Flexible ribs, flexible life

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Use this lesson for unwinding tension in the chest and freeing the breath. This lesson starts with reaching an arm toward a heel. Slowly you include more of your whole self: the head and neck, spine, sternum, collar bones, shoulders, and ribs.

This lesson also has some good constraints for moving the shoulders. It's one of Moshe's genius movements where he flips proximal and distal: fixing the shoulders while the ribs roll around them, which is the opposite of how we use our shoulders in daily life.

At the end, the shoulders hang easily and the skeleton is more balanced as the ribs rest over the pelvis.

For more lessons where the ribs roll around the fixed shoulders, see:
113 Lengthen leg, roll chest, slide toward foot
68, 69 Arms behind #1
72 Arms behind #2
74 Arms behind #3
199 Slow rolling away from shoulders
Bridging lessons 1-7 in Longer series from trainings

We not only under-utilize the ribs, we forget about them! Little kids have such wiggly ribs. Over years of schooling and socialization, we all lose our wiggliness. That means we're losing aspects of our breath, posture, digestion, and ease of movement. Often we brace the ribs, holding them up with our muscles. That's what I call a traffic jam.

Use this lesson to soften the ribs as you fold in many directions. This will help you stand more upright and swing your limbs. Once the ribs let go, you’ll feel lighter and freer.

For more like this, see:
121 Magic back lesson
337 Dots and lines
344 Lifting four corners
158, 159 Ankles with wrists

In this lesson, you cover the entire surface area of the ribs, side, front, and back, with a gentle, directed breath. Many of my clients love this lesson for the way it creates space in every direction. The result is that every rib has more movement. This lesson also frees the voice, throat, diaphragm, and belly.

For more like this, see:
274 Welding the breath
275 Gluing the lungs

Folding the ribs opens the ribs. It’s counter-intuitive, I know. The more you compress the upper ribs, the more they widen and soften. It's going into the pattern of shortening that allows the muscles to stop shortening and return to neutral.

I tell my students: “When you feel supported, then you can let go.” In movement, and in life. That’s what happens to the shortened muscles across the chest: They feel supported, so they let go.

This lesson has a cool weight shift movement across the back as well as some movement to open up the persnickety places between the shoulder blades.

For more like this, see:
172 Lift elbows, fold chest
205 Collarbone and shoulder extravaganza
217 Roll chest, point elbows, lengthen spine

This lesson invites you to move the head and neck from the ribs. With gentle rolling and arm variations, the mid-back wakes up. I always tell my students, “this is not a neck lesson.” It's an integration of the whole self with the ribs, spine, head, neck, and shoulders.

This lesson is one of my favorites. It wakes up the head and neck and just melts the upper chest and back.

For more gentle rotation lessons, see the twisting section.

AY465

More gentle turning to unravel the way we all hold the upper ribs and upper back. The breath can have its moment in the sun when the upper ribs really start to move and the lungs have such a relief.

This has a “magic” movement of the ankles that frees up the hips like nothing else. It’s an effective lesson to flatten your back and open the hips, along with less tension in the neck.

Tip: Make extremely small movements of reaching the hand toward the heel. The lesson says one-tenth of an inch. If you do less and feel more, your nervous system will thank you.