Hands: Typing, knitting, playing music, woodworking, and more

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Introduction

Did you know that there are no muscles in your fingers? The muscles that move the finger joints are in the palm and forearm, not the fingers. That’s why we get repetitive strain in the wrist, sore forearms, and aching palms.

These lessons address the interaction between the fingers, wrists, and forearms. Even a little attention to this area will alleviate strain from repetitive use. And, because the fine motor patterns of the hands take up so much space in the motor cortex, the whole system settles as the tone softens in this chronically overused area.

This lesson is a balm for sore fingers, wrists, and forearms. You can even do it resting your elbow on the desk instead of lying down. Play with these movements throughout your day, especially if you feel fatigue and soreness in your hands, or if you are at risk for repetitive strain injury.

It’s calming for the whole system when the tone softens in the hands. This is because a larger percentage of the overall activity in our motor cortex is directed toward fine motor skills. When those patterns stop endlessly firing, a sense of ease spreads and the overall excitation level lowers.

One of my personal favorite lessons. It’s excellent for repetitive strain or recovering from hand surgery, and amazing for anyone who has tension in the wrist, forearm, or fingers. Plus, it’s calming and soothing as the whole system settles as all the habits of the hand reduce their "buzzing.”

AY124

This is a slow, detailed lesson observing the skeletal linkage from the arms to the collar bones, sternum, ribs, and spine. I love this lesson and I can settle into the sensations of weight-shift across the back and not worry about anything else. As Moshe says, “The floor is your teacher.”

This also alleviate tightness in the chest and shoulders and softens the upper back. As you clarify how the arms connect through the bones, the muscles become available for power instead of hijacked in tension.

Note that this lesson has many questions about what you’re sensing and few answers. If you’re new to Feldenkrais, this can be confusing. Just sense and notice and draw your own conclusions. The variations will help you fill in the picture. As you do your own detective work, you will learn more than if someone just told you how to move your arm.

Read my short blog post, How to move your arm, for more on this topic.

Tip: Stand the feet at any time or put a rolled blanket under the knees as this lesson is entirely on the back.

For more like this, see the Reaching like a skeleton series.

(San Francisco training, June 16, 1975)

Here the gentle rolling of the interlaced hands drops you down out of hyper-vigilance and into the parasympathetic resting state. (Any soft, rhythmic motion of the hands will do this.) I love this lesson as it effortlessly reaches the arm out into space by clarifying the weight shift across the back. This is a gentle lesson with a lot “just sensing."

For more calming, rhythmic movements of the hands, see:
Breathing and tapping series—help for anxiety
Bell hand series

For more lessons with interlaced hands, see:
178 Rolling hands, palming eyes

Another amazing lesson for repetitive strain. You hold the fingers in different ways and move the whole arm around the finger. You also sense each bone through the hand. It's very soothing for strain in the forearms and fingers.

You could do these movements on an airplane or sitting in a car. The movements are simple and once you know them, you can do them anywhere. I love this lesson for the remarkable way it reduces tension in the hand, wrist, and forearm. I give this lesson to my clients all the time as most people have excess strain in the hands.

Here you bring the palms together as if praying. Then, you move the hands up and down and side to side, and of course you vary them in relation to the head, chest, and eyes. This is an iconic lesson in the Feldenkrais cannon. I put it here because it helps you sense the connection the arms into the center of yourself. It is a study in orientation and spatial relationships, using the eyes open and closed in various ways to track the hands.

I like this lesson because it invites you to sense outer and inner spaces at the same time, which appeals to me. On a mechanical level, the use of the shoulders and ribs with the constraint of the palms together offers new patterns when you return to using the hands separately, without the constraint.

version of AY363