Awareness in the raw and wonderful now below the waist and in the middle and at the top

Magic Carpet #2: 

SENSING 3 LAYERS OF YOU IN THE
NOW

GAME #2.1 Noticing and getting to know our three layers.

Go to a window, or outdoor.

If you can, take off your shoes, or your shoes and socks.

Feel the three layers:

BOTTOM: Your feet and toes and legs. 

Your pelvis and hips.

MIDDLE: 

Your ribs and belly.

The breath coming in.

The breath going out.

The breath moving your ribs and lungs and belly.

Your back and spine.

Your neck.

Your arms and shoulders and hands and fingers.

TOP:

Your eyes that see.

Your ears the hear.

Your tongue that talks (and other grand stuff)

Your mouth and/or nose that breaths in.

Your head that balances on top of your spine.

Your smile or not smile on your mouth/ face.

This is you.

Life is usually up above the neck, and not in awareness of our smile or what we are seeing and hearing in the moment, but in the words in our head.

And the world is big and your body is full.

You have three layers:

Below the navel. The bottom layer. Your pelvis for movement and sitting and sexing.

Your feet and legs and toes for standing and running and walking and dancing and skiing and skating and all sorts of fun.

Below the neck, and above the navel.

This is where we move, sometimes easily, sometimes stiffly. This is where we breathe. This is often where we feel our emotional “feelings.” 

This is where our arms come out and reach and caress and explore and change the world. Arms and hands and fingers, and the arms end near the body in the “shoulders,” which are the upper arm bone attaching to the shoulder blades, which float on the ribs.

To sense the miracle of arms and fingers and shoulder blades is a wonderful gift to ourselves, and almost always forgotten in the horribly small world of texting and moving a mouse around in cyber space.

Which is lost to reality.

What is your reality right now?

Sense your pelvis and feet.

Good.

Sense your hands and breathing.

Good.

Sense your smile/ or not smile and feel your head as an actual body part floating up on your spine.

Wake the fuck up.

In both senses.

We are asleep to reality.

Wake up to that.

Our sex is usual abysmal thrashing around, and we can’t find a partner in love and we aren’t present in either talk or touch or sex, and it can all start to turn around.

When.

Now.

Now?

Yes, now.

As you read this book, here’s 

SUPER GAME #2.2

AS YOU READ THE REST OF THIS BOOK

SENSE THE BOTTOM LAYER, AT LEAST FEET AND PELVIS

SENSE THE MIDDLE LAYER, AT LEAST OF HANDS AND BREATHING IN AND BREATHING OUT

SENSE THE TOP LAYER OF SMILE OR NOT SMILE AND FEELING AIR COMING IN AND OUT OF YOUR NOSE AND/OR MOUTH.

That sounds like “too much,” right?

And as you read these words, try to be in awareness of at least one of those layers.

And as you read these words, try to be in awareness of another layer.

And as you read these words, try to be in awareness of the third layer.

This is the miracle.

When you can talk to your mate, or to a stranger and have ANY awareness in ANY of these levels, you will be living, in that moment at a vastly more awake level.

At the level of the children who are our guide back into the kingdom of heaven.

And guess what?

When we move, it’s easier to have awareness in the body in the present.

So let’s give ourselves the present of being present as we move.

And how are we going to do that?

Big surprise: another game.

Game #2.3. MOVE SLOWLY AND EASILY WITH AWARENESS 

A. Stand up. 

Feel the floor under you and the breathing in your middle and the air coming in and out of your nose/ mouth.

B. Now move:

Raise up onto your toes, so your heels lift from the ground.

Stay there a bit

Come back down

Do this three times.

For the full and easy enjoyment of the movement and your awareness of yourself now alive and moving.

C. ADD ON BREATHING

As you come up onto your toes and raise your heels

Add on BREATHING IN

At the top, heels up a bit and neither raising any more, nor coming back down

Hold your breath a bit and smile

And as you

Come back down so your heels touch the ground

Breathe out

and notice how that feels in your middle layer

Do this three times for the pure enjoyment of up and down with breathing.

D. Now, do this three more times, as you practice awareness shifting from bottom, to middle, to top layer.

First time up and down with breath: notice the bottom layer

Second time up and down with breath: notice the middle layer

Third time up and down with breath: notice the top layer.

E. Walk around a bit.

Notice how you feel more full and alive.

