The first thing you notice about Tamara is her exquisite beauty, then she speaks and you're struck by the sultry, soulful resonance in her voice and then she moves and you see the result of years of perfection-driven athletic training. Then you notice a slight twist in her spine. Then you ask questions and learn that she's broken her tailbone once in a figure skating fall and that she broke it again giving birth to her son.
After both breaks, her spine slowly and slightly turned and remains such in honor of the injury.
I first met Tamara in September 2007 in Geneva where she owns a beautiful Pilates studio. In addition to taking my workshops - I've taught in Geneva 3 times in the past year - she's also taken privates from me and I've begun learning her body and how she works it.
My first agenda item in working with her in privates was to get her working aggressively on straightening out her spine. I suggested several daily exercises that address the curves in her spine, hoping at the least that they don't worsen and at the most that we can pull them back toward plumb. She's diligent in doing those exercises and her progress is plainly visible.
The Problem
Earlier this summer, she wrote with a question about how to solve a painful problem on rolling exercises, especially Open Leg Rocker.
Where her coccyx healed, a bump of bone formed and it's in her way when she rolls through her spine to her tailbone. Rolling over it is just like hitting a speed bump going 50; it's destabilizing, it hurts and the bobble it creates is so great that good form is not possible.
I've taught Tamara, as I teach everyone, how to use Ron Fletcher's bolts (see below for full description) to stabilize the pelvis but Tamara is unable to keep her bolts tight during rolling because hitting the bump acts as a reset button, she momentarily loses her stability, and often can't get it back in time to turn the movement around and come back the other way.
This is what I call a flame out and flame outs are bad whenever they occur but they're especially bad on the more dynamic Pilates exercises where stability and control are essential.
Fletcher Bolts
A significant portion of Ron's genius is in his descriptions of things; he's the Matisse of Pilates - just a word or two and suddenly, he's given it to you, you've got it and you're moving on. He came up with this use of imagery to help his students fix their hips and not only does he teach it all the time but this and some other nifty shortcuts to excellent form are on all his instructional dvd's. Go to http://fletcherwork.com/ for more information.
Using Ron's bolts is an easy way to stabilize your pelvis. It is essentially foolproof and you can do it in any position but at first, it's usually easiest if you practice it laying down on your back, knees bent, body relaxed.
Imagine you've got 4 big bolts. Contrary to most of Pilates where size does not, in fact, matter, the size of your imaginary bolts is of the utmost importance. For most of us, our bolts are about 5" long but if you're supersized, your bolts need to be supersized, too. Proper imaginary bolt size is important because you're going to screw them into your pelvis from 4 directions and once in the tips of your imaginary bolts need to almost meet in the very middle of you.
If your imaginary bolts are too short, you'll miss a bunch of muscle fiber. If your imaginary bolts are too long, you'll over-screw yourself and this, my dear Pilates soulmate, is a terrible thing to do. Enough said.
Begin with two bolts coming in from the sides, just above the hip socket, half way between the front and the back of your body.
Resist the urge to gunk up the muscles on the outside of your body. Remember, muscles can only pull, they can't push, and your glutes are on the outside of your pelvis and we're trying to use the muscles on the inside your pelvis because they'll pull the bones of your pelvis together which is how muscular stabilization works.
Leave your glutes out of it, okay? Okay.
Try to screw in those side bolts by pulling inward toward the very pin-point-laser-beam-middle-of-you, muscularly turning those bolts so they screw into your pelvis all the way until their tips are barely an inch apart. I imagine mine with a very slight quiver, as if the strength of my engagement is causing a pelvic harmonic convergence.
With the side bolts firmly in place, your SI joints are stable and your pubic symphisis is nicely nuzzled. Now it's time to turn our attention to the other set of imaginary bolts, the ones that come in from the front and back of your pelvis.
The front bolt screws in just above that public symphysis and the back bolt screws in just above your coccyx where it meets your sacrum. These bolts must be pulled inward from that very pin-point-laser-beam-middle-of-you, and the draw in is an elegant, deep and very soothing feeling from, well, that very pin-point-laser-beam-middle-of-you.
Slight Digression But Topic Related
Did you know the only muscle to cross the SI is the multifidus? There are other structures that cross it, but the only thing we can strengthen is muscle so our only hope to strengthen SI joints is by using the multifidus. I think that's just the neatest thing . . . the best hope for help in a joint that bothers so very many people is a vast system of tiny muscles that just so happen to be the cornerstone of the Pilates method. Way to go, Joe.
