Welcome To The Verbal Cueing Forum

Movements of the Ribs

  • General
  • Breathing

Movements of the Spine

  • Flexion of The Entire Spine
  • Flexion of The Lumbar Spine
  • Flexion of The Thoracic Spine
  • Flexion of The Cervical Spine
  • Extension of The Entire Spine
  • Extension of The Lumbar Spine

Movements of the Pelvis

  • General
  • Lateral Glide of The Hip/Hip Hiking (unilateral)
  • Finding Neutral
  • Flexion/Extension of the Hip (12 o’clock/6 o’clock)
  • Rotation of the Low Back (3 o’clock/9 o’clock)
  • Pelvic Clocks
  • Coccyx Curls
  • Contralateral Rotation
  • Lateral Glide of the Hip/Hip Hiking (unilateral)
    • From Standing or Supine
    • From Supine Only

Accessing Deep Abdominals

  • Pelvic Floor Activation
  • Men Specific
  • Narrowing of the Sit Bones
  • TA activation

Accessing Deep Back Muscles/Multifidi

  • General

Accessing Whole Inner Unit: Powerhouse – (TA, multifidi, PFM, diaphragm)

  • During Non-movement Phase/Static
  • During Movement Phase/Active
  • General Activation During Any Phase of Movement

Movements of the Shoulder Girdle

  • Movement of the Scapula
  • Movement of the Humerus
  • Humeral Glide Into Shoulder Socket
  • Movement of Shoulder Joint/Glenohumeral Joint

Scapular Stability

[learn_more caption=”While Arms Are Weight Bearing and Fixed:”]

Shoulder in Flexion –

  • Keep the shoulder blades gently but firmly hugging the back as the arms move higher than the shoulder.
  • Feel the shoulder blades like a pendulum, allow them to drop and wrap around the ribs and forward toward the armpits as the arms rise up. (As in the out portion of long stretch.)
  • Keep the space between the shoulder blades wide and the armpits drawn down like you were wearing a tight vest.
  • Not only draw into the under arms and hug the ribs, but feel the sides of the body lengthen and the effort drop into your obliques and deep abdominals for support as the arms move further overhead.

Shoulder in Extension –

  • Press the chest open and stand firmly into the arms as if they were legs. (As in long back stretch or leg pull back/up.)
  • Supine – Stand into your shoulder blades as if they were feet. (Tiffany DeMartin)
  • Supine – Keeping the neck free and easy, feel the shelf of your upper shoulders get broad and press into the upper arms.

Shoulder in Abduction –

(As in side plank, mermaid, or any side arm support movement.)

  • Press through the palm feeling the strength of the entire arm, while keeping the elbow and shoulder joint soft, not locked.
  • Slightly rotate the upper arm outward and the lower arm inward feeling the two subtle spirals help support the weight of the body.
  • Feel your shoulder blade draw down the inside of your ribcage and lift it toward the ceiling feeling a long, unbroken line being created from hip to shoulder.

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Femur Glide/Leg Movement

[learn_more caption=”Internal/Medial Rotation:”]

  • Imagine seams running down the front of your thighs and think of rolling those seams toward each other. (Variation from Lily Vickers)
  • Feel as if your inner seams of your pants were being pulled backward toward the wall behind you.
  • Relax the front of your hips, allowing the knees and feet to roll inward toward each other and the sit bones to widen.

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”External/Lateral Rotation:”]

  • Wrap the backs of your inner thighs toward one another.
  • Try to expose your inner pant seams to the front of the room.
  • Imagine magnets on the knobby points on the outside of each knee and feel those magnets gently rotate the outer leg backward.
  • Allow the upper thigh bones to spiral outward away from one another until you feel the knees and feet being gently pulled along and into alignment.

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Lateral Glide: Abduction/Adduction:”]

  • Imagine the hip like a mortar and pestle, slide the leg back and forth as if dusting a fine powder.
  • Think of the top of your leg bone like a paintbrush, as your leg glides right to left paint gentle strokes inside the hip socket. (Chantill Lopez)
  • As you open and close your legs draw a straight line with your toes.
  • Open the legs feel the outer hip crease deepen. Close the legs and feel as if you could lift the inner legs upward toward the pelvis.