F. Then do D again,

With three additions.

One: Add a smile.

Two: Do this three times of three up and downs. Each time shifting attention from bottom, to middle to top layer.

Three: each time you are going up and down and noticing a layer, say aloud,

“Now I am aware of…”

And state what you are aware of in that layer.

For example:

“Now I am aware of my feet on the floor”

“Now I am aware of my belly in my breathing.”

“Now I am aware of breathing in my nose.”

“Now I am aware of my hip joints”

“Now I am aware of my hands.”

“Not I am aware of my eyes seeing…”

“Now I am aware of my legs resting down onto my feet.”

“Now I am aware of my ribs in my breathing.”

“Now I am aware of …. sounds coming in my ears.”

Needless to say, to do this as you are moving and breathing in coordination to your movement is a full menu.

And:

You deserve it.

Fuck yes, if you want a full life of sex and love and adventure, this ability to be aware, in the moment of your body at three levels is the start of a “raw enlightenment” that is both extremely powerful and extremely useful.

Powerful because it engages so much of your body as a here and now reality.

Useful because you can “do” this meditation in the car and at a meeting and on the phone and talking to your loved one and talking to your enemy and listening to music and walking down the hallways at work or at your home or taking a walk down your street.

Your legs and pelvis and Earth are always there.

Your hands and arms and breathing are always there.

Your breathing in at your nose or mouth and your eyes and ears are always there.

How marvelous to be awake to that now.

Right now.

Right?

Posture, Golf, Flow ---- Movement Lesson

1.
Stand comfortably in your bare feet
bend your knees a fair amount
and easily
gently
reach down toward the floor

Don't strain
Don't stress

Just see how far you can easily go
and
what it feels like to be you doing this

Good

2. Now
dangle your arms in front of you, parallel
and let yourself round over

You are not leaning down toward the floor,
but more like collapsing into a ball
your hands down about your knees and no farther

Your pelvis rolls in,
as if your sex toward your nose

Your head flops forward with your neck completely released

Your belly is way in

Your back is rounded

This is "the center"

3. From the "center"

Let your arms float up and to the right
staying parallel
with your hands soft and easy

here your back arches
with your belly forward

and you twist up and to the right

you look up toward the right,
your arch your back such that your butt
is lifting back and up toward the back of your head

do this all easily

From here, release, and come back down through the center

In the center, you are rounded and collapsed
everything as described above

and
your job is to feel something new
and
interesting
and
pleasurable

each time

Then keep going to the left and up

arch
belly forward
pelvis again tilted so that the butt and the back of your head are searching for each other

you twist up and to the left,
letting your eyes go that way, too

4.
Do this back and forth 3 or 4 times,
always slowly
always sensing all of yourself
easily
and with enjoyment
the whole way through

5. Now rest, and feel your standing

And then retry the beginning lean down toward the floor

Is it different in feel?
Can you go a little closer?

6,
Now repeat  2, 3, and 4
in this way:

As you go to the right and up,
have your weight on your right foot

As you go to the center,
have your weight on both feet

As you go to the left and up
have your weight on your left foot.

Again, 3-5 times, easily,
with learning and
pleasure

6.b.
Rest as above
Feel standing
Try moving toward the floor and feel differences

7.
Do the movement with your weight on the right foot
the entire time

Take the rest and discovery at the end

8.
Do the movement with your weight on your left foot
the entire time

Again,
rest to feel your standing sensation
re test the leaning toward the floor

9. Do the movement in this interesting way:

When you go up and to the right, have your weight on your left foot

In the center have your weight on both feet

When you go up and to the left, have your weight on your right foot

Do it this complicated way
enough to be able to relax into it and enjoy it

9.b. as usual, after a few movements,
rest in standing and
re test the bending toward the floor

10. end this up, doing the movement
with your weight shifting in any way that
seems easiest and most natural to you

do this with both your eyes open
and 
your eyes closed

do it so it feels almost a movement lullaby for you

and
keep alert enough to discover
new facets
and new
pleasures each time

then stop,
rest,
breathe
smile

enjoy standing and bending at the end
and walk around a bit following your breathing
and enjoying any increased clarity of vision

take some quiet movement or sitting
or even lying down time,
before you head to the next activity
good

From Anat's book, Essential One: Movement with Attention, for parents of special needs children, and ALL of us

Harper learning about gravity,

I'm going to do a series, writing about the Nine Essentials from
Anat's book.
Move Into Life

If you don't have it yet, it's certainly a fine addition to your life,
whether a parent of a special needs child,
a practitioner of Feldenkrais or the Anat Baniel Method,
or "just"
one more of that amazing group of human beings who realize:
hey, I'm alive,
and when I know I'm alive I can transform almost anything.

