This is another important exercise. I try to move the knees in and out and capture the movement so that more and more comes from the leg naturally and less form the hips and upper body. To make it harder, Charles has a piece of blue theraband (stretchy resistance) which he holds inside and then outside on each leg so I work both directions on each leg.
This has got much better of late, and I have sessions where he’s really pulling hard on the elastic and I can focus into the leg. Watching the video back myself is instructive as I see the hip movement – reduced from before – and realise how much further I have to go, and then use that to work in each session.
When I started this exercise at Hratch’s, he would shout and cajole, and I remember thinking how the hell am I meant to move these bastards. It was just a complete block and the legs wouldn’t move, couldn’t get into them at all. It was really one I hated as it felt so completely impossible and seemed to taunt my paralysis. Now it’s one I readily do as I see the importance and the improvements.
Unhelpfully, I haven’t recorded a whole 30 minutes of this as at the beginning of each session I use much more hip, and then as I get into and the muscles become more active, there is much less. But these two brief clips illustrate what I do and what I can do.
I hope that by including it now, where I am still not happy with it (always want it better) we’ll see the improvements by the next clip.