Happy hands and arms

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This is such a soothing, gentle lesson. I turn to this when I’m feeling tired and just want to do something simple that will change the whole relationship of the hands and wrists to the ribs and back.

You do a lot of gentle rotating and softening the interlaced hands, then you scoop the hand along your torso in different trajectories until it floats up and your whole back responds, bone by bone. Plus, the arm muscles start to soften and your whole system reverts to a parasympathetic state.

For more like this, see:
178 Rolling hands, palming eyes
And the whole Light, easy arms section.

This lesson affects the whole back as the arms reach forward from the middle. The spine learns to move with the arms, allowing the arms to feel lighter and lighter. A luscious, wave-like lesson that elicits the pattern of walking as you fold the the torso from the shoulders to the hips on the diagonal.

For more like this, see Gentle pressing and rolling.

This lesson starts to connect, bone by bone, the sense of connection from the arm to your center of mass. It’s fascinating to watch these linkages through the bones create fluidity we didn't even know we had. Of course, we are all habituated to using the muscles, but when the bones take over, it’s such a relief to feel connection instead of resistance.

(Note: This lesson is with the left arm. The second part includes the right.)

“Reaching like a skeleton” was the very first, and very last, lesson of my four-year training. I’ll always remember it as a kind of bookend to the profound revelation that I am not stuck in my patterns.

For more like this, see Reaching like a skeleton series, based on the San Francisco training, June 16, 1975.

This is the second part, using different movements to wake up this skeletal connection, going back to Dr. Feldenkrais’s roots in Judo.

Hand in honey is a gorgeous lesson for tension in the wrists or arms. I highly recommend it if you are recovering from surgery or have sore hands after typing or playing a musical instrument—even driving!

For similar lessons, see:
533 Fingers and forearms
184 Gentle touch, soft fingers

Part two of this lovely lesson continues the movements. I recommend doing them close together if you can, either on the same day or one before bed and one the next morning.

This is one of the best lessons for a tense hand or forearm. It is such a relief to give up those strong habits of tension and move the arm and fingers without strain. Even if you do half the lesson and fall asleep, it’s worth it!

(AY 124)