Leg over to stand: Weight shift and structural support

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I would call this series, “how to become a pretzel and swivel your mass without weight.” It has many variations that culminate in a rolling motion to bring you from your back all the way up to standing. But there’s a lot in the middle!

If the suggestions seem out of reach, just keep doing the parts that you can do. Keep asking yourself, “What happens if…” and piece the movements together. New patterns will wake up. You might not love every variation, but “just stay with it,” as my teacher would say.

I don’t love feeling ungainly while I’m figuring something out. It took me a while to “get” these lessons when I first did them 25 years ago. When you stay with it, you will discover something that you thought you would never do in your whole life.

This series is complemented by another pretzel-like lesson in Esalen, #35 A study in how to sit cross-legged.

These are simply called the “leg over to stand” lessons. In this one, you will spend a lot of time sensing the breath, and how to move the weight of the leg without disturbing the flow. Eventually, one foot is standing on the floor to the other side.

This lesson explores the connection and stability of the legs by sliding the foot around on the floor and observing where the movement is initiated. Then, you begin to bend the long leg, making a kind of pretzel move (similar to “pretzel legs.”) Towards the end, there is some rolling to play with, feeling the circuit of the foot to the opposite hand.

(All of these are from the San Francisco training, year 3, 1977)

 Note that this lesson is done primarily with the right leg, with the left side more in the imagination. You can always work more with the left and do the right in the imagination. This lesson looks at stabilizing through the bones in many ways. Even if this feels elusive at first—I know it did for me 25 years ago!—keep playing with it and notice how it affects you. Many of these options may not be available to you at first.

This lesson has the leg over to stand, then do a lot of side-bending to slide the hand down to the opposite foot. Towards the end, there is a cool rolling move of the long straight leg. I love this one, it really frees up my hip. Notice for you how your nervous system finds a new stability by connected into the leg bones from the pelvis and spine in this novel way.

This lesson asks you to make some interesting moves in the knee as you slide the heel of the underneath leg first to one side, and then the other. Then, of course, you slide the head and shoulders side to side, creating more and more flexibility in the ribs until, one day, you can perhaps, hold the foot.

Regardless of whether you get there, the increased flexibility of the ribs will help you with the swing of the legs.

This lesson asks you to roll around a bit more, reaching for the ankle of the standing leg first with one hand, then with BOTH hands! Eventually you roll the chest over the knee and “dive down” over the foot to come up to stand. It takes longer to say it than to do.

Eventually, you play with coming up to stand at ninety degrees by standing on the “leg over to stand” and sliding the other leg up to meet you, putting the hands on the floor and coming into four points facing the side wall. The orientation in this lesson is important: Knowing where your limbs are and where your mass is relative to the space you’re in, so you can train in moving through space in more complicated ways, all the while not losing yourself as you do it.