now Kusasaki. So now is a founder and director of Creative Minds Collaborative, a nonprofit organization which seeks to cultivate cultural understanding amongst the diverse population of artists, educators, and members of the community. Her career as a professional ballerina spanned over two decades with Boston Ballet and Houston Ballet as a soloist, dancing numerous leading roles in both classical and contemporary repertoire. Today, she is a coach, producer, and choreographer. And in November of 2017, she was commended by the Consulate General of Japan for her cross-cultural efforts, which most recently is going to be a new work commissioned by the Asia Society Texas, The Tale of Genji. She's a licensed gyrotonic method instructor since 2009. And actually, I met her through Dr. Raju, who connected us and collaborating, we were able to utilize this unique movement method that addresses the entire person with her expertise of ballet in order to create the set of exercises that we're going to go through now. And the idea is really opening up energy pathways, stimulating the nervous system, increasing range of motion, and improving strength and movement efficiency. So these exercises, which have been curated for endoscopists, are included in the ASGE LEAP, Taking Care of You, Ergonomic Essentials for Your Practice Learning Library. But my great pleasure now. Thank you so much for joining us. And I think, does everybody have the resistance bands? If you don't have one, just raise your hand. Did you need a microphone? If that one works, I can lift you up. Okay. And I'll use that. And thank you so much, Dr. Sherbo and Dr. Lal, for including this program in this course. Testing. This is okay. If you can spread out. We'll start seated, and then we'll stand up. So if you want to have alternating. One is working. Does that work? It's on? Okay, great. So I will start here. Thank you so much again for this opportunity. It's a pleasure to be included in this course. And today I will share some very simple yet effective stretches and exercises that I hope can be incorporated into your daily practice. And like Dr. Sherbo said, this is curated especially for you all. And it's derived from the gyrotonic methodology, which uses circular and spiraling movements and rhythmic patterns. And the coordination of breath is very important. And it's meant to maximize the functionality of your body. So you'll be gaining great balance and efficiency and restoration of the body and mind. So let's get started. Seated. So finding the neutral posture is very important. If you want to sway side to side between the two sits bones and discover the sits bones, we tend to sway forward or back, scooch back. But sit right into the sits bone, like push into the sits bone and feel grounded. Push into the earth. So you feel an opposition, a lift into the spine. So you want to find that vertical spine and the vertical abdominals. So zipping up, like zipping up really tight, like skinny jeans up. And like zipping up the evening dress from the back. So you feel the length. So using that neutral spine, we'll do these exercises. And even when I stand up, when we do the standing series, these can be performed seated in your office. I do them in airports as well, waiting. First, without the exercise bands, bring your arms to the sides and then like a right angle. Make sure that you can see your fingers in your peripheral vision in front of you. And we're going to go to the shoulder shrug in and up, down, reaching out to the side and in and up and reaching down. So you're scooping the shoulders out to the side and keeping the elbows reaching out, out, out. So you start to feel the back and the latissimus dorsi being activated and you're lengthening that neck out, out, out to the side. And the shoulders all the way up to the ears and down, breathing out to the side and in, up and down, reaching out and expanding that back, reaching that elbows out, out, out to the side. And I know there's that cheat sheet, which on the photo, I'm using the clean gloves, the ends of the clean gloves, but that can be done with the TheraBands. You can reach it, kind of ball it up, or you can do it lengthened out like this. This is a heavier load. And with that same idea of the scooped neck and elbows reaching out to the side, we'll pull that resistance band right in front of your sternum out to the side. And the idea is, again, lengthening the neck and scooping elbows out to the side and release. And a deep exhalation, out, out, out to the side. So we're alleviating this tension in the neck by lengthening it down and reaching out to the side. And it only takes a few seconds. It's important to continue your breath and applying that. So that's one thing that we can do. Now we move into the side stretches. I call them monkey arms, whatever you want to name it, so you can remember. So you're reaching down below the chair and breathing out and flexing that top hand, going from right to left. So you're exposing the armpit and using the breath, deep exhalation, out. And opening that side rib. And you can increase the bend. We often think about our front side and the