5 Barre Exercises to Stimulate Self Confidence - Sacral Chakra
The sacral chakra is all about the emotional body, sensuality, and creativity. It resides just above the pubic bone and below the naval and is the second of the seven chakras in the primary series. It represents our joy and pleasure, our feelings of worthiness. The sacral chakra looks like movement and flow with lots of feelings involved. It’s primal element is water. This chakra represents our own space, where we reside, create, and move.
The Seven Chakras are mostly recognized in the practice of yoga or yogic philosophy. If you’ve been following along with our Chakra Series you know, as a barre instructor and a well developed yoga instructor I started to get curious about the results of integrating the seven chakras into more than just my yoga practice and my yogic way of life. I wanted to explore their connection and benefits across multiple disciplines of movement. This meant learning how to move in a way that restored alignment in each energy center. This exploration created a space for me to commit to a new way of practicing barre while igniting the power of these centers through different disciplines of movement.
Here’s 5 Barre Moves You Can Use to Stimulate Self Confidence Through Barre and The Sacral Chakra:
1) Clam Shells - Start lying down on your right side. You can prop up on your elbow and rest your head in your right hand. If that doesn’t feel good on your neck, extend your right arm all the way out and rest your ear on your bicep. Bend your knees and keep them stacked. During the whole set you want to keep your hips stacked on top of each other without swaying forward or backwards. Once you start the movement, if you notice this happening or if it feels too easy, lay with your back against the wall to prevent the sway and isolate the muscles we are working here. With knees together lift your left (top) knee toward the ceiling opening your legs like a clam! Then, lower your knee to the starting position. Repeat this motion 12 times on one side and then switch. Remember to take it slow and “feel” deep into the muscle helping to stimulate your sacral chakra.
2) Supine Hip Circles - We will perform this exercise with a strong Pilates foundation. Lay on your back and let your legs completely relax, feet roll out and everything. This is your anatomical neutral. Think about where your pelvis is and keep it in this position throughout the entire exercise. This could mean you feel like your back is naturally curved with a small lift off of the floor. If you foresee this causing you back pain, roll up a towel and place it under your back for support. Begin by pulling your right knee into your chest. Make sure you stay in neutral! Place your hands by your sides palms face down. Take a deep breath into your ribs and upper back. As you exhale, pull your your navel toward your spine and try to tuck it under your ribs without tilting or rocking your pelvis (hips). Turn off your glutes here, and with your right knee begin to draw circles on the ceiling holding your core in strong. Take another deep breath into your ribs and upper back without letting the belly swell. Exhale pull your navel in deeper and up towards your ribs. Keep your pelvis in neutral and continue making the circles. You’ll want to do 6 in one direction and 6 in the other. Then, switch sides. The leg should move freely in the joint signaling your glutes are definitely off. If you feel like your whole body is on, pause, and start over. This will take awhile to do correctly, but it will shred your core and stimulate your sacral chakra reconnecting you to your body, helping you move like water, and teaching you to feel into the movement and the present moment.
3) Pilates Bridges - We explained your pilates breath in the last exercise and we will use that same breath pattern here. Breathing into your upper back and ribs without the belly inflating, on the exhale pull the navel in deep into the spine and up under your ribs. For ladies, it should feel like you’re pulling from your ovaries, for men, it should feel like you’re cutting off the flow of urine. The premise is pulling from your pelvic floor. Keep this in mind through the entire exercise. Lying on your back with both feet planted on the floor bring your hands down by your hips palms facing down. Those of you who are familiar with the pelvic tilt that’s what we’re going for here. If not, stay with me! Imagine your spine is like a string of pearls and you’re picking up the strand from the tail end. Each vertebrae represents one pearl. To begin to tilt the top of your hip bones and lower back down into the mat rolling your glutes off the floor (picking up the strand from your tailbone). Be sure to keep your glutes off the entire time! As you lift one vertebrae off the mat at a time and you reach your peak, check in with your glutes again. Turn them off. Take a another deep breath into your upper back and ribs. On the exhale, lower the string of pearls back down starting with your upper back, mid-back, and low back. Again, your glutes are going to want to jump in and help here but that takes away from the core work were doing, so turn them off! Repeat this exercise for 8 repetitions. Remember to go slow and stay present as you do this exercise. It can be a lot of mental work the first few times until you’re able to pair the breath and the movement together synergistically. Stay with it knowing you’re soothing your sacral chakra and learning to flow like water through this energy center.
4) Standing External Rotation - This one is done standing next to your barre or a solid surface for balance. You can use the back of chair, but stay away from ones with wheels! Bring your feet together and turn your toes outward at a 45 degree angle. Heels should stay together. This move is also known as the Pilates pizza or first position. From here, bring your toes back together. Then turn them out, then in, and out … continue. As you move through this external hip rotation you will start warming up all the stabilizer muscles and be primed and prep for more standing leg work. Do this for 20 repetitions before moving on to your next exercise. This warm up exercise will start moving the energy around the Sacral Chakra, warm up the hip muscles for more fluid movement, and help you to feel more open and ready for what comes next.
5) Lunges at the Barre - If you don’t have a barre, no worries! For the first few years, I used my desk, my kitchen counter, the back of my sofa, and sometimes the dinner table depending on what I was doing. Make due with what you have. To start stand in front of your chosen surface with legs hip distance apart. Starting with your right leg step back into a lunge position. You’ll want to keep your stance as if you were standing on the parallel sides of a train track. A common mistake is to start with legs together and step back. This tends to put too much pressure on the knees and can be avoided with a wider stance. Once you step back bend your back knee and hover off of the floor. The front knee shouldn’t go further then your front toes. Imagine that’s a brick wall and you cannot go past that imaginary stopping point. You have two options here. Either use this as a stabilization exercise and hold for 30 seconds or pulse up and down for a count of 12. Be sure to draw your belly in and hold a strong engagement through your core muscles. The engagement in your belly should not round your low back. If it does, you went too far. Find a nice neutral in your spine, use your Pilates breath, and on the exhale draw in with no movement in your spine. When finished step your feet back together at the top, and start on the other side.
All of these movements invite a a deep presence to your physical body as you work through and deep into your hips. When you do these movements you’re unlocking your sensuality, your creativity, and your natural flow through movement not only in this practice but in your life. You are unlocking a subconscious self confidence that begins to radiate as a natural glow knowing you’re strong in your deep core and hip muscles and fluid in your decision making and creativity. You have a new found trust in the way things show up for you and how you respond embracing ease over effort and the divine feminine.
The intentional repetition of these movements over time will help you unblock your sacral chakra and become more aligned as you begin to build self confidence, show up, and truly embody the life of someone who trusts themselves wholeheartedly. Remember, you can still fire up your core, work your hip flexibility, and find long feel good stretches while attending to a very important energy center in the body.
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