The position of your hips and pelvis can have a big impact on your muscles, affecting stretching and strengthening. It can be a hard movement to master, especially since we don’t often think about moving our pelvis.
There are many ways to think about and explore tipping your pelvis forward and back. This short video from Baxter Bell of Yoga for Healthy Aging demonstrates a simple way to tip your pelvis when lying on the floor.
But my favourite way of understanding pelvis movement is from Maria Kirsten from Yoga for Grown-ups. She suggests you imagine having a head torch strapped to your bum. When you want to tip your tailbone back, think of shining your head torch behind you. If you want to tip your tailbone forward, shine your head torch forward.
To see this in action, try it in down dog. Bend your knees and lift your heels so it’s easier to move, then see if you can shine your torch up or down.
This can affect how you stretch your hamstrings (back of thighs) and your glutes (buttock muscles) and so much more!
If you want to explore more pelvis movements, see my post on tipping your pelvis side to side, or laterally.
And for the anatomy geeks, see this article on understanding your tailbone.
