Tips for Developing Your Scoop
When you perform the scoop, think about the encircling corset of muscles surrounding your Powerhouse, and draw the corset strings snug around your waist. Feel how the scoop creates powerful support for your organs and spine, and thereby forms a strong foundation to support the movement of your limbs.

Pelvic Rocking Mini-Exercise
Follow these steps of the Pelvis Rocking mini-exercise to learn how your pelvis moves from a curl through a neutral posture into an arch, and what is a safe range of motion for you today:
1. Lie in your fundamental mat posture and press your feet down into the mat and slightly back toward your hips (without actually moving them).
2. To begin curling your pelvis off the mat, draw your hamstring muscles up the back of your thighs toward your knees as you scoop your abdominals in and up the front of your spine. As your hamstrings
contract, allow them to gently pull your sitz bones with them off the mat, curling your pelvis away from your body. This is a very small movement; rise only until your sitz bones are about 2 or 3 inches off the mat. This is your healthy end-range of pelvic motion in the curl phase of the Pelvic Rocking mini-exercise. In the curl phase, your lower back is decompressed and your abdominals are scooped.

To get the most from this phase of the Pelvic Rocking mini-exercise, keep these points in mind:

• As your sitz bones rise away from you, your lower back lengthens and moves closer to (or perhaps even touches) the mat. Your pelvis, sacrum, and lumbar vertebrae sequentially elongate and articulate, curling off the mat until you reach your waist. Don’t pull your pubic bone back toward you or press your lower back into the mat.
• Allow the lengthening of your pelvis away from your ribcage to scoop your abdominals up along the front of your spine.
• Keep your knees 3 or 4 inches apart; keeping good leg alignment during the curl engages your hamstrings and inner thighs.

In a curl, your body is gently elongated on a shallow diagonal toward your knees—stretched like pulled taffy. This movement should feel great. Your lower back should be gently flexed, lengthened, and relaxed; your abdominals stretched and gently scooped; and your spine decompressed. If you crunch your abdominals, contract your back, or grip your gluteals, you will inappropriately shorten (tuck) rather than lengthen (curl). A curl is decompressed and elongated, and pulls you into a streamlined, centered unity.
With each repetition, your pelvic range of motion will evolve, so remember to remain aware of your body’s capabilities and responses as it develops increased strength and balance.

The Arch
The second step of the Pelvic Rocking mini-exercise is to move into the arch:

1. Sequentially roll your lumbar spine, sacrum, and pelvis down onto the mat, lengthening your hamstrings and lowering your sitz bones.
2. Maintain your abdominal scoop as you continue to rotate your pelvis away from you until your pubic bone, tailbone, and sitz bones are pointing on a long shallow diagonal toward your heels. Your lower back is gently extended and arched away from the mat. As with the curl, this is a very small movement. This is your healthy end-range of pelvic motion in the arch phase of the Pelvic Rocking mini-exercise.

In the arch phase of the Pelvic Rocking mini-exercise, remember these points:

• Don’t strain, crunch, push, or overextend your lower back up off the mat in your arch. Even in extension (arch), your spine is long and decompressed.
• Maintain your scoop even as your pelvis rotates away.
• Allow the movement to gently shift your ribs, neck, and head but in a very small range.

The Neutral Posture
Finally, to find your neutral posture, continue with these steps:

1. Rock gently back and forth between the arch and the curl five or six times.
2. Continue your Pilates breathing and scoop, and make the rocking movement smaller and smaller, until you find a still pelvic posture somewhere equally balanced between the arch and curl. This is your healthy neutral pelvic posture today. In neutral, your pubic bone and hipbones are approximately level with each other and parallel to the mat.

Performing the Knee Folds
This exercise improves your pelvic stability. To correctly stabilize your pelvis, you engage your abdominal corset and the muscles surrounding your peMs, including your gluteals, inner thighs, pelvic floor, deep hip rotators, and hamstrings, just enough to do the job that is required—not too much and not too little. In the case of Knee Folds, you will need one level of stabilization when you lift one leg at a time, and greater stabilization when you lift both legs off the mat. This pelvic stabilization action is purely muscular and does not move your bones. In other words, you maintain a neutral pelvic posture. Don’t arch or curl your pelvis as you lift or lower your legs.

To do the Knee Folds mini-exercise, follow these steps:

1. Lie in your fundamental mat posture, and this time gently squeeze your legs and feet together. Engage the muscles of your corset and pelvis to stabilize as you prepare to move.

2. Inhale with deep Pilates breathing, allowing the air to expand your ribs in all directions, lengthening your scoop up under the ribcage like the undertow of a wave. Use this lengthening of your scoop to lift one leg and crease it deeply at the hip joint as you fold your knee in toward your chest. Imagine you’re balancing a full teacup on your pubic bone to keep your pelvis still, and be careful not to spill the tea as you move your leg.

Use precise control as you perform Knee Folds. Maintain a neutral pelvis (no curling or arching) and your scoop, lengthening your abdominals so they help stabilize your pelvis and spine against the weight of your moving leg. Don’t allow your rectus abdominis muscles to shorten (making your belly bulge).
Continue with the following steps:

3. Exhale, cinching your corset to maintain a stable pelvis as you lower your leg to the mat.
4. Repeat steps 1 through 3 four times with the same leg. Switch to your other leg, and repeat the movement five times.

Gaining Skill with the Upper Body Curl
The Upper Body Curl is a difficult and complex mini-exercise. You can modify it with one of the following changes:

1. Lift your upper body less far off the mat.
2. Place one hand behind your head to help hold the weight of your head, reaching the other arm down along your side a couple of inches off the floor.

The second modification cuts down on the effort required of your abdominal muscles, so you can elongate your rectus abdominis more and scoop your belly deeper. Deepening your scoop builds the strength and control you’ll need to eventually be able to curl without assistance.

A correct Upper Body Curl is powerful; during it, your body’s joints and muscles are decompressed, long, and well articulated. Here are some images that can help you attain this standard:

Before Going on to Mat-Work Exercises
As you’ve learned in each of the preceding sections, your body will
grow stronger, more balanced, and capable as you gain practice in
Pilates. So remember that your mastering of the fundamental skills of
Pilates movement learned in this site will remain a work in progress. Be true to your present fitness level and capabilities. Don’t criticize or condemn. Know that your technique with each of these movements will change and grow over time; that kind of evolution is central to the practice and philosophy of the Pilates method of body conditioning. By being honest with yourself and allowing the process to unfold, you guarantee that Pilates will continue to offer you a safe, lifelong method for remaining healthy, fit, and vital.