Except for the first exercise (roll the pelvis) these exercises are a little more advanced. It is best if you have the breathing down fairly well. You should fully have cleared up the forehead and the eyes before you work on these exercises. Not surprisingly these exercises will have a major effect on your sexuality.

Roll The Pelvis

This exercise has already been presented in Chapter 18 on the abdomen. In addition to its major value in loosening the chronic tension in the abdomen, this exercise also frees up the pelvis so mention of it is repeated here.

Toss The Pelvis

You have to have mastered the roll the pelvis exercise before you go to this exercise. In this exercise you are in the normal working position, on your back.

Recall that in the roll the pelvis exercise, you rolled up on the 'ah' sound and rolled down at the end of the exhale. Here the roll is replaced by an energetic and rapid toss up (instead of a roll up). The soft 'ah' sound is usually replaced here by a more vigorous, almost shouted, 'ah' sound. You can also, after getting accustomed to this exercise, replace the 'ah' sound with a shout.

Treat your pelvis as though it were a battering ram that was breaking against a wall or think of a person driving spikes into a railroad tie. The toss is hard, fast, and energetic. The toss is not merely rapid, it is also energetic or violent. However, it is still just the pelvis that moves. Your back should not lift off the bed. It is the pelvis that is being tossed, not the lower body. Also remember that the roll and thus the toss is done by the thigh muscles not the abdominal muscle and not by spreading the legs.

Roll The Pelvis (Stomach)

Here, for the first time, your are lying on your stomach rather than your back. Also the order of movement of the pelvis is the opposite of what you have been doing in the roll the pelvis exercise. Here is where we complete the work on the abdominal area.

The movement is done on the inhale rather than the exhale. On the inhale (normal belly then chest), lift the pelvis off the bed by arching the back. As you can see from Figure 124, the only movement is with the pelvis.

The arching of the back does not take long — perhaps 1/4 of the total inhale time — however it is not a jerky movement. The pelvis is lifted off the bed, it is not jerked off the bed.

Figure 124

The abdomen does not lift off the bed except as it follows the pelvis. At the end of the exhale, drop the pelvis. This is not a controlled roll-the-pelvis-back, it is a drop-the-pelvis-back to the bed.

The common error here is lifting the body while arching the back instead of only arching the back. This is shown in the next figure. The model is, at my direction, putting his hands under his body to better illustrate the difference. You can compare Figure 124 to Figure 125 to see the difference.

Figure 125

You need to master this exercise before you go on to the next one.

Slam The Pelvis (Stomach)

This exercise is difficult to do properly. Again you are on your stomach.

The motion is the same as the roll the pelvis (stomach). That is at the start of the inhale you arch the back lifting the pelvis off the bed. However, here instead of dropping the pelvis at the beginning of the exhale, you slam the pelvis against the bed with as much violence as you can muster. The sound changes from an 'ah' to a shout (usually 'uh' or 'huh').

Again, think of your pelvis as a hammer or a metal stamping machine. You are trying to break the bed with your pelvis. The motion is quick and violent.

A common error here is that even though you have practiced the roll the pelvis (stomach) so that it is only the pelvis that moves and not the lower body (with the abdomen off the bed), once the vehemence of the slam is introduced then the lower body is brought into play. The only movement should be in the pelvis. You can use a hand under your body about half way between the belly button and the pubic area to insure that you are using only the pelvis and not the lower body.

This exercise is designed to elicit any emotion associated with the pelvis. Contrary what you may have read in Reich or Lowen or other theorists, there is little to no correlation between a given emotion and a given body area. Recall that psychology is a statistical discipline, therefore Reich's flat statement that the pelvis "holds" rage and Lowen's statement that the scalenus "hold" tears are unsupportable. One can say, as I did on page 273, that "the diaphragm is famous for anxiety" but one can not say as an assertion of fact that 'the diaphragm holds anxiety.' The pelvic work can elicit anger, fear, stubbornness, self-control, etc. or even no emotion at all. Even if you can't directly feel any feelings in the pelvis when you do the exercise, it will still be doing its work. Just, as always, keep doing the exercise session after session and let your dreams take care of the effects of the work on your character.

Coin In The Ass

This exercise is done in the normal working position. Pretend that your buttocks have a coin held between the cheeks. On the inhale, tense the gluteal muscles to hold the imagined coin. On the exhale relax the gluteal muscles.

That is all there is to the exercise. It seems simple and it is except that the effects are significant. Give it time to do its work. As simple as this exercise sounds, it is very powerful in its effects. It is better if you hold off on this exercise until you have a few years of the doing this work under your hat.