Reaching like a skeleton: Effortless weight shift

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Introduction

Back in 1996, my teacher, Dennis Leri, said this would be the first and last lesson of the training, just to show us how much we’d changed over four years.

It was true, by the end we all rolled around like little kids rolling down a hill at top speed. (Or is it just me who used to tuck my arms in and roll faster and faster down a steep, grassy hill?) Test this series for yourself and see how soft and responsive your trunk can be as you swish side to side.

A slow movement to connect the arm into the torso bone by bone, through the collar bone, shoulder blade, upper back, and ribs. Often we don’t think about the skeletal linkages, we just move through our day. This lesson highlights those links, making it easier to move the arm when your whole self participates.

I give this lesson to just about everyone who has twinges, knots, or the impending sense of a frozen shoulder.

TIP: Go slow. Do not crank on yourself. Feel each bone moving in turn.

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.)

Based on the San Francisco training, June 16, 1975, via Dennis Leri.

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

Here you integrate the movement, becoming proficient at sensing the connection of the arms all the way into the center of gravity. This is a detailed examination of weight shift across the back.