More twisting

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This requires some delicate back bending, so be gentle! By lying on the side, you reach behind you for the heels. As you slide the head and shoulders toward the heels, play with lifting the ankles. The movements open up your whole trunk so you feel long and tall afterward.

Don’t pull on yourself, just sneak up on the movement. If you yank on the usual spot in your spine where you always, unconsciously, contract, you will end up feeling your usual strain. Instead, test a new strategy: move slowly and carefully. Power is not the answer here, it's about distribution of force. The outcome is worth it.

Tip: Slide with your whole self, not just your neck. Find out how you can use the big muscles of the trunk.

For a complement to this lesson, see 39 Soft spine, curling and uncurling.

AY427

This lesson creates a seesaw from the arm, through the spine, to the knee. As you expand the chest, all the little muscles that we hold onto in the chest start to let go. The spine and chest start to lengthen and widen.

You’ll find lots of breathing in this lesson to help the chest expand as you bring one arm in front and one leg behind.

Tip: If expanding the chest like this feels elusive, test these two lessons and come back to it:
270 How to take a natural breath, 28 min
272 The liberated inhalation, 28 min
278 Full mobility of the diaphragm, introduction to seesaw breathing

AY430

This lesson is a fun rolling lesson. As you experiment with turning the toe bones to turn the leg, you can bring the knees farther and farther away. It’s amazing how the bones start to turn more and more.

Then you bring the foot to your thigh, hold both feet, and eventually swing up and swap legs and come up to sit. I know, it sounds complicated, but it’s actually really fun, as long as you stay safe and don’t force. Play with the movement and see how much you improve. Perfection is not the goal.

In fact, here is a note from my blog post, Being perfect is not the goal:

"Perfect mechanics—or a body without any injury, tension, or pain—does not in any way guarantee good movement. That's because movement doesn't happen in perfect joints, it happens in the brain, in how we construct our self-image, in how we relate to the environment, and in our skill in knowing where we are in space, how we time the sequence, and so on. Easy movement comes from self-knowledge, not mechanics. You can have a perfect physical body and still move poorly if your timing is off, if you effort extra hard in your neck, or if you can't feel the force through your feet."

AY431

This is a gentle lesson with small movements. I love the detailed way it brings awareness to your center. Lying on your side(ish), you make micro-explorations to find the balance point around which you rotate.

As you move more and more, and with great precision, the whole system starts to calm down. The resulting coordination is such a joy to feel in walking.

AY434 version 1

This lesson invites more of the waist area to generate the power of the long limbs. As you learn more about the use of the trunk, you will feel a wonderful ease in walking, running, skiing, and swimming.

You can also see how the same lesson can be taught very differently using the same base movements.

AY434 version 2

Here we have the third version of this lesson, clarifying even more how this movement is generated from the middle. This lesson asks you to track the same variables in a different way yet again.

What I find interesting is that these three versions are the same lesson taught by three different Feldenkrais Method trainers. When you do all three, you can see how they each interpreted the base lesson in their own unique way.

AY434 version 3

This brings you back to the seesaw movement. Here is another opportunity to be very gentle with yourself. You will be on your side with the knees under your pelvis. You push your hip forward with variations, including pushing the top knee past the bottom knee, sliding the head to the side, and pushing the belly out.

At the end, feel the amazing flattening and lengthening across the back. If you strain, you are just training your self in a second PhD in strain. Test the gentle strategy and see what happens to your ability to swing your legs. You are the only one who can run this experiment, no one else can do it for you.

AY440

This lesson moves toward holding the foot behind you and making some interesting turns in the leg. When done slowly and with care, the movement that opens up along the front of you can be life-changing. The length of the lower abdomen, the pelvic floor, the use of the hips in relation to the spine is novel for most of us (unless you’re a gymnast or a figure skater!).

This is such a relieving lesson as it lets go of tension along the whole front and hips by slow degrees. You’ll feel taller, more supported, and with much greater ease in posture, digestion, and upright swinging.

AY441

Lots of rolling forward and back on the side, loosening any residual tension along the spine. More oscillating on the back, feeling the movement up the spine to the head as you lightly grip the heels. A lovely softening lesson for the whole back.

AY447

The rest of this lesson, with additional bending in the ribs to find all the places where you’re holding and resisting. The head becomes lighter, the spine longer.

AY447