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Tilting Pelvis Sitting

First class back on Cornwallis Street, and a classic, though perhaps challenging, introductory lesson. Refining control of the pelvis from the core, and relating this to some fun activities you may not have enjoyed since back before your memory starts…

I hope you can all enjoy the boost to my recording volume and clarity brought on by using the iPhone plus HT Recorder!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Reversibility

A hallmark of well-organized movement, according to Feldenkrais, is its reversibility. At any point in an action, can you turn around, go back, change your mind, do something else? An optimally-organized action would be one where you retain the freedom at any point to change your mind (or react to changing circumstances) and do something different.

By this measure, jumping out of a window is an action that would be hard to organize optimally. Once you’ve started, there’s no going back.

Lying on the side, sliding your hand forwards and backwards is a movement that is easy to do reversibly. You probably didn’t feel like you were falling in doing Sidelying, sliding hands and knees. But you may have felt slightly the first hint of non-reversiblity, which is simply that it takes more effort to turn around and go back than to keep going.

(Some people actually will more or less “fall” either forwards or backwards when lying on their sides.)

If you’re doing a somersault, head over heels, can you really organize the movement to be reversible? I bet you can. But let’s start with something a little less challenging. We were folding forwards, curling into a ball last week; can we roll ourselves in that ball between lying on the ground and sitting up and do that in a completely reversible way?