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Circumduction:”]

  • Imagine the femur is a spoon stirring a bowl that is your hip socket. (Matt Lueders)
  • As you stir your leg in the hip socket imagine your leg bone like a toothpick trying to pierce an olive deep in side the hip. (Marie Jose-Bloom variation.)
  • Paint circles on the ceiling with your toes (knee).
  • Let your leg swirl in your hip socket as if caught in a whirlpool. (Chantill Lopez)

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Hip Flexion:”]

  • Fold the front of the thigh/leg bone deep into the pocket/socket of the hip.
  • Imagine an olive deep in the hip and your leg as the toothpick that is going to pierce it. (Marie Jose-Bloom)
  • Allow your leg to drop into your hip socket.
  • Invite your leg bone into the back of your hip socket as if you could draw it through the back of the pelvis (through the mat etc.)

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Hip Extension:”]

  • Prone – Reaching out like you will kick the wall next to you.
  • Prone – Keeping the knees straight think of pressing the ceiling away with the back of your thighs.
  • Feel as if there was a heavy weight on your tailbone pulling your tail down and under and drawing your pubic bone up toward your nose.
  • Standing – Imagine a magnet on your pubic bone and your sternum. Feel public bone being drawn upward opening the front of the hips.
  • Prone – Let your pubic bone weight into the mat.

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Flexion at the Hip w/ Knee Flexion (as in plies):”]

  • As the knee bends and the hip creases feel the outward spiral of the top of the leg, allowing the knee to continue to track over the second and third toe.
  • As you bend the knees allow the sit bones to widen and the low back to relax into a gently deeper curve. (Eric Franklin variation.)
  • As you bend the knees feel the sit bones widen and the top of the pelvis narrow activating the deep inner corset of abdominals and back muscles. (Eric Franklin variation.)

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Extension at the Hip w/ Knee Flexion (as in grasshopper or bow pose):”]

  • Deepen the crease of where the butt and leg meet without changing the lower back curve.
  • Absorb the thigh bone into the butt. (Marie Jose-Bloom)
  • Activate (or press) the back of the hip right where the butt and thigh meet (the thutt).
  • Feel the upper leg bone slightly inwardly rotate as the hip extends.
  • Open the front of the hip.

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Inner Thigh Engagement

[learn_more caption=”Open Chain:”]

  • Draw the upper most part of the inner thighs together.
  • Imagine magnets at your upper inner thighs, inner knees and ankles. Draw all three points together simultaneously.
  • Zip up the thighs from the sit bones to the ankles.
  • Imagine being in water and the moment in breaststroke when the legs squeeze together through the water.
  • Draw the legs together like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube. (Chantill Lopez)

[/learn_more]

Foot/Ankle Positioning – COMING SOON!

[learn_more caption=”Stabilization:”]

Stabilizing the Foot in Standing

Stabilizing the Foot When Knee and Hip are Flexing

Stabilization of Ankle While in Open Chain (feet in the straps)

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Mobilization:”]

Through Plantar & Dorsi Flexion

Through Supination/Pronation

Ankle Circumduction

Talus Glide (as in walking)

Forefoot Narrowing and Fanning (as in jumping)

Lateral Glide of 1st Metatarsal

Fanning of the Toes

[/learn_more]

Motivational

[learn_more caption=”On Working Hard/Pushing Past the Norm:”]

  • Hold hands with the discomfort and know that it will lead you to where change lives. (Carrie Stillman)
  • Stay calm in spite of working hard. (Carrie Stillman)
  • This is not life or death…it’s just Pilates! (Carrie Stillman)
  • Feeling like you might fall over or burst into flames is a good thing…that’s where you learn how to punch fear in the face, (Carrie Stillman)

[/learn_more]

Thought Provoking

[learn_more caption=”Self Compassion:”]

  • Treat you mind and body with respect. Just the way you want them to treat you. (Carrie Stillman)
  • Notice where your attention is? Is it in the room, out in the future or in your body?
  • Notice the difference between hard and soft areas of your body. What’s helping you move and what is hindering you from moving?