Actually, when we are alive,
and aware of the present moment, we can transform
the quality of our experience,
always,
though we may or may not be able to transform the effects
of our actions.

What's that mean?
You are trying to improve your tennis serve.
You become aware of the tightness of your grip,
and you try tighter, and less tight.
You place awareness on your feet, and add extra awareness
sometimes to your big toes, sometimes the baby toe,
sometimes the inside of your feet,
sometimes the outside.

As you do these variations,
which is another Essential down the line,
you have a better chance of being aware of just
how the whole swing,
the whole serve
the whole action takes place.

So: your experience of your serve will change.
Maybe more relaxed.
Maybe more powerful.
Maybe both.

Certainly, by shifting awareness in your fingers
and then in your toes, you will get a more global sense
of what this "serve the ball" action is about.

For you.
Now.

And this could be done without variation.
We could just keep serving the ball,
and shifting awareness from our toes,
to our ankles,
to our knees,
to our pelvis,
all the way up,
and with this awareness in the moment again
get a clearer picture, feel, sensory understanding
of how we do something that might have
been habitual.

And we don't have to be "into" sports.
We can walk to the next room, and pay attention to
that movement.

We can move our spine gently right,
left,
up and down,
forward and back,
and see how that "feels," where feeling can mean
both emotional (feels good, feels happy) and sensory:
the actual "feel" of the muscles and bones and movement
as it happens.

This is obvious when we do it,
and yet so often our movement is just
"getting it done,"
and we have wasted a chance to be present
and to give attention to ourselves in the moments of our life.

Think how rich making a meal,
or even washing the dishes could be,
if we took it as a meditation, a chance to be present
to the movement of our arms and spine, and the shifting
positions of weight bearing through our feet,
and our use of our spine and ribs and shoulders.

There is a reason for the famous Zen phrase about:
before enlightenment: chop wood and carry water.
After enlightenment: chop wood and carry water.

It's the everyday living attended to,
in the moment that is the path to
enlightenment
and
IS
enlightenment.

Good, I hope, so far.

And what about our children,
if you are a parent?

The usual, and the usual is so amazing as to be the miraculous
if you think and or realize about it,
that we aren't a tree, aren't a chair, aren't a fragment of star dust
drifting in the Universe.

The usual is that you can lift and hold and touch
and talk to your child.

In any of those movements,
see what happens,
become your own laboratory,
if you are sensing and awaring of your movements
as you lift, hold, touch or talk to your child.

And then, sometimes you will want to play
with them,
to caress them,
to move them gently and sweetly.

Then the slow and the gentle essentials
come in,
One: for the sake of the child's experience
of enjoying it
Two, for the sake of your child's being able
to pay attention as you are moving them,
Three, for the sake of your ability to feel the different
places your touch is transmitting through their
bodies.

It's like you are doing a dance,
the fox trot,
the tango,
something slow and sensual with your child.
This is a form of love,
and with awareness from you,
will help be one more of the learning moments
that they use to build their increasingly
proficient future.

Even the smallest amount of awareness
on their part
is a wonderful addition to the thousands
and perhaps millions of bits of information
that they are using and will continue to use
to move and thrive and learn and transform themselves.

So, it's a good, good, good situation.

You bring yourself more toward the state of enlightenment in action,
which will be relaxing and pleasurable in and of itself.

You increase the quality of your interaction with your child.

The child's experience of herself or himself as loved and nourished
continues and flourishes.

And your child's learning keeps going and growing.


Okay, that's enough for now.
I'll read the chapter, and maybe tomorrow add on an additional thoughts.

Happy attentive moving.



Chris

Improving Tennis as a chance to move toward enlightenment

I am writing a second book, this one of 108 ways to live a more fit,

awake and healthy life.

(link to book one, contents and eight sample chapters, above)

In it there are tips on eating in a different pattern
and a more healthy kind of food.

