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Full Saturday Class

This is the full, uninterrupted class from Saturday, January 28th. You’ll get lots of details and options in the full class. For a more concise practice, find the shorter video clips + Q&A below.

Time Stamps:

00:00 - 11:38 - welcome, “What is strength, and how do we build it into our ‘white stuff’ (connective tissue)?”

11:38 - 14:35 - brief description/overview of what spine CARs are and how they’re done

14:35 - 20:40 - neck (cervical) CARs guided

20:40 - 24:29 - mid-back (thoracic) CARs guided

24:29 - 32:07 - low back (lumbar/lumbosacral) CARs guided and final thoughts* on spine CARs

32:07 - 01:00:31 - Q&A (in detail below)

* I say here that you “always do [spine CARs] in sections” (IE upper, mid, low back) but you can do them as one full-spine CAR motion. It’s just harder to keep good control over each section when you do them all at once. The advantages of doing them together are that you get more junction/hinge point integration (IE you get to ‘blend’ each section into the next at those junctions/transition points), and full spine CARs take less time. For now, get used to doing each section on its own until you feel you’ve mastered them.

Practice Videos

Spine CARs practice

We dive right into

• an intro breath + tension r&r setup, then

• CARs for each of the spine’s sections (cervical/neck, thoracic/mid, lumbosacral/low),

in one simple flow with a few cues to help you along. Move to this video as often as you need, until you get the general sense of what you’re doing. Remember, you can do spine CARs standing, squatted, seated, in table-top/quadruped (though mid-back CARs in table-top is a bit tricky) - whatever position feels most supportive to you.

Class Q&A

Time Stamps:

00:00 - 03:16 - “When I do CARs, I feel a stretch on the opposite side of where I’m doing the work. Is that ok?”

03:16 - 05:40 - “Should my low back be moving when I’m doing mid back CARs?”

• I give a weird answer here because I’m initially thinking about stabilizing mid back, to do neck CARS. I don’t lean forward to do mid back CARs, but I do like to do them seated to keep the low back more still.

05:40 - 07:36 - “Will these spine CARs help with my hip pain?” (and why you can finally stop chasing pain)

07:36 - 08:45 - “What props will help me do spine CARs better?”

08:45 - 09:47 - “Do I have to stand to do spine CARs?”

09:47 - 10:22 - “Is cat/cow part of spine CARs?” (spoiler alert: yes)

10:22 - 11:11 - Why you can stop chasing a lot of your pain when you just start doing regular full-body CARs

11:11 - 12:49 - “How do I integrate fluid tension r&r in spine CARs?”

12:54 - 16:24 - “My low back feels sore after low back CARs. Should I change something?”

16:24 - 19:12 - “When I feel pain, do I slow down and lower tension, or do I skip over the movement for that day?”

20:11 - 23:45 - “What do I do if the opposing (stretching) tissue ‘freaks out’/tenses during the CARs movement flow?”

23:45 - 24:07 - “My spine feels so good after so few movements. This is the dream.” Yes, yes it is.

24:07 - 25:23 - Here’s your new mantra: “Go slow to go far.”

26:39 - 27:45 - The journey of building body strength/safety isn’t linear.