This technique is called pelvic stability and hip mobilization. It’s really useful to learn the difference between moving your pelvis versus moving your hip. Many of us have lost that connection and this is an awareness exercise to help you reclaim control of those individual motions.

I’m going to use the block. It can be done with a rolled up towel or even flat without any props. This is going to go under my pelvis just to create a little bit of a lift.

The awareness of pelvic stability can come from many ways. If you take your hands like this into a little pointy position and place them right on the front of the pelvis, you’ll have an awareness of what moving feels like versus not moving. Relax the rest of your body and float your right leg up into this position called tabletop.

The shin is parallel to the floor and the femur bone is vertical. Lift and lower your leg in slow motion without rocking the boat. So if I weren’t stabilizing, I would move a little bit each time.

And you might even notice the shift this way through the top of your head. We want to eliminate the shift and practice lifting the leg using deep core muscles to stabilize. One more little way to wake up those deep muscles, take your peace fingers, place them on either side of your navel and press down into the fleshy part of your belly.

Then do a pretend cough. You will feel a rock of muscle jump into your hand with each cough. Then practice activating that rock-like muscle, the abdominal wall, without coughing.

This might take you a while to cultivate that deep strength, but it’s really worthy practice. Raise your leg and let your foot hang loose. This technique is called hip mobilization with pelvic stability.

I know those are fancy words. Basically it means moving your leg without moving your hips. So I’m going to place my hands on the pelvis.

I’ve got my abdominal muscles pulled in, my coughing muscle firm, and then the leg is relaxed. Visualize a paintbrush on the top of your kneecap and start small as you paint small circles on the ceiling. If I were not using this muscle group, I would be flopping all over the place.

Anchoring the left foot into the ground, I use this group. We’re keeping this anchored, moving the right leg slowly and gently. As your flexibility improves and your stability is maintained, you can open the knee out wider, using the weight of your leg to gently stretch the inner part of your thigh.

Concentrate on your breathing. Practice lifting and lowering your legs at least 10 times, and then do 10 circles in each direction on each leg. When you finish, you can end with a nice piriformis stretch.

This is often called the number 4 stretch. You dorsiflex your foot, which is this action. Place it on your knee.

Open the knee, and then you can either rock side to side, or if you’d like to deepen the experience, you can pull the leg in, either holding here, here, or if you’d like to do a little multitasking, you can hold the toes. Wherever you are, stay there for a while. Hip stretching is something you have to be patient and breathe.

You could rock side to side, or just maintain that steady pressure into that right hip for up to a minute. When you finish, bring your feet wide and gently windshield wiper your legs left to right. You could always repeat this entire sequence a second time.