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Tuesday Teaching TipnI recently had an interesting conversation with a client about this exercise, the Spine Stretch. She really wanted to feel where the effort was; she was searching for ‘the burn’. It took a little while to talk her down from that perspective. You can see in the video I do several reps, two in relatively good classical form, two in the thrusting dive forward that the client was trying to do, and then two more good reps. Her focus was on how forcefully she could dive forward, thinking that this was the big effort for the exercise. She was missing out on two fundamental points implicit in all Pilates exercises: whole body movement and spinal mobility. nWe start bringing the the arms forward, moving through the shoulders and shoulder blades with ease, not closing down with tension. nWe then flex forward through the spine, articulating through each vertebral joint down the spine to open space through the posterior space of these joints, through into hip flexion. The arms are actively reaching forward, increasing the shoulder flexion and pulling the shoulder blades further apart to release the posterior shoulder girdle muscles.nWe stack the vertebrae back to vertical, activating all of the deep to superficial back extensors sequentially up the spine, lifting the vertebrae up off each other to our ideal spinal alignment. Pressing down through the sitz bones and thighs further integrates the whole posterior kinetic chain. The passive arm release back to a neutral shoulder position teaches the brain that while one part of the body may be actively working, another part can be releasing.nWhen done well, the Spine Stretch opens each and every vertebral joint through the posterior side, as well as then returning back to perfect posture, tractioning the vertebrae apart as we reach this alignment. Effectively this works the spine from both front and back, developing the strength to support the mobility through each vertebral joint. We learn how to move through the shoulder girdle with ease rather than binding down in tension. And we work through active hip flexion and extension. nA full body experience with a supple spine = Pilates.