Sitting on the heels: Improving the joints

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Introduction

Go slowly in this series and apply everything you’ve learned so far about your angle of approach in taking care of yourself. You are not alone in finding this series difficult at times. It will improve as long as you are kind to yourself.

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This series is from AY 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197. Trainers break these lessons up in different ways. I have opted for a particular way of dividing them up that I liked. For an exact lesson-by-lesson approach, please see the AY section.

This lesson is amazing for reorganizing the bones of the legs, including the hips, knees, ankles, and the small bones through the foot. It’s not exactly “sitting on the heels,” it’s more about rotating the leg bones in interesting positions with new constraints.

Go slowly, using all your Feldenkrais skills to be gentle with yourself as these constraints are strong. There’s no rush! This series has seven lessons or more, depending on how they get broken down, which provides lots of time to explore. Don’t do it all in one go.

AY190 part 1

This lesson starts the process of standing on the toes. Don’t worry, it’s a gradual discovery of flexibility and support through the feet. Eventually, you bring the pelvis toward the heels by lifting and lowering the knees, both on the back and in sitting. Your spine figure out how to relate to the knees, as do your ankles, hips, belly, and toes.

The concept of supportive toes is elusive for most of us. We barely use our feet in daily life. See how this lesson improves your ability to squat, walk, balance, and shift your weight fully onto the feet in different positions.

AY190 part 2

Progress in your skill by bringing one heel, then the other toward the floor in back, and one knee and then the other toward the floor in front. You will experiment with many, many ways to move the knees and the pelvis in different arcs, angles, and swivels.

This lesson is a slow progression toward one day bringing the heels more and more toward the floor, with an unexpected option for the pelvis!

More shifting the knees forward and back, many variations and strategies for moving the pelvis through space as well as more arcs in the spine in many positions. This lessons continues the slow, detailed process of finding a new support structure through the foot as well as reorganizing from the knees up through the top of the head by starting to lean on the shoulders as the pelvis lifts.

Continuing to explore flexibility in the bones of the feet and ankles, as well as organizing the back to lower the pelvis to the heels. This lesson explores one leg in the air while the other foot is under the pelvis. You make many circles of the leg in the hip, then the foot in the ankle. Again, the movement of bringing the knees forwards and down in many angles is explored both on the back and sitting on the heels.

At one point, in sitting with the arms are straight forward at shoulder height, you keep the chest still while the lower trunk swivels with one knee forward and then the other—like a Russian dancer!

This lesson practices arching the back to bring the knees forward. There are many variations for leaning to the side onto an elbow and maybe one day coming from sitting to lying down on the back. Don’t worry, there are many layers and modifications to this exploration.

You will also roll the heels many times to soften the foot bones like we did in the beginning of this series.

You will get good at shifting the weight to swivel the legs under the pelvis, and you start stacking the forefeet to sit in seiza with the heels wide.

Once the front can lengthen, much of the strain is removed from the knees and ankles. Test this lesson, then wait a week or two and try this series again. You’ll be surprised by how much you know! The pattern will clarify over time.