Posted on

On the right side, head and knee under the frame of the left arm

When we fold forwards (flex) we think of this as shortening. But every shortening involves lengthening. You can lie on your back and take your knee and elbow towards one another–and that involves a certain level of challenge in lifting lefts and head. This lesson takes a familiar idea and does it in a different Vary the lesson: orientation, manipulation, timing orientation — sidelying — and in this very low-effort environment, more refinement is possible.

This is the second lesson in the April 2010 month of lengthening lessons.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

Lengthening Heels and Arms

The theme this month is “Finding Length.” Here’s a suggestion for working with this lesson. You might do it first in a very casual way where you pay attention only to getting comfortable with lying on your side with your legs in the positions described. Don’t make too much effort with the arm/chest/chin directions on your first go through. Come back a day or two later, and do it again (fog horn comments and all), and now that you’re not so much occupied with your balance on your side and your leg arrangement, you can play with the lengthening movements and the arms/chest/chin in a lighter and more refined way.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

Sphincters

Beyond the breath, many processes of digestion and excretion take place constantly as we go about our lives. This lesson plays with the actions of the voluntary sphincter muscles–these curious muscles around the eyes, the mouth, in the pelvic floor that don’t open/close joints or pull on bones, but that open and close orifices. It’s not as weird as it sounds.

This is the second lesson of a two-lesson workshop. The first is Integrating breathing and action.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

Integrating Breathing and Action

This is the first of two lessons in the Integrating Life and Action workshop, March 2010. I keep talking in this lesson about how your breath “accommodates itself” to your actions and positions in the world. This strikes me as a little strange as I listen to it and do the lesson. Part of every moment of life is breathing and acting together–and you breathe differently at every moment, depending on your action and position. All that language that “your breathing” does something while “you act” reflects our sense that the latter is something we do while the former takes care of itself. But it’s all stuff we do, all together.

This is the first of a two-lesson workshop. The second lesson is Sphincters.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

Tilting the ear to the shoulder

The last two classes (On the side, the sternum becoming flexible and On the Side, Bending and twisting the chest and spine) had everyone in class talking about our lack of clarity in side-bending. First, what it is when simply standing or lying flat on the floor, to maintain the face in the same plane in sidebending. Then, second, what it means in the twisted configurations of those lessons. This lesson was a chance to explore a detail that was fascinating to the group.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

On the Side, Bending and twisting the chest and spine

Oddly enough, this lesson takes place largely lying on the back. So “on the side” doesn’t refer to the position of the lesson. This lesson follows on the lesson On the side, the sternum becoming flexible, which “really is” on the side. That lesson achieves some amazing differentiation of the abdominal muscles in light of deep reflexes; this one continues around the torso, rebalancing the work of the abdominals and the back extensors. Between working on these two lessons this month, I got more for myself around Moshe’s idea of the chest hanging off the spine than I ever have from ATM before (it’s usually a post-FI feeling from a great practitioner, one that is tantalizingly transformational, but that I can’t find again after a few weeks). We embarked on a month of the spine, and I ended the month feeling I knew the function and freedom of the abdominal muscles beyond anything I’ve done before.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

On the side, the sternum becoming flexible

The spine will only be as flexible as the ribs attached and the sternum allow it to be–and those will only move if they can see themselves moving relative to the pelvis. This lesson addresses that whole relationship.

We had a lively discussion of this lesson on the Feldenkrais practitioners mailing list one day, and so I post my analysis too: Analysis of AY 217, On the side, the sternum becoming flexible. It offers a window into some of the underlying neurological themes that take a Feldenkrais lesson beyond being a matter of just playing with variations.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

Making the spine flexible and integrating it

Albinus_t03Chronic tension of the lumbar and neck extensors is a fundamental pattern of limitation. This lesson addresses these areas actively and passively, with ingenious variations that address some key “hidden spots,” particularly in the upper back and neck.

The image from Albinus may help you visualize the bodies and spinous processes of the vertebrae.

You can read a discussion of some passages in Moshe’s books that relate to this lesson here: Commentary on AY 177: Making the spine flexible and integrating it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

Lengthening and turning arms by the fingers

To finish this month of fingers-to-spine lessons, we explore the connection between lengthening and turning along the axis of the arm–as though a gentle pull and twist from the fingers could draw across your spine and move your whole pelvis around your opposite hip joint. We also played with distributing intention.

Sample rate repaired, March 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

Fingers Backward

This third lesson in the fingers-to-spine series continues to play with the independence of each finger (second lesson–but the recording didn’t work)–in relation now to extension, across the shoulders. This is a rare lesson: we do “both sides at once” from about a third of the way in.

March 2013: Updated file to right sample size.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download