There are a progression of meditations and movement games,
all with the idea of "getting fit" with as little over effort,
and as much conscious and awakened effort as possible.

The main thrust of this new book, and the one
already written is:
we have two choices: Mindful Living or Mindless.
One is amazing. The other, no matter how well programmed,
eventually grows stale and turns our life in a pseudo-life.

I highly recommend reading the eight sample lessons,
and doing one a day
and then buying to book and for 108 days
spend the ten minutes trying out something "new and now"
in the worlds of
moving,
emotional learning,
thinking,
"soul."

So, the following tennis "games"
are just incidentally to improve your tennis,
and will surely be included as a chapter later in
this new Fitness as an Enlightenment Game
book.

Here goes:

Get a couple of small rocks that weigh just a little more
than your tennis racket, and have the rocks different enough
in weight so that your brain notices which hand is holding the
heavier rock when you are holding both.

This isn't necessary to get started,
but will add a lot to the exercise (that isn't "exercise")
over the long run.

Stand as if to hit a right handed forehand.

Except make a backswing with both arms.
If you have the rocks, fine, use them the second
time through this.

Make your backswing with both arms,
and then make a forehand swing with your right arm
and a backhand swing with your left.

But more like this,
just swing the arms from your right side to your left
side
slowly
and gently
and paying attention to each arm,
it's weight and shape and place in space.

Come back, with both arms parallel,
and repeat this motion,
two more times, eyes closed to "feel" in
the "sense yourself" way
how you do this.

Now,
according to Moshe Feldenkrais:
unless we can do something at least three
ways, we are a slave,
so let's give ourselves seven variations of this
two armed swing.

1. As we swing the arms right to left,
we notice and deliberately shift our weight from right to left foot.
Coming back the weight shifts left to right foot.

2. As we swing the arms R to L,
we keep our weight on the back (R) foot the whole time.
Going and coming.

Wait, you might not know this, if you aren't in the Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel worlds.
Take a sweet rest between each variation. Stand easy, arms down. If you have the rocks, drop them. Close your eyes. Feel the "you-ness" of you in the moment.
Notice any changes in body ease or overall organization
in each rest.
The rests are for your brain and your soul and your fitness.
Take them.

3. As we swing the arms R to L,
we keep our weight on the front (L) foot the whole time.

Rest.

4. As we swing the arms R to L,
we shift our weight in opposite directions:
to wit, we start with the weight on the front foot,
and as we swing to the L, we shift our weight to the back, R, foot.
And as we "come back" we shift our weight from the back, R, foot,
to the front, L, foot.

Rest.

5. This gets a little complicated.
Good.
Read and "think" this in your mind.
"Thinking" as a practice,
rather than the mislabled babbling to either speech or "words in our head"
(monkey chatter as the meditators of a certain stripe call it),
thinking is sadly undeveloped.
So:
start with the arms spread, L arm out to the L,
R arm back as if in the backswing of a forehand shot,
as you "swing" forward with the R hand,
swing "back" with the left hand.

One arm will chose to, and have to, go over the other.
Notice this.
For four times do whatever you picked.
and then the next four shift whatever arm is on top.

Notice: how are you shifting your weight
as you do this?

Are you tensing your jaw or your breathing,
or rushing through this?

Don't.

This variation can be done
in all four of the above combinations of weight shift.

Rest.

6. As we swing the arms R to L, in the beginning style,
and shifting weight "normally" R to L,
moving the chest in the opposite way.
Figure this out.
Go slow.
This is thinking without words.
Both arms go R to L,
the chest each way goes opposite the arms.

Do the weight shift as "normal" but have awareness of the weight
in each foot,
as well that you notice when the weight is 50-50.

Rest.

7. Let the L arm do what it normally does in a forehand.
Bring your R arm back
and play with these eight variations:
4 variations of the weight shift:
(R to L, all R, all L, L to R)
as you make the right handed swing.

How does that make 8?

In each of the above,
do sometimes your chest the same way the
arm is moving,
sometimes opposite.

Rest.

7b: Do a right handed forehand as easily
and smoothly as you can,
not particularly "thinking" about
how you are doing in,
but hugely AWAKE AND AWARE to the sensations from finger tips
to toes,
spine ribs pelvis and all else,
sense yourself as you make as easy a swing
and as aware a swing
and as pleasurable a swing
as
possible.

Good.

