#hipwork

Check your posture before you begin - send your tailbone down, open up front upper body, be aware of your face, arms, and hands.

Hip lifts from the oblique:

This is a oblique-inititated hip lift. A good way to practice these is to stand on one leg and practice lifting and dropping the hip on the same side as your foot in the air. Watching your oblique muscle in the mirror or resting your hand on it can help your brain make the connection between hip lift and oblique contraction. Keeping your foot in the air prevents you from using knee bending and straightening to produce a hip lift/drop on that side. Make sure your glute muscle is staying relaxed, too. Make sure you practice both sides!

Now with both feet flat on the floor, make sure your knees are soft, and try your oblique contractions on alternating sides. You should feel as though your obliques are pulling your hips up. Your knees may bend and straighten slightly as a *reaction* to your oblique contraction-initiated hip lift. Imagine you’re hanging from the aerial contraption of your choice using your upper body – lower body dangling in the air. This visualization may help you imagine having to pull your hips up for a hip lift (rather than pushing them up from the ground). Keep your legs and glutes relaxed!

Check your posture before you begin - send your tailbone down, open up front upper body, be aware of your face, arms, and hands.

Hip lifts from the glute:

This is a glute-inititated hip lift. A good way to practice glute contractions is to sit on the floor in wide V stretch, or lay on your tummy with legs relaxed and flat. Practice contracting R glute and release, then L glute and release. Keep your other muscles relaxed – low belly, quadriceps, hamstrings all might want to engage when you engage your glutes and you want to practice keeping them relaxed – this awareness will be important when you stand up for glute drills. Over time with this drill you’ll be able to fire more muscle fibers and your glute contraction will have more POW!

Stand up, make sure your knees are soft, and try your R glute contraction, release, L glute contraction, release. Your knees may bend and straighten slightly as a *reaction* to your glute contraction-initiated hip lift. The biggest (pun intended) thing to watch for is a big hip movement right off the bat – your glute contraction-hip lift will probably be very small to start with if you are truly keeping your legs and obliques out of it.

Check your posture before you begin - send your tailbone down, open up front upper body, be aware of your face, arms, and hands.

Hip lifts from the leg:

This is a skeletal move - relying on one leg being straighter to push one hip up. Bend both knees a little deeper than your home position to begin. Let one knee come almost straight - make sure not to straighten it fully or lock it! - and let the other stay more deeply bent. Then simply alternate. You are using your hamstring and quadricep to straighten and bend your knee, but your other muscles (like obliques and glutes) should be relaxed. Poke yourself in the butt and obliques to check that these muscles are not engaging.

Check your posture and then ground yourself through your right foot. Get some nice even hip lifts going and then lift your left foot (just a little!) off the ground. Use a little support under one hand (the back of a chair?) if you need to – but try not to just lean on it. Make sure your left hip and right hip are still even and your hip lifts look symmetrical. When your standing leg starts to get tired, switch legs.

Now try taking slow steps with your hip lifts. Try hip lifts full time (1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 = R L R L R L R L) and with a step on every time you count “1”. This means your first step will be right foot, with right hip lift (both of these happen on 1). Then you’ll be lifting left hip (2), right hip (3), left hip (4). Then on you’ll be stepping left foot, and lifting right hip (1). Continue with full time hips and quarter time steps.

Try full time hips and half time steps.

Warm up for your dance practice with walking hips on the down. Focus on holding good home posture and keeping your upper body still.

Ready to add to it?

Add a simple arm pattern like arm circles

...or a more complex pattern: right snake arm, left snake arm, arms float up to fifth, right hand ripples while right arm travels down left side of body and then back out to shoulder height, then left hand ripples with left hand traveling down right side of body and then back out to shoulder height - focus on smooth and juicy arms with sharp hips