back side, but not the side body. And I also do the rib tap just to give that tap a physical cue so that the ribs can open up. Or you can create that tension and push that hand away from you and create the resistance with your own muscles. Exhale out. Inhale. And you can also do that tap for extra... Monkey arms. So then we're going to stand up. I'm going to awaken. I know we do a lot with the wrists. So starting with the wrist, just making circles with our wrists both ways. And awakening of our hands and fingers. Going to rub our hands together with the fingers, whipping the fingers. So the fingers are also creating heat and the palms are creating that heat and warming up our body again. Being aware with where we are right now. And with that heat that we create, we're going to slowly hold the heat of energy that you've created. We're going to play with the heat. We can expand. And then close and feel that pressure of the heat. And expand and hold the energy together. And out. And in. And out. And then we'll shower that energy, all the positive energy. And then we'll start to rub the fingers from the root all the way to the tip and pull. Lightly pull. This is really quick but always helps, especially in the cold room or cold city like Chicago. Reawaken each of our fingers. From one to the next. And this is the third one, which I've done with using the balled up clean gown. But this is an alternate way of reactivating the hands and the fingers. And it brings awareness in our extremities, which is very important. So do that as long as you'd like or as quickly as I did now. It's really nice to check in with our full body that way. Great. And next we'll do... Oh, yes. Yeah, we can use the TheraBand again like a stress ball. But this can be used to activate and re-energize the fingers. One to the next. And with the shoulder rolls, moving on to the next one. We often do these shoulder rolls, but we want to bring the maximum amount of mobility. It has a full range of motion, which we don't often use. So make sure to bring the shoulders all the way up to the ears. And using the elbows, and all the way back. So bringing in front, up, and back. And I said, could I use Dr. Cheryl to have it? So I often do hands on, but bringing it forward. And bring the elbows all the way up. And then it goes all the way back. So forward and up. All the way up to the ears, and down. So it's always moving in circular motion. We tend to push the shoulders down, and that creates tension. And we tend to hold it. But if we move forward, up, and around, the shoulders are settled into its nice neutral position. And we're not trying to stand up straight with the tension. But rather we're bringing the shoulders behind, and the ribs are nice and relaxed. So I find this really nice to do in between a full maximum shoulder rolls. And again, for the lateral movement, which we did earlier, we can do standing up. We're going in, and the shoulders going, again, all the way up to the ears. And down. And you're scooping that elbows, shoulders, and elbows out to the side. So you're keeping the elbows taut. And going in and up. You can do it with both arms. Down. And out. So you feel the elbows can be here. Yes. Reaching out. Yes. This way. And you should feel a relief in your neck. Relax. Good. So we're using the TheraBands. And just a little bit wider than your shoulders. And depending on the strength of you, we're just going to go up, up into an arch. And coming down. It's a little warm up. So the sternum lifts all the way up to the ceiling. And coming down. All the way up and around. And come back, if you would like. And again, we want to keep that long neck so the shoulders stay down. So we're pulling out the band to the side rather than pulling up the shoulders. Keeping that neutral posture with the zipped up abdominals and the zipped up spine while we do this. So we're moving the body instead of the joints, right? And we'll go side to side. I tend to do this a little bit tighter, so right shoulder width apart. We'll go up and over to the side and coming back. And so initiating a lift and a pressing down to go to the side. Again, we're creating space in between our joints and we're decompressing our body. Gravity already is compressing our bodies and joints and we're pulling away from gravity to decompress and restore our bodies. So make sure it's like drawing an arc. I say to my kids, draw a big rainbow all the way up and to the side. And now we'll go circular. So we'll go to the front and side. You can do it doubled up if it gets in the way. Back and around. So we're making a big circle into a curl. Side body all the way to the back space and into the side. So in the curl, you're breathing into the back to open the lower back, which is usually the tightest part. And this opening, exposing the armpit to the ceiling, exposing the sternum to the ceiling. And the other side of the armpit, opening the side body and around. And to the other side. Back and forward. And deep exhalation from the abdominals. And even without the band, I'll show, without the bands, interlace your fingers and put it, put your thumb at the occiput so you