Pelvic Clock

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Introduction

The pelvic clock is taught in many ways in many versions in Feldenkrais. This version often taught in trainings is based on the “rolling the pelvis” lessons Moshe taught in his Amherst, Massachusetts, training from 1980-1981.

As with all the series in this section on lessons from trainings, they must be done in order as the movements grow in complexity and culminate in a movement that frees the hips and spine in all in a way you could never have imagined. Trust me, you’ll be ready for salsa dancing by the end!

For variations on the pelvic clock and other types of clocks, see:
Unlock your pelvis
More pelvis and clock lessons
Eye clocks

TIP: Some lessons in this series will have the knees wide. There is no need to hang the weight of the legs in the hip sockets. Decide for yourself where to hold the legs without straining the ligaments.

In sitting, roll the pelvis backward. Test where the hands rest and how the arms support you. Feel the symmetry of the sit bones and lower back. Test many positions of the head. Discover your own neutral compared to the anatomical center.

I love this lesson because it clarifies the hip joints and how the pelvis rolls over the hips. If the whole spine is not involved, it becomes more and more apparent. The spine, pelvis, and hips learn to work together. Wonderful for walking!

(This series is from Amherst, week 5, 1980, July 7-9, “Rolling the pelvis”)

Part 2 includes more asymmetry to find symmetry: with knees wide, put one foot on the opposite ankle and roll many ways, both in sitting and lying down. Test bringing your knee to the floor and activating the back.

Find out how your back powers your legs while smoothing out the kinks in areas of the back that have been hijacked by old habits, like sitting too long! Feel long, tall, light, and strong…not by increasing muscles, but by increasing movement through the spine.

This is one of my favorite lessons for de-stressing the lower back. I find I also soften my jaw and neck while bringing more and more flexibility to the low back and hips.

It highlights how any tension in the belly will inhibit movement in the pelvis as well as freedom in the neck.

Use this lesson any time you’re achy from sitting!

Now that the spine is more flexible, we start to move the pelvis in a circle. The jaw, belly, neck, ribs, and breath all become fluid and responsive.

Check out your upright posture after this much fluid, flowing connection through your bones!

This lesson is one of my favorite lessons for letting go of tension in the hips and low back. The muscles around the pelvis completely reorganize to allow the pelvis, low back, and legs to flatten out and become heavy with their true weight instead of all the extra contractions that pull us away from the floor.

This invites a strong constraint in keeping one leg on the floor and rolling around it many ways. You practice moving the belly with and against the pelvis to clarify easy movement. You will walk with a gentle, smooth, easy swivel after this!

Here we see the pelvic clock come into play. Imagining that you’re rolling around a clock on the floor brings an element of precision to your motor control. It increases your skill in paying attention to the pelvis, head, neck, eyes, breath, and more.

As your attention widens, you include more of your whole self in the movement, and then the movement moves you…it becomes one simple, fluid action with access to your whole self instead of pieces.

Part two of this increased precision around the clock.

Much more clarification of the head and pelvis, with many variations to discover what you’re actually doing. This prevents any mushy “cheating” as you move around the clock.

This lesson has some interesting variations of your pelvis on the clock dial, adding more and more precision to your proprioception (knowing where you are in space).

Amazingly, there are more variations in the movement of the pelvis and the folding motion of the spine!

With knees wide, you articulate much more at the hips and learn every little place where you could let go even more.

A continuation of the knees wide, rolling around in a circle with more variations. By the end of this series, your pelvis will be wildly free and your walking free and easy.

Ah-hah, now we’re really moving the pelvis! Rolling the pelvis on the back, standing on the knees, and then in standing…like preparing for salsa dancing, something my culture does not do well! We don’t give ourselves permission to really move the pelvis in an easy, human way. See video, below.

For a follow-on lesson for articulating your hips, see Esalen #43 Walking on your sit bones.