This is a stretch sequence that helps to relieve tension in the hips, legs, and spine. The motion is like squatting down, then standing back up.
Sequence Steps
- Start by standing upright with your feet about hip-width apart and pointed slightly outward.
- Find a comfortable balance point on your feet with your weight mainly on the fronts of your heels and a small amount of weight on the fronts of your feet.
- Very slightly shift your weight forward and back, then side to side to find the optimal balance point where you feel the least amount of effort to remain standing tall.
- Picture yourself very slowly squatting down to the ground. Assure yourself that a body free of tension can squat all the way down without sensing any muscle tightness. Use this assurance to quickly recognize when your body is tightening up so that you can relax those muscles before they cause a higher level of tension.
- With each exhale, imagine a wave of relaxation traveling to any tight areas of your body, releasing them from the burden they try to take while keeping your chest at the same position in space.
- Begin the squat motion by very slightly bending your knees, allowing your tailbone position to get a few millimeters closer to your feet.
- If any muscles start to grab, pause and use a few breaths to release those muscles while keeping your tailbone at the same position. Check your balance point again and shift your weight as needed to bring your weight back to the fronts of your heels.
- When you are as relaxed as you can be at this position of your tailbone, allow yourself to slowly drop a few more millimeters.
- At each of these positions, imagine your tailbone has to remain here for several minutes, finding a body positioning that will allow you to do so comfortably.
- You may find your breathing gets heavier and faster as you get lower in the squat as muscles tense up quicker, demanding more frequent exhales to relax them.
- As you get near the bottom, try to keep even the last bits of releasing the position of your tailbone slow.
- Relax for a while at the bottom of the squat. If your legs are too fatigued to slowly reverse the squat back up, just sit back and relax until you are ready to stand back up.
- When you are ready, begin to reverse the process by slowly allowing your tailbone to rise a few millimeters at a time. Try to keep each position as relaxed as possible by performing it as slowly as possible.
- As you slowly come back up to a standing pose, keep checking that your balance is still on the fronts of your heels and adjust if you are too far forward or back.
- Keep using the exhale of each breath to relax muscles as soon as they get the slightest bit of tension.
Tips:
- If any sustained or sharp pain or muscle spasm is felt during the sequence, immediately move to a comfortable position. Remember where the pain was felt so that you can steer around the pain and move more slowly and gently near that position.
- Allow your body to reorganize itself with each exhale, with the only requirement being that you keep your tailbone at the current position.
- If your inner hips start to tighten up, feel your hips opening wider on the next exhale, giving room for the hips to relax again.
- The lower you get in the squat, the more difficult it will be to remain completely relaxed. At some point, you might need to settle for some muscles being tight from that point. Keep trying to relax the nearby muscles that don’t feel as tight as your get lower.
- If your muscles start to fatigue so that you can’t keep going as slowly, feel free to speed it up a bit. When you get strong enough, you’ll be able to go very slowly all the way to the bottom.
- Keep the motion as slow as possible so that any tension that creeps in can be quickly relieved.
- If rising slowly causes too much muscle fatigue, feel free to speed up a little to make it easier.