have a traction. You're literally pulling out the head, lifting up, creating that long back of the neck. And we can do, I'll start with the arch. So you're lifting up. You're thinking about lifting the head up and opening the spine and opening the sternum for the arch. And bring the elbows in and curl. Breathe out. And create space in the back. And pulling up and opening the elbows. The shoulders are still down and looking up. Closing the elbows. Imagine opening the back and breathing into the back. Opening the elbows and the wings. Closing and curl. And you can increase the curl to target different areas of your back. Mid back, lower back, upper back, wherever is the tightest. And lifting up. You can sort of rest your head into your hands and look up. Really deep. You can bend your knees and go really deep. You can wiggle side to side. And breathe. And lifting up. And this can be done in half circle. So go to the side. Curl down. And to the other side. And up. And again. And you're looking up, exposing the armpit. Closing. And up. And coming back. So call that half moon. You can do a half moon, arch and curl. One more variation. So hands over and again interlace. I'm gonna push it down. It's like washing it out. Insert curl. And deep exhalation out. Bring it up and over to the other way. And you're sort of threading the sternum up and reaching tall. Creating the space in the spine. Down and up. And up and over. Looking up. Washing it down. Breathe into the back. And bend your knees. Up and over. We're using our own muscles to stretch. It's a very active and rhythmic exercise. Shake it out. And so for the back stretching, we did this over the wall. It's a modified version of a pushup. If you have a mat and they're comfortable going down to the floor, that's fine. I often do it against the table or back of the chair. If it's not rolling, I can usually do this. You can use that. And I'll also show the modified version. So you're in a pushup position. So again, neutral spine. Very important. So easy cue is zipping up from the pubic bone all the way to the belly button as a straight line. And the spine as a vertical line as well. Again, we've already activated the shoulders. So it should be nice and placed. We're going to go modified pushup. Forward. And then curl back. Again, opening up. And this is on all fours. It's called cat and cow. So you're reaching forward. Modified. So this is in almost like a plank. And curling back. Going into the plank. We're working on our intrinsic muscles. And curling back. And we could go into a cat, which is that arch. Threading that sternum up. And curling back. And forward. And yes. So whenever we're in that curl, the deep exhalation, breathing into the back, be so restorative. Especially with the tight lower back. I'd like to finish with a series of upper body openings. It's a gyrotonic exercises. But this will open in the front, which often tends to close up. And also in the back. So corkscrew the hands down to the side and reaching up. And this is exhalation down. And up. And bringing arms up. And up. And we're working on movement of all of the tight areas, especially the lower back and the sternum. It's less about the arm movement, but it's about bringing the body to move. The sternum and the lower back. And this is exhalation. Digging the earth and bringing it up. Next one is forward, a slight curl, and elbows reach to the back. Straight. Slight curl into neutral position. So you're pushing the elbows back and belly button pushing into the spine. So you're becoming taller and taller. And push. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. So to feel the front of the body opening and active. Next is vertical swimming. Just go through your midline and first up. And up. Finding your center. Exhalation at the top. Inhale. Next is diagonal, coming to a big hug and reaching out. Again, we're trying to open this part of the body by flexing the hands and shifting the weight. Reaching, reaching, reaching, all the way to the And looking up. And we want to hit the back space as well, so we're moving in three-dimensional space. Up. And in. And up. And then interlace your fingers again, and draw a halo around your crown of the head where you'd like to stand up tall. And again, we're aware that the shoulders are staying nice and set and down. And the elbows are to the side. And we're keeping that tension into the hands, and we go to the side, to the front, to the side. We did this with the TheraBand, the circles. We can do it this way as well, if that is not available. Keeping the elbows reaching out to the side. Up. And the other side. Side body opening up. Side. And breathe into the back. Don't stop. And shoulder rolls, and light wrist rolls. So all of that, you don't need to do all of them, of course, at once, but if you can apply even one or two exercises during your micro-breaks, I hope that it will help improve the functionality of your body and also restore the mind at the same time. And I look forward to showing you more again. Thank you so much.

gyrotonic methodology

exercises

range of motion

shoulder mobilization

back stretch

mind restoration