And, start the book, a segment a day,
link up above,


so give it a try
and then buy it after you get in the grove
and do 108 days of waking.

Good, 2.

side to side: head and ribs and pelvis as a sweet happy aware of each other team

Side to side seems easy
and
often people get "confused."

Good. As our buddy Albert E says:
"Show me someone who's never made a mistake
and
I'll show you someone who's never learned anything."

One of the key principles of this work is
to sort of groove
on unknowning
to
relish ambiguity
to get
excited
about the state of :
what is going on?

In that state,
we can be new
and
if we are honest
that's always the characteristic of being "now."

Okay,
side to side.

Sit forward in a chair, both feet on the floor, spine straightish and feeling
as if it is holding up your head.

Lean a tad forward so you could hop up or to the side
easily

Now,  here, more or less on your skeleton,
play with this difference:

Head rotating left and right

Head tilting left and right

In the ROTATION, your nose goes left and right

In the TILTING, your nose stays straight ahead and your eyes tilt
so that when you tilt your head to the left, your right eye goes
up a bit and your left eye goes down.

In all movement lessons, always go "less than your limit."
About 80% at most.
And much less force than you think you need. At cut out
half the force, maybe more.
And go slowly: at least half as slowly as habitual.

And all that slow, and soft and less than limit
is
FOOD FOR YOUR BRAIN.

At habitual speed, force and cranking out to the limit,
no learning is going to take place.
You'll be a great donkey, but
why throw away the greatest anti-entropy organ
in the universe (that we know so far): the human brain.

Your brain.

So: to repeat: slow,  gentle, less than your limit. Always in something
you want to improve. For awhile at least.

Do the titling very slowly and feel / sense what is going
on in your neck
Be really honest if you are rotating your nose and neck, too.

Go back and forth: rotating, and tilting,
so that you can really, slowly and deliciously tell the difference.

2. Good. Rest. Sit upright, eyes closed and feel what a small
amount of aware and soft and learning oriented and not going to the limit
can do to organize your whole system.

3. Now play with your ribs, as such:
take each hand to the ribs on the opposite side,
and sitting upright,
pull your ribs first to the right,
and then to the left.

As per always: slow, gentle, less than limit.
And AWARE.
Notice the shape your spine makes when your ribs go
left and when the go right.
Notice which verterbrae move and how.
Notice any tendency to shift your weight as this happens.

4. Rest and sense yourself.
Notice shifts in breathing, ease, sense of your spine  etc.

5. Combine tilt your head and bringing your ribs right and left,
so that you begin to understand
THE NECK FOR WHAT IT REALLY IS:
YOUR WHOLE SPINE

Huh?

Well: go slow, gentle, aware and less than limit and explore this:
As your head tilts to the left,
pull your ribs gently, slowly, awarely to the right,
so you feel as if the tilting in your neck goes all the way down
your spine making a crescent shape in your whole back.

Go slowly , and at first just do this head tilting to the left (go slowly and gently enough
to catch yourself if you start to rotate the head, and then stop:
just tilt)
as your ribs in the middle are pulled to the right.
Notice that the top ribs and bottom ribs go to the left.

Really explore.
You get an A+ no matter "how you do."
See how delicious you can make this:
tilt your head left to involve you whole torso.

6. Now rest.
I know we haven't tilted right yet. Good.
Notice if the two sides feel difference
and notice any additional sweetness to your whole
self.

7, Now come back to readiness to move,
and IMAGINE tilting your head to the right, while
you pull the middle ribs to the left.
IMAGINE this several times
and then do it ONCE.
Notice in the doing what you skipped in imagination.
Imagine it again.
Do it again.
and once more: imagine, filling in more and more.
Do it once and see what you missed.

8. Rest.

9. Now, hands on ribs, IMAGINE going left and right tilt
with your head as the ribs make your spine into a long
crescent.
Then do this both ways a number of times.
Each time see if you can feel and notice and enjoy
something new.

10. Rest and feel all of you.

11. If you want to stop, this is a nice place to get up and take a walk.
If you want to continue, all good movement needs
to include the pelvis, so come back later, or forge ahead now to
the seat of you.

Notice your pelvis.
Shift your weight to the right "sit bone" and raise your left hip
a little off the chair.
Now shift to the left "sit bone" and raise your right hip
off the chair.
Go slowly.
Do this a number of times just raising the right hip and pressing in the left.
And then a number of times just raising the left hip and pressing down
the right.

