short lessons to relieve tension — Feldenkrais lessons online

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Short lessons to relieve tension

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calming

It’s easy to get stuck in a stress response with tightening the belly and gripping the jaw. These lessons interrupt the stress response and invite calm.

1 Body scan and breathing, 16 min (back)
2 Super simple pelvis rocking to check your state, 9 min (back)
3 Breathing and tapping to reduce anxiety, 7 min (back or any position)
4 Mini see-saw breathing to release tension, 10 min (back)
5 Awareness of the stress response holding the breath, 21 min (back)
6 Fully exhale to shift the stress response, 10 min (back or sitting)

Shoulders

This area can be so tight so often we sometimes forget what it feels like to release it. Try these “tricks” to sneak around your habits. Watch your jaw as you do these, too, and practice keeping the teeth separated.

7 Oscillating to free the shoulders, arms in triangle, 8 min (back)
8 Rocking the upper back, self hug, 10 min (back)
9 Release shoulders with plunking and tapping, 16 min (back)

Low back

Try these to unravel tightness and tension in the low back. Attend to the quality of the movement, making it smoother and lighter each time.

10 Rocking pelvis with arms overhead, feet together, 17 min (back)
11 Tilt draped legs, soften back and ribs, 20 min (back)
12 Basic pelvic clock, 33 min (back)

dynamic sitting

Many people ask me the correct way to sit. My immediate response is: get out of gravity and lie on the floor for ten minutes every hour or two because humans were not designed to sit still for a long time. You’ll feel so much lighter just by letting your spine decompress throughout the day.

The goal is not to figure out how to be static and love it, but rather how to sit more dynamically because stillness is death, in every sense of the word.

That said, there are many things you can do to keep mobile while sitting, including moving your spine in many directions, relieving tension in the neck, and unwinding the shoulders and hips.

13 Waggle knees in sitting to release hips and low back, 9 min (sitting)
14 Round and arch, elbows on knees for a neutral spine, 7 min (sitting)
15 Side bending with one sit bone dropping, 9 min (sitting)
16 Round and turn in sitting to soften shoulders and spine, 7 min (sitting)
17 Help for the neck, circle head and arm in sitting, 8 min (sitting)

Jaw and eyes

Tension likes to lurk in the jaw and eyes and it’s mostly unconscious. Use these lessons to settle the excess, unnecessary tension and return to a soft, easy quality in the face, neck, jaw, and eyes.

18 Tilt head to release jaw, neck, and ribs, 35 min (back)
19 Swiveling eyes, monitoring breath, 33 min (back)
“When a person continues to use a stereotyped pattern of behavior instead of one suitable to the present reality, the learning process has come to a standstill.”
— Moshe Feldenkrais
 
 
 

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