What You Need to Know about the Swan

Throughout this site, you’ve read of the importance of keeping your body erect and well aligned. When your body is well balanced and properly aligned, you stand and move in concert with the force of gravity, rather than resisting it. A long, strong, flexible spine makes all of your movements more graceful, balanced, and efficient. You breathe more deeply and feel more active and alert.

When you’re stooped and bent, you encourage your muscles and joints to tighten up and grow stiff with disuse. Your posture is slouched, your abdomen falls forward, and your hips and shoulders ache. Your hip flexors and inner thighs tighten and shorten, pulling your pelvis out of alignment and stressing your back even further.

A healthy spine has three natural curves—in the neck (cervical spine), in the ribcage area (thoracic spine), and in the lower back (lumbar spine). The cervical and lumbar areas of the spine curve forward, toward the front of the body, and the thoracic spine curves backward to balance the other two. These curves should be strong yet malleable, to enable the entire spine to move with flexibility and resiliency. For example, you can’t breathe deeply if your thoracic spine doesn’t move as you inhale and exhale. The Swan promotes better flexibility throughout your spine.

In the mat-work exercises that precede the Swan, you’ve often worked lying face up on the mat, and you’ve articulated your spine and pelvis by bending forward or by lifting your legs up and in toward your torso. The sequence of Pilates mat-work exercises alternates the direction and type of the workload posed by each movement. This constant balancing of force and activity keeps all of your body’s muscles and joints evenly engaged—essential for the Pilates goal of uniform development.

The Basic Swan Exercise
To transition from the Saw to the Swan, exhale as you bring your legs together in front of you, keeping them straight and your toes softly pointed. Squeeze your legs together and inhale as you sweep them
around behind you and roll forward to lie on your belly. Exhale, scooping deeply, as you place your palms flat on the mat under your shoulders and your forehead on the mat. Then, follow these steps to do the Swan:

1. Inhale slowly as you engage your scoop by drawing your belly in and up along the front of your spine. Move your gaze forward along the mat, lift your eyes and chin, and gently arch your neck and then your upper back. Begin to press your palms into the mat, as you continue to sweep your gaze up the wall in front of you as each vertebra rises from the mat, lifting your ribs, belly (maybe even the top of your pelvis) off the mat. Continue to inhale until you’ve arched your back as far as you can without any compression or strain in your lower back, shoulders, or neck. Remember to keep your scoop, as if you’re trying to touch the front of your spine with your abdominal muscles.
2. Squeeze your abdominal corset tighter and tighter and slowly exhale as you lower first your pelvis, then your scooped abdomen, and finally your chest and head back toward your starting position. As your body lowers, stretch out along the mat to make your spine longer and more decompressed than when you started.

3. Repeat steps I and 2 three or four more times.

Things to Remember as You Do the Swan

When you finish the Swan, you should feel tall, energized, and refreshed. If you experienced any problems as you worked through this exercise, here are some ideas that might help your performance:

• Use your belly and back muscles to help lift your spine from the mat—don’t just push up with your arms. Imagine yourself as the figurehead on the prow of a boat.
• Create a uniform curve in your arching back and neck. Don’t overarch your lower back or neck to gain altitude with the Swan. Use a mirror to help you determine this.
• Use your breath and flowing natural movement to ease your body in and out of the powerful curve of this exercise, and to reduce unnecessary tension and effort.
• Be aware of the placement and position of your entire body while you concentrate on articulating your spine vertebra by vertebra.
• Time your breathing so that your lungs inhale to their fullest capacity at the very top of your arching movement, and so that you finish exhaling (squeezing that last atom of air from your lungs) when your forehead touches the mat at the end of each repetition.
• Use the oppositional energy of your tightly squeezed legs to stretch away from your scooped belly and lengthened spine.
• To properly engage and elongate your body’s muscles and joints when you begin the Swan, imagine that your spine is a spring being stretched away from your squeezing inner thighs.