Walking Backward
Submitted by Lynette Reid on Thu, 2007-03-29 09:37
One of the great mysteries of Feldenkrais: how does that "phenomenological weight loss" happen? I weigh x pounds when I arrive for the lesson; I weigh the same an hour later when it's over. How can I feel so much lighter on my feet?
This lesson explores the question at that very moment of shifting weight onto a foot.
- Lesson Title: Walking Backward
- Teacher: Lynette Reid
- Length: 41:57 minutes (7.2 MB)
- Format: MP3 Stereo 11kHz
Walking Backward
Really interesting lesson. It's funny - in theatre, I am used to changing the way my feet touch the ground according to the character and depending on the weight of emotion in a situation, but always in life I return to a "default me" - heavy feet, weight back on the heels. Many actors never get the character until the moment when they put on the shoes and then it feels right. It's a weight thing. Doing this lesson reminded me of the need to ask the question - "If I was to become someone who walked with 'en-lightened' feet or 'empty feet', what sort of person would I be"? I spent most of yesterday walking around experimenting with this - aware of the sense of growth through the spine as each foot touched the ground. But it didn't feel like 'me' and I realised, for the umpteenth time, that a change in body is not just physical but means a change in the whole self. One of the new things I noticed after this lesson was an odd little elliptical circular movement of the head - going from side to side. Previously I had experienced it as a kind of pecking movement, with the head going forwards and backwards - rather like a very elegant giraffe. Also as I became aware of the movement through the spine it moved up into my face and I could even feel some kind of demand being made on the muscles of the eyeballs. Surprising. Did anyone else feel this?
Laurance Rudic
http://www.laurancerudic.blogspot.com
I enjoy the juxtaposition of
I enjoy the juxtaposition of your two questions, one to yourself and one to the others. It is such an interesting surprise to feel how different the human person can feel, no? I remember saying to a teacher after a lesson "but I feel like John Malkovich!" (This was before Being John Malkovich.) He commented that it was possible that my internal image of what this new somatic possibility (for my face) looked like to others might not be accurate or the whole story. Sometimes it can take years to make sense of a new possibility felt through a lesson in life; sometimes it really is something that never will be permanent for us but a glimpse of some other way of being in the world.
And then your next question--not from the mind that looks for our distinctness but from the one that looks for our commonality. At the time I last did this lesson I didn't notice an elliptical movement, but I "tried it on" again after reading your words and I could feel the potential and it brought out for me a new sense of the shape of the movement of the hip joint of the leg that is going backwards--not a straight line but some kind of arc. Thanks!
walking backward - and another thing....
The movement of the breastbone in walking: until my FK teacher made me aware of it, I had no idea just how rigid my chest was. I carried it in front of me like a shield and with it a great many locked-in emotions. That was some years ago. It's still there, but now all I have to do is become aware and I can instantly release it and allow it to move along with everything else. Actually, when my breastbone is locked then everything above it seems to be locked as well - shoulder girdle, neck, jaw, eyes...
Laurance Rudic
http://www.laurancerudic.blogspot.com
Pecking etc
I have been doing more experimenting especially after the "Pecking " lesson which I did the other day: when i sense the pecking my gait is more forward driven - whereas when I sense the ellyptical movement from side to side, it seems to me that my drive is somehow resisting moving forward and then the accent is on a side to side movement.
I love the idea of you feeling like John Malkovich. A favourite exercise is getting an actor to imitate in great detail the gait of another actor including breathing and eye movements. Usually it results in them getting into the emotional and even thinking state of the actor. Of course I don't mean content of thought but the rhythm of thought - its tensions etc. For a short while they experience what it means to lose their habitual self-image and become someone else. A taste of freedom...
Laurance Rudic
http://www.laurancerudic.blogspot.com
I prefer feeling my feet
I prefer feeling my feet heavy and rooted to the ground rather than light. Is that strange? I am quite light anyway 11 stone and 6ft tall.
not strange--
We have some ideas about "being grounded" or having significance in the world ("a weighty matter") that may make it seem right to feel heavy. Or personal associations like the one you have with your own weight.
But really, the heavier you feel, the more energy it takes to move yourself, hence to accomplish anything. Why bother feeling heavy if it takes work?
Sometimes aspects of how we organize ourselves can shift and it doesn't matter or it just feels "nice." Looser, freer, more connected, whatever. Sometimes the shift invited by a lesson feels different in a less attractive way. Like it's not me. It's contrary to how I prefer to feel or to what I recognize as useful.
Sometimes it takes a while (sometimes years) for us to inhabit a new option and make it our own! It may come and go through different lessons you do and gradually feel less like "not you."
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