. It’s huge. But we have a real issue with that.
So if if you’re talking to people, you know, and they tell you about their back, it’s practically always gonna be negative. You’re hardly ever gonna have anyone being exuberantly positive about their back. So I have something here for you that’s gonna work relatively fast. For most people. And it just involves some imagery and a little bit of hand intervention. We’re gonna take our knockles like this and we’re gonna rub back and forth over our lower back.
Let me demo first. So you’re gonna go back and forth like this over your lower back. If you feel like it, you’re gonna move your pelvis in opposition to your knuckles. And you can, you know, push quite a bit. You know, knuckles can really push in.
But are we breathing? You’re going in and out. So side to side. Good. Now move your knuckles up and down and we’re gonna flex and extend. So all the way go all around the lower back and knuckles like that and we’re breathing.
Good. Doing great. And now one knockle up and one knockle down like this. Good. And we can go back and forth. Like that very good. Then we’re gonna tap our back and flicks a little bit.
We’re gonna go sideways and tap our back, We’re gonna rotate and tap our back. And now we’re gonna finish with tapping our glutes. There we go. And let’s just do a little hop and tap our glutes. Good.
And now stand and notice anything happening in the lower back. So anyone feel the lower back is more released more lengthened, like lower back, more lengthened, front of the pelvis, more lifted, you feel that. Yeah? This is an important part of the exercise. When I think the exercise was all bad, no, the exercise is also your brain registering the change. Like, oh, I can have this kind of posture. Buyback can be released like that. Right?
There we go. So now after all that, we’re gonna have one final exercise. We’re just going to do 10 seconds of feeling and not thinking. Welcome back. Does that feel any easier? Does that feel any better? Anyone feel like it’s a little more fun to just be present. That’s a huge achievement.
That’s like the anti stress exercise, par excellence. You can just be, you can feel, and this here is like quieted, very healthy. Right? Now you may have heard of the term inflammation, right? So as you age, you have more information and every disease, you know, like that is associated with inflammation. How do you reduce inflammation? There’s the herbs, and there’s the food, and there’s the exercise.
And like, yeah, but you can also do it with imagery, with self talk, because inflammation follows your mood. Okay? People are unhappy to take longer to heal tend to have more pain, right? I can’t just be happy like that. Yeah. But you can do little exercises that for a moment, can, you know, let’s, like, lift the mood a little bit? That you can do. But we need to understand things like posture a little more.
And as we said in the Franco method, we look at think we first work with things that we do like a lot. And one, of course, is posturing. We spend the day in posture. So everyone’s sloughed for a moment. Like this and say, I feel great. Right? I feel great.
You know, it’s a mismatch. No. If in this posture, then take your arms up like that, hands like this, and say, I feel lousy. I don’t feel good today. Yeah. There’s also a mismatch. When you’re like, this, you’re cheering. Yeah.
You’re smiling. It doesn’t work at all. Like this. So, I mean, that is an easy direction. I’ll lift your arms like this and maybe go like this and already, you know, like that, and we’re gonna turn that into a little exercise you can do for yourself. So there are days where you, you know, you do a good job You work hard, you do everything, and you don’t get much positive feedback. Ever happened to you? Yes. Yeah. Exactly. No. No one, like, appreciates what I So you can always appreciate yourself.
So this is an self appreciation exercise designed to improve your mood. And what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna go like this, And let’s say if we’re cheering, right, if you’ve ever been at a game, you cheer like this, yay. Go. But we’re gonna cheer for ourselves. You’re gonna say your own name, whatever your name is. Right? You say your name. Go. You did great like this.
I’m gonna do it with a little bit of hopping up and down. Right? Like like this, we’re gonna say, I never just gonna do that for like 20 seconds. You you can’t wait to go, right? And just exactly. You’re already feeling better. Okay. Here we go. And up and down, yay. Good job.
Excellent. Great. You’re doing great. Congratulations. Woah, really good. Fantastic. Good. And then after that, you notice this, how you feel for a moment, you’re like, ah, you know, feels really good. Well, thank you very much intro to Franco Method and more to come. Have a wonderful day wherever you are.
And use your mind and your imagery to help yourself feel better at all times. Thank you.
