An experiment in Rolling Up to Sit

AN EXPERIMENT IN ROLLING UP TO SIT
1) Lie on your back. Do a sweet and lovely scanning of your entire body. Notice how long your legs feel and what differences there are right and left. Notice the same for your arms. Notice where your spine is touching the floor or earth and where it is not. Notice how you are breathing and what the general shape of yourself is right now. Notice your pelvis and spine and head as a connected line of yourself. Notice the ribs and your shoulder blades. Notice whether you like to notice what is "painful" or what is "pleasant" or just "what is."

2). Roll onto your right side. Bend your legs slightly so you are more or less stable. Put your right upper arm under your head if necessary for your comfort. Now, straighten your upper, left leg down and your arm, left arm up, so they make a line up and down.

3)Now, do this little play around thing, of bringing your left arm and left leg toward each other in front of you and back to neutral, which is straight up and down. Notice how you use your back and stomach to do this.

4). Rest. On your side or back and just notice any differences.

5). Come back to your right side as in 2, and now bring your upper arm and leg back. As with all Feldenkrais play/ learning, and the many essays herein: small is as good as large, slow is much better than fast, and if you aren't aware, you are just a donkey cranking out motion. Go to 80% of your limit with 300% of your usual awareness. Go back with straight left arm and left leg and notice how the rest of you participates in this. Enjoy this. Soften this. Allow any extra effort to be dropped away.

6). Rest on your back and notice differences side to side and in how you are lying now from the beginning.

7) Come to your side again and now combine 3 and 5, so the arms and legs first come back and then forward. Notice our spine and how to use your belly in and belly out to help with this.

8) Rest.

9) Come to your side again. And now, bring the legs and arms as if they were a line, so that as the left arm comes forward, the left leg comes back, and as the left arm comes back, the left leg comes forward. This is fun, and even so, go slow and see how in one position you want to roll toward your belly and in one position your want to roll toward your back. Allow and enjoy this. Feel the deliciousness of this movement.

10) Rest and notice differences, side to side, now from the beginning.

11) Do 9 again, and, as you roll forward with your left arm each time, allow your head to come along with your arm as if your head is going to come along the floor toward your right knee. You can even try gluing your left arm to your left ear as you bring your arm forward and sweep your hand along the ground, get a sense of more and more of a circular motion to this side. Glue your head until it arrives as near to your knee as easily possible and then let your left arm continue a little farther in its circling.

12) Rest. And notice. And enjoy.

13) Now, as you go back to what you were doing in 11, allow your left hand and arm to keep coming toward your legs so far that your head comes near your right knee, your left hand goes on farther than your knee and your left leg keep counter balancing your arm, so that you end in a position where you need only to arch your back at the end of this move and your are up and sitting. THE KEY IS KEEPING YOUR HEAD LOW AS LONG AS POSSIBLE, UNTIL YOU ARE WAY AROUND NEAR OR AT YOUR KNEE. THEN SITTING IS A NATURAL FOLLOW UP. From sitting, think about how to reverse exactly what you did, head going first to knees, and hand along the floor and upper leg in counterbalance, as you come back to your side.


I'll post pictures on this in a couple of days, but for now: try to figure it out just as an experiment you get to completely figure out from within.