[/learn_more]

Effecting Quality

[learn_more caption=”Enhancing Confidence:”]

  • Allow yourself to be exactly where you are.
  • Acknowledge your edge today. Trust that every day is different and your potential is limitless.
  • Practice makes patient not perfect.
  • We are all perfectly asymmetrically.
  • The goal is to move better not perfectly.
  • We can only move/work from/improve from where we are – not from where we wish we were.
  • There is no should. If it’s true and happening, if it is the way it is than it is exactly as it should be. Wishing it to be some other way only takes us further from how we want it to be. (Taken from Byron Katie)

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Softening:”]

  • Happy shoulders slide up. Happy shoulders slide down. (Eric Franklin)
  • Imagine what it would feel like to enjoy every movement your body makes. Allow that feeling to infuse even the most challenging movements.
  • As you move let your whole body smile, from your face to your internal organs. (Chantill Lopez – taken from a meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh)
  • Soften your eyes, your pallet and your inner ears and feel your whole body begin to soften.
  • Notice any areas of your body where you might be over-efforting. Bring as much softness into those areas without loosing the strength of your movement.
  • While keeping all of the soft tissue firmly contracted and strong allow all the joints to feel buoyant and soft. (Amy Taylor Alpers) *Particularly effective in the knees/legs.
  • As you stand feel every single one of your joints is light and floating, everything is airy and buoyant like you were in water. (Amy Taylor Alpers variation)
  • Each time you breathe in feel that there is more spaciousness in the body. As you breathe out feel the strength in your body without collapsing that space.
  • Do everything with 50% less effort.
  • Imagine the footbar is made of glass.
  • Feel your head balanced on top of your neck loose like a bobble-head.
  • Feel all the vertebra of the neck like little flags being blown back by the wind. (Taken from Eric Franklin image)
  • Imagine the very top of your neck as a shallow bowl full of water and your head balances like a smooth shiny ball lightly balanced inside of it.
  • As you take a step (push out from the footbar, push in to the straps, etc.) imagine your ankles lubricated and slide over the joint with ease.
  • When you come back into the footbar allow your entire foot, arch, toes and heel to melt over the footbar. (Prehensile toes/bird feet)
  • Every time you press down into the straps with your arms allow your face and sternum to relax a little more.

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Dramatic/Hard:”]

  • Feel your arms reach out into infinity.
  • Imagine a spear about to spike you in the belly, sternum (swan on the chair).
  • Curl up and over a sharp spiked fence.
  • Imagine being sandwiched between two sheets of barbed wire. (Devra Swiger)
  • Stretch your arms out to touch each side of the room.
  • Imagine sitting on a hotplate that’s 300 degrees, lifting the spine as tall as possible throughout the movement. (Devra Swiger)

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Enhancing Inner Awareness:”]

  • As you move bring your attention to one sensation or area of the body that you’ve never noticed before. (Chantill Lopez)
  • With every repetition try to make the movement easier as if that were your only goal. (Feldenkrais concept)
  • Draw your attention inward and scan your body (or a specific part of the body) as if you could shine a flashlight on all the internal nooks and crannies. (Eric Franklin variation)
  • Close your eyes and focus only on the sound of your breath.
  • Close your eyes and focus only on the feeling of your body moving through space.

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Enhancing Self Correcting:”]

  • Are you breathing?
  • Notice the difference between hard and soft areas of your body. What’s helping you move and what is hindering you from moving?
  • Where are your shoulders when you press your arms down (roll down, etc.)?
  • Are you aware of how hard your neck is working? (Exchange for any body part)

[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Lightening Up:”] [/learn_more]  

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Articles and Resources on Cueing

[learn_more caption=”Interviews”] Linguist and Pilates teacher Devra Swiger – Find out the difference between hard and soft language, how cueing might be different for a class versus a one-on-one, what to avoid with your language, how to effectively vary your words, the importance of verb choice, the value of NOT TALKING, the difference between action and intention, and what gives some teachers a leg up in the verbal cueing department.[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Exercises:”] The Power of Verbs – A Brainstorming Exercise[/learn_more] [learn_more caption=”Internal links:”]

[learn_more caption=”External Links”]