When the front and back bolts are all the way in, they too tingle with their tips just an inch or so away from each other.
Now it's time to integrate your stable pelvis with your spine. Isn't this fun!!
The tips of all 4 imaginary bolts form a circular opening that you can imagine your spine descending through - that's the cherry on top of the pelvic stability sundae. Voila - when you imagine the continuation of your spine descending through the circular quivering opening created by the tips of the 4 imaginary bolts, we've achieved pelvic stability. Yay!
This is hugely important in Pilates because it's hugely important in proper human movement. The pelvis is the turnstile of the body, the place through which power, load and movement passes, it's also the keystone of the body since it's the structure on which your spine rests. Wow!
The Fletcher Bolts are a great way to fix almost any silly business going on "down there." Practice doing it over and over again. Then practice teaching it over and over again.
Ron's Bolts were a big part of Tamara's fix.
Solution Background
Having worked with Lakewood Winter Club, the best figure skaters in the Northwest, for several years, I knew just what to do for Tamara.
When a skater falls on their butt, the ice always wins and often the tailbone and/or sacrum is injured. I've fallen down a couple flights of marble stairs and have had a tailbone/pelvic injury myself and as a hack skater for about 8 years as a kid, I've also fallen on the ice and had trouble walking as a result. In fact, my left ilium is an upslip from a skating fall and my right ilium is cupped under from that stairway fall.
My pelvis is a twisted mess but it never hurts. When orthopedists and PTs look at my x-rays and MRI's, they cannot believe I'm not in pain. But I never am. And I'm super active and I'm always doing some crazy thing or other with my body. The reason I'm not in pain is simple. Joe Pilates knows why. Any good athletic trainer knows why.
I'm not in pain and can do almost anything I want to with my body because . . . I'm freakishly strong.
Muscle is the answer. And, yay Pilates, muscle is our domain.
We can't do a darn thing about our tendons, our ligaments, our bones or discs. But we have everything to say about our muscles and, fortunately, muscle fixes a lot. My back and hips are fully functional because I'm super strong and that trumps the type of structure mash up I've lived with since childhood. Muscle Rocks!
And what's more, I'm in the slow process of turning my own right ilium and have made excellent progress. I intend to pull it back into alignment, not even with my upslipped left, but to square it anteriorly so my right leg lengthens and connects to the work of movement and load, equally with my left side and my left leg. I often show this very maneuver of muscularly turning my hip, always to gasps and sometimes to applause. It's a totally cool party trick. Next time you see me, I'll do it for you.
But it took me a couple years of studying this to figure it out. In the process, I've definitely become a bit pelvic-obsessed.
I've had to study my own x-rays, do lots of self-exam to learn my bony landmarks and correlate those to my x-rays and I've also spent hours just plain staring in the mirrior to try and match up what I see to what the x-rays show.
Education Nightmare!
Important to note: although one of the two owners of Romana's training center here in Seattle has a Masters in PT, in the year I was in that program she never helped with my alignment issues, never wanted to see my x-rays, wouldn't answer questions about what might be wrong with my pelvic alignment and her only and infrequent refrain to address it was "sit on that right hip," which, of course, is not the solution.
What a missed opportunity.
But I figured it out myself, which is usually the way things go in this life.
The Solution
Back to Tamara: Knowing her body as I do and knowing some prop use that helps with sore backsides, I emailed her back with a plan.
1. Make a trench using thick rubber pads, about an inch apart, just wide enough for your bumpy coccyx to smoothly move through the trench with your ischial tuberosities rolling to and fro on the pad.
2. Bolt like you've never bolted before and you're ready to roll, but . . .
3. Start with Rolling Like a Ball, the easiest safest rolling exercise, then build proficiency thru the rolling repertoire until you're all the way through to Boomerang.
Result
It worked!
And she felt a good and deep stretch across her hips like never before. She's continuing to work on rolling and hopefully, by the time I see her again next Spring, she'll have her Boomerang looking as fabulous as the rest of her.
PS: Tamara came to the PMA conference in Phoenix last week, she was the model for one of my two Pilates Style Magazine stories we've got in the bank, I think the story featuring Tamara is going to run early next summer.
God's grace is all around us but it's a special treat when so much kindness, beauty, passion and wisdom come together in one fabulous package - I love Tamara!
