Small exercises encapsulating the woman's discipline (6)
I believe the answer is:
sphere
'discipline' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'small exercises encapsulating the woman's' is the wordplay.
'small' becomes 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size).
'exercises' becomes 'pe' (Physical Education class).
'encapsulating' means one lot of letters goes inside another (I've seen this in other clues).
'the woman' becomes 'her' ('her' refers to a woman).
'pe' placed around 'her' is 'phere'.
's'+'phere'='SPHERE'
(Other definitions for sphere that I've seen before include "Field; globe" , "Particular environment or walk of life" , "Shape of the Earth" , "Province - range" , "Ball, orb" .)