More diagonals

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Here is the iconic “four corners” lesson. Many people report loving this lesson. You lie on your back and gently lift and press the four corners of the torso—both hips and both shoulders—in many variations. Then, you clarify what’s happening across your back. This is the same pattern as walking brought down to a micro level, out of gravity, and with great attention and mindfulness.

Your walking will improve tremendously as you attend to these micro-patterns, alleviating the need to manage gravity.

Tip: The movements are necessarily small, like someone blowing a puff of air across your back. The clarity occurs in your brain: sensing and refining many times. You cannot be precise by straining. Do one-tenth of what you think you should do, then one-tenth of that.

(SF training yr3)

For more like this, see:
337 Dots and lines
338 Gentle folding to increase choices

A follow-on lesson to four corners with a very cool pattern that starts by flexing and extending the ankles and wrists. Then you bring it into the torso, then you go back out to the wrists and ankles. It’s amazing how the pattern spreads and clarifies. I give this lesson to everyone who wants to walk and run better.

Tip: Clarity is power. With less muscular interference in your fundamental patterns, you access the muscles for what they’re meant to do: move you through space.

More lessons like this:
158, 159 Ankles with wrists

(SF training yr3, day 28)

Here is the second part of the magic back lesson, incorporating the rest of the joints into the pressing and lifting pattern. Feel the pressure along the entire diagonal line. Your nervous system will thank you for it.

Last part of pressing along the joints. Very cool sensations for your brain as you clarify the line across the limbs.

This lesson is very much in the imagination: you imagine rolling a small metal ball along your limbs and clarifying the line of connection in many, many ways. It is life-changing to clarify your ability to sense your limbs this way, out of gravity, out of any “normal” context. The power of the mind is humbling and vast.

Test how much your imagination impacts your reality after this.

(AY303 - the one with the lecture on self image)

Here we are again, playing with the diagonals: hold your knees, rock to sitting along the diagonal. It can feel elusive at first, but keep playing with it.

This has a lot of diagonal see-saws, keeping the arm and leg invariant, bringing the head over the elbow. The words are not descriptive here; it makes sense in the lesson.

It also helps with breathing as you are continually folding the chest many ways, and, as you know by now, all folding helps you unfold and widen!

(AY461)

The last part of using the knees and folding the chest on the diagonal to come to sit. This is a cool weight-shift and counterbalance move.

This lesson uses stronger muscles to lift the diagonal arm and leg separately, then together, then lots of see-sawing across the diagonal. It also asks you to balance on the forearms and knees, challenging the counter-weight of the limbs.

It’s very informative if you have any balance issues. You hinge like a door in the hips and shoulders on one side, then the other, with a strong use of the belly, protruding the abdomen to activate the back and move the limbs.

This is a new pattern for most of us, but an amazing lesson for input into where you’re overworking in big movements.

(AY123)