Basic flexion #5, knees to elbows
Here is the first lesson I did after my stressful week: Knees to elbows with variations.
This lesson experiments with the chin to the knee, the forehead, the nose, the lips. I love the protrusion of the lips forward mirroring the spine backwards. Getting good at shapes, angles, and pressure will help you recover your mobile ribs and spine and a strong, upright posture.
Thought for March 29th: Unknown to knowing
I lay on the floor earlier this week and couldn’t move for a whole hour. I expect it was a combination of exhaustion and stress, which is no doubt a common experience these days.
Yesterday, I lay down again. I could move, but my chest felt like a balloon that had been blown up too tight. I searched for the yielding of the ribs, but my nervous system was not able to find it. I’ve been doing this stuff for twenty-five years and I sure know how to move my ribs.
The thing is, we can know “about” things without really knowing them. Right then, I did not know how to move my ribs.
Consider how different it is hearing the list of ingredients in a Gruyere cheese souffle (which I made this week as there was plenty of Gruyere and not much else at the store), from actually eating it. (It was really good comfort food, by the way.)
So while I can’t fix my ribs, I can relearn and reconnect and re-experience them. That’s what keeps me going: When we lose something we can find it again. It’s called being alive: losing and finding and losing and finding, over and over, each time refining our ability and skill and efficiency.
That’s why Feldenkrais is a learning process and not a technique.
It’s only when I got on the floor and listened to my sensations that I started to feel my ribs soften. No matter what I knew about ribs intellectually, I still had to meet myself where I was at: What is this experience of tight ribs, a confused back, and a belly that seems to be in its own special lockdown mode?
Only then did I recover my intelligence and ability to feel embodied and whole. (Just for the record, it took me four Awareness Through Movement lessons yesterday to feel really better!)
I felt slow and clunky at first. Clarity grew only after I gave enough space to each question. With a beginner’s mind, I asked: can I feel my back, can I sense my breath, can I push my feet, can I move my eyes?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
* * *
FYI: These are the lessons I did after my stressful week (all in the Treasury, of course):
two flexion lessons (#5 and #6 from basic flexion)
a strong extension lesson (#3 arms frame the head in a strong back)
this strong lesson of pressing the back into the floor many ways (#1 folding diagonals in graduated flexion).
Live online classes
Starting this Tuesday, March 31st. It will be super fun. I hope you’ll join me. Your first two classes are free!
Time:
Tuesday, 10:00-11:00am
Wednesday, 7:00-8:00pm
Mountain Time (Denver, US)
Cost:
Try two classes for free whether you are a regular student or not.
After that, it’s $11 per class or $45 for any five classes.