12. Rest

13. Now, make the crescent shape of tilt your head
the full spine by practicing, exploring, enjoy this:

tilt your head to the left
pull the middle ribs to the right
(noticing the bottom ribs and top ribs going left)
put your weight on the right side off your pelvis
so your left hip can raise and complete the crescent shape
in your back.

Just do this way a number of times.
Until it is delicious.

14. Rest and feel your breathing and your spine.

15. as above, IMAGINE  doing the tilt to the right:
head tilt to the right
middle ribs to the left,
right side of pelvis up and toward the right ear
left side of the pelvis pressing down.

Now DO IT ONCE and compare to the imagining.
Go back and forth with doing and improving your
imaginary version.

16. Rest.

17. Go tilting of the whole spine both right
and left,
be slow, gentle, less than the limit, aware,
looking for pleasure and learning each time.

18. Rest.

19. If you really want some fun,
go through the whole thing again, at
each step singing some simple song
you love to sing.

20. Feel yourself in sitting. Compare to the beginning.

21. Come forward onto your feet and stand. Shift weight to the
left and right and see if something solid and easy and connected
has occurred in you.
Walk around.

enjoy you day and your life.

I take questions via email ChrisElms@vom.com
and invent these lessons to suit what's bothering
you.

Ciao
Chris

Chris Movement Lesson #1. arching and chairs and fun

In the fabulous
amazing and
life transforming
Anat Baniel Method,
our training group this last days did a number of lessons
kneeling over a table

I was curious what using a chair would be like
and discovered,
quickly, that the head is not supported
the way it is when we kneel at the low
tables especially deigned for the Feldenkrais Method



However,
this segment, as they are called
(nine days, from on Saturday to the following Sunday,
of various intense learning and upgrading of our nervous system,
awareness, skill level, and more),
we also did a ton of work on the head pelvis connection
especially
vis a vis the "power center"
of the strong muscles connected to the pelvis
and
especially-2, the muscles of the lower back,
lifting both arms, head and thighs
in achieving upright "posture"

There are
and we did
lots of ways to stand on hands and knees,
or knees and forearms,
or sit in a chair
and use the lower back muscles to arch one's back
and lift either head or arms or legs or all three:

below shows
some,
but not all
of the possibilities of a chair
to encourage
educate
strengthen
discover this
"power center"
in our lower back

please note:
the slower
and less Donkey-like
we do these
movements

and the more we use the minimum
of effort
and maximum
of attention

the more we will
learn
benefit
transform

p.s.
rolling the head easily
side to side
as one does these
is a nice way to make
sure extra effort is
not being used in
our necks and jaws

noticing and softening
the breathing while to these,
is another

simple start

Feldenkrais is a name
and it's a shorthand for a method
and it's a way of exploring how
to improve

improving is an improbable thing:
most people don't want to change
unless things are really horrible

this is good
and
it's not so good

we all know those few people
who are running themselves raggedy trying
everything under the sun to cure this and that
and the other

most people
however could improve
their connection to their
bodies
and the grace
and ease of their movement
by taking advantage of what the Feldenkrais Method®
which is what the simple word "Feldenkrais" implies.

Feldenkrais is
really a man's last name ( Moshe Feldenkrais,
physicist, judo teacher, inventor, 1904-1984)

So , how could someone get a taste of the Feldenkrais Method?
Come to one of my classes.
Okay,
but quicker than that:
Try to link to the left
that says this:

Desk Trainer/
Chair Yoga
Mini cartoon lessons for
Neck, Shoulder, Back, Hands
(actually,
you can link right here)

That's the quickest way.

Another way might be this

1: Notice that you are sitting on two sit bones, Sitz bones,
the part of your pelvis that is for sitting

2: Lean to the left enough so that you can feel
really feel
that the weight is mainly on your left side

3: When your weight is over there on your left side,
breathe easily,
and after your breath is easy, rotate your head to the left
and to the right.

4: Notice which way seems to be easiest to rotate your head
when you have your weight to the left

5: Come back to the center. See if you notice anything different
from side to side

6: Shift most of your weight now
to the right side
to your right Sitz bone
and become comfortable with your breathing here

7: And in this position rotate your head
right and left
and notice which was seems easier.

