Of course, frogs aren’t bipedal; they don’t stand on extended legs really at all. So this lesson doesn’t have the kind of neurological and functional significance for a frog that it has for us.
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Opposition on the side
All these years, I tell you to go slower, slower, slower–and now fast? Fast, quick, light movements? Astonishing. And just wait to see how your breathing and use of your spine changes.
This is AY 447, for those keeping track. And a week is a long time in Canada, lately anyway. The bobblehead joke probably no longer makes much sense. It’s been overtaken by other events. Miley Cyrus is eternal however (really?) and the ATM I refer to as “the Miley Cyrus” is AY 451.
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On the stomach, training the back (part 1)
If this face-down lesson doesn’t add an inch or so to your height (subjectively, if not objectively), I’d be surprised.
For those keeping track at home, this is a slow build-up, more or less half of AY473, with some loose interpretation.
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Sidelying, sliding hands and knees at different heights and timings
Some pretty simple ideas and experimentation. See if it doesn’t make you feel a whole lot more refined and coordinated in your action.
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Getting to know the hip joints
Hmmm…thought I’d long ago recorded and posted this one. No! Somewhere between the low back and the knees, the hip joints play a major role in action. Here’s a powerful flashlight you can use to clarify this area in your self-image.
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Turning the head around its circumference and in the center
Well, this is a weird idea of what to do with your head. You’ll glide around the room with a long neck and everything below will feel very well-oiled, as long as you don’t try too hard.
For those following sources at home, this is mostly AY 6, though you’ll see some ideas that aren’t in the AY lesson as I was responding to where people were at in the room.
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Frog’s Legs
We’re thinking about Theo Jansen’s wonderful Strandbeests, and how ‘stupid’ the knees are. They don’t need any sophistical neurological control. They just have to unfold at the right moment and be there for the weight of the body to pass over them.
How do you let your leg unfold?
This version is AY 117, by the way.
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Somewhere in your back…
The first lesson of our new Sept – Oct 2013 series: a gentle twisting movement on your side.
Some of my comments suggest that you might do the second side (as you go from side to side) in your imagination. This is always a good option when you can’t follow the instructions without pain. It’s also a really useful technique whatever your ability to move comfortably.
This is AY 434, for those keeping track at home.
Three minutes before the end of the lesson, I realize that my earring is hitting my microphone, and remove it. Oops.
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Lying on the feet turned in, while breathing rhythmically
You could say there’s a hierarchy of degrees of conscious control in ourselves–our fingers and mouths the most consciously controlled; our legs less so, carrying us along without much thought wherever we want to go. And our breathing, even more so, takes care of itself while we’re doing other things. We’ll reverse that a bit in this lesson, making the breathing the subject of conscious control and monitoring, while we do quite unusual things with out legs…the hands and mouth can take care of themselves!
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Folding ankle on the outside
Intimately connected to the rotation at the knee of the two bones of the lower leg, we find a new dimension of freedom in the hip joint and an unusual folding of the ankle. This the second of a four-lesson series recovering what are for many people long-forgotten knee functions.
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