Touch toes, squat, straighten the legs: Help for the hamstrings

Explore touching your toes, lengthening the legs, squatting, and sitting back on your heels all without stretching. A study in how the hip, leg, and back muscles work in unison instead of struggle against each other.

For a complement to these lessons, see the longer series, Sitting on the heels.

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This is a useful little sequence from the Tips and Tricks section that will significantly reorganize the musculature in the hips, low back, and legs. Feel how lengthening the back helps you bend over to touch your toes!

TIP: If possible, lean your hands on a firm seating surface more or less the standard height of 18" off the floor. That way the spine between the shoulder blades can participate.

(This is #8 under Release the low back in tips and tricks.)

This lesson asks you to keep a long back while tilting in the hip joints. I love this lesson because even though it is challenging, the learning is where the challenge is. I always feel amazing after playing with the movements. This is one of those lessons where the movement will be an approximation of optimal organization, especially given how our adult self has relied on compromised sitting for years and years.

Little toddlers and babies sit upright in their hips all the time. They haven’t learned how limited they can get. Be gentle with yourself as you explore these movements. You will improve by kindness, not by force.

Tip: Keep the constraint of the chest, and be careful not to jut your neck out while tilting. Feel your hips instead.

For another lesson with a similar differentiation, see 35 Getting to know the hip joints.

AY139

The second part of touching the toes, with many variations in the spine and chest as you tilt, round, and scoop in various ways. The spine and chest will soften and the back will become long if you don’t pull against yourself.

This lesson really alters the muscular patterns in the back. Don’t go into it expecting to do it perfectly. I encourage having a sense of humor and letting yourself imagine movements if they are not accessible at this time.

In all honesty, this lesson took me many years to be able to do, and I started at the young age of 25—I’m now 53! I was so dysfunctional and rigid when I started that I had to take the time to soften in all ways, not only finding depths of self-compassion, but also unwinding tension in my ribs, hips, low back, and more, to be able to “do” the movement, even though in Feldenkrais there is no “doing,” just closer and closer approximations that lead to higher and higher function.

For another wonderful lesson that includes rounding, scooping, and articulating over the hips, see 97 Reaching like a cat.

AY141

See how you make sense of this lesson as you slide the hands down the legs further and further, lifting once the heel, once the forefoot. It’s really about balance.

This lesson also focuses on the toes and developing the ability to perch on the feet in many shapes without gripping in the toes. That means you acquire much more precision in counterbalancing the head and the pelvis. The shape of the chest, spine, and oh yes, the hip joints, have something to say here, too.

The sense of smell bypasses the thalamus and goes right to the olfactory bulb next to the hippocampus, where memories are stored. That’s why smells can evoke such strong memories.

This lesson has that effect for me: I still remember the first time I realized I could use a different strategy than the one I started with and everything fell into place.

(AY444)

This lesson looks similar to the previous one, but the sliding occurs in different planes. See how this affects your balance, especially the length of your low back and the freedom in your belly as you stand up all the way.

For a similar lessons, see 16 Walking backwards.

(Esalen lesson 33 Elementary attempts in loving oneself, also Amherst, 29 July 1981, week 8, Hands slide down thigh)

What to do with our constant need to stretch the hamstrings? Here Moshe shows how the back muscles are linked to the ability of the leg muscles to organize efficiently, appropriately, and intelligently.

With lots and lots of flexion, you lift the head and the leg and fold the spine. Now, your system wakes up to the possibility that maybe, one day, the foot could go behind the head. The possibility emerges where there was none before.

Only with a totally flexible spine in every position—on the back, to the side, and in sitting—can you conceive of this possibility. Test it out, and then see what happens. One day it might feel like nothing!

Esalen workshop, CD1 #12

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For a similar lesson, see 303 Caress hands down legs, swivel up to sit.

Plus, all the flexion lessons are good for lengthening the back and coordinating the legs to lengthen.

This is a lesson about squatting down on your heels or sitting back on the heels. Most adults in western cultures cannot do this. Take it slow and make incremental adjustments.

Do not, under any circumstances, try to force yourself into a position you are not ready for. The slow, small movements will get you there in the end. As Moshe says, “You can only improve as much as you can afford.” Otherwise, the cost is too high.

I knew an ultra-runner once (ultra-runners run 50 to 100-mile races) who was injured and had to stop running. To recover, he ran two minutes each day for two weeks. I repeat: He stopped after two minutes. Then he ran for two minutes and thirty seconds—and stopped.

The difference between him and the average person is that he knew that training is incremental, not sudden. If you expect to run a 100-mile race or sit back on your heels right away, you won’t have a good experience. Have fun with this lesson and you will learn a lot.

AY109

I love this lesson because it invites such a logical movement in the spine relative to the swivel of the pelvis. I give it to anyone who wants to run, walk, or sit better.

Use this lesson to retrain all the musculature around the pelvis, hips, and low back to be able to fold and allow you to sit back on the heels.

Plus, this lesson is truly amazing for swiveling the hips in walking. Moshe Feldenkrais had a knee injury and he thought a lot about the connection of the legs through to the pelvis and spine. As you learn to move the pelvis directly around the hip, new connections light up in the brain. Try it and see what happens.

(Esalen lesson 26 Primitive Locomotion—Coordinating the Locomotive Joints)

More lessons for the hamstrings:

283 Basic flexion #3, straighten legs without stretching
111 Gentle hooking the toe to clarify hips
112 Lengthening leg by withdrawing pelvis
303 Lengthen spine, caress legs, swivel to sit

The longer series of Sitting on the heels.