Swan
From experience, I can say that addressing the alignment of the pelvis and spine is the single most important aspect of Swan.
When you understand it in your body, whether you are a student or a teacher, you will approach all spine extension exercises with confidence.
It’s always interesting to watch the moment this “clicks.”
Once the pelvis and spine are organized, Swan stops feeling like a struggle and starts making sense.
Have you experienced that shift yet?
I once heard someone say:
"If we had eyes in the back of our body, we would probably have a much better relationship with it."
While that may not be literally true, the areas we pay less attention to often become weaker, stiffer, and less coordinated over time.
The upper and middle back can be particularly difficult to truly “get in touch" with—that’s why exercises like Swan are so valuable.
They bring awareness, movement, strength, and attention to an area of the body that many people have a hard time connecting to.
Reconnecting to the upper back can feel surprisingly empowering. It is often a part of the body people have not moved well in years.
I would first make sure you had learned, understood, and practiced the three positions of the pelvis in relation to your lower back.
I know from experience that once you can recognize and control those positions, you can better stabilize your lower back to avoid compressing it.
This is what I explain and demonstrate in my course: What Pilates Is: The Essential Skills: learn the skills separately, then bring them into your Pilates exercises.
If I Were Teaching You Swan...
Back extension exercises can be tricky.
As a person with no background in dance or gymnastics, personally, I had to first understand in my body what it even meant to “bend the spine” in that direction and how to avoid compression.
Most of all, I had to get comfortable doing that, since I had no point of reference from prior experience.
I still find it amusing that my spine bends better now than it did 30 years ago and that I feel graceful doing it.
From my own experience, and from watching numerous others’ experiences progressing through their Pilates journeys, I can say with confidence:
If you find these back extension exercises challenging, be patient, trust the method and the process, and you will see results.
But be prepared—it will take time.
I love how Pilates made me graceful in my movements when I got older, since when I was growing up I always felt like an “elephant in a china shop”. 😅
Being able to break the exercises down into bite size pieces is part of being a teacher.
In this case, making sure that a client can learn, understand and practice what it feels like in their own body to adjust the position of their pelvis to decompress the spine is priceless.
Once they own it, the back extension exercises become less challenging.
Teaching this exercise in a step-by-step format has been very helpful for some of my clients who for one reason or another, somehow “skipped” understanding the pelvis stability concept in their early Pilates education. 😉
Swan isn’t supposed to pinch your lower back, but that's exactly what happens when you are starting to lift your upper body without decompressing your lower back first.
When you drop the tip of the pubic bone down towards the mat you take the arch out of your lower back and engage your lower abdominals and glutes first. This simple movement changes how your body is set up for the exercise that follows.
Now when you begin lifting the head and ribcage up off the mat and activate the upper/middle back muscles to achieve upper back extension, your lower back remains lengthened.
Decompressed.
The difference is subtle, but that's everything.
In Pilates, how you set up the spine before the movement,
determines how successful the movement is.
Have you ever adjusted your setup in Swan and felt it completely change how you felt?
There is a reason I teach the three positions of the pelvis before an exercise like Swan.
First, you need to recognize what your pelvis is doing and how it affects your lower back.
In What Pilates Is: The Essential Skills, you learn and practice this separately -then bring that understanding into Swan and ALL spine extension exercises.