8: That is a beginning exploration:
what is our pelvis
where is our weight
how does our head move in space
how can we try something new and be at ease
what is there to learn in some new configuration

And if you want to go further,
there is more:

9: Sitting upright
rotate your head right and left, gently
and notice how your nose moves from pointing to the front
to pointing to the side.
This is rotating your head.

Now: slightly tilt your head to the right
and the left
which means this:
when you tilt to the right, your right ear
goes closer to the floor
when you tilt to the left, your left ear
goes closer to the floor.
In both tilts your nose stays
pointing forward.

10: Practice the difference:
rotate your head right and left
tilt your head right and left

Go slowly and be gentle with your neck
and your nervous system

11: Now:
shift your weight to your left hip,
to the left side of your pelvis

and come back to the middle

and now
as you shift your weight to the left
alternate between tilting your head to the left
and tilting your head to the right

See if when you tilt your head to the right
as you shift your weight to the left side of your pelvis
if you can let your shoulders help a little
as the left shoulder comes up a little
and the right shoulder comes down

This is easier with pictures
and my digital camera is broken

desk trainer
above mentioned has a little cartoon guy to follow
oh well

so anyway

12. Now try the other side:
weight to the right side of your pelvis
and tilting your head
right and left,
letting your shoulders
and maybe even your ribs
help out with this

If confusing,
try desk trainer
or go slower
or give me a call
or buy the book:
Awareness Heals

Nikhila Mary Ludlow: hand lesson via U-tube

just do the usual
thing

Feldenkrais Hand Lesson
via
Nikhila Mary Ludlow

Triangle in Fedlie Land

this boy
is not afraid
to be himself

and so in yoga
sometimes
the whole fun
is to
just make a mess
of whatever
it is
"they" think
we should be doing
and
whatever we think
we SHOULD be going
and
whatever we THINK
WE SHOULD be doing

and just fool around

triangle, Trikonasa
is kind of a pain in the ass pose
anyway.

like this,
again the words are
harder than monkey see,
monkey do,
too bad
live with it:

1. stand with feet apart and point one foot a direction
you'll call forward
to make life simple we'll say R, right foot, is forward
face that way.
L, left foot, is behind and in a line with R heel.
R heel bisects middle of L foot

2. raise arms up to shoulder height,
facing forward

3.play,
rotate arms to face the direction your belly is facing
(left)
and rotate your arms to face the other direction
(around the the right)
have fun with this.

4. rest.

5. arms up again, rotate arms so R arm forward, L arm back, keep spine
straight, and tilt at the waist your whole torso forward
R arm will go down by R leg
L arm will come up in air
pointed to Up, up, up

look up at the up hand

6. Have some fun
look up at the up hand
and have eyes goes down,
and look down at feet with nose
and have eyes come up.
then eyes and nose toward up hand

notice other stuff: pelvis, ribs, feet
bend knees
unbend knees, explore

are you breathing???

7. rest

8. the same position, R foot forward, L back,
heel of R in line with mid of L,
rotate arms so L arm is foward direction same as R foot,
L arm back
tilt down at waist
R arm up
L arm down
spine straightish
head looking up at up hand

play with eyes and head
as above

9., play with triangle and reverse triagnle:
once arms one way,
once the other
sometimes head and eyes follow up hand
sometimes they go opposite

horse
around

breathe

have fun

Feldie Feet, Monday Yoga, Brain time again, Friends

this is a no picture (of the movement,
pic above is
the pic above)
day
monkey see monkey do
is a lower level
than hearing
or reading
and figuring that to the real world:

so,
here
we go:

Balance

BALANCE

Balance

1. Stand somewhere beautiful.
Look ahead, sense down, listen to feet and eyes and head.
Shift weight to the right foot, right heel.
Slowly.
Notice what happens in breathing as go to right,
and come back to middle.
Slowly.
Rest.

2. Do the above and bring weight to right heel.
Again, watch, listen to breathing. Going and coming back.

3. Do these two to the left.

4. Rest between all. Walk around, sit, lie down.
whatever.

5. Cross Right foot over left, i.e.
in front of and a bit to the left of left foot.
Now, shift weight right and left,
with the feet on the opposite than usual side.
slowly.
watch breathing.
rest.

6. Do this and keep weight mainly on the heels.

7. Do this and keep your head in the middle, so pelvis/ butt
goes side to side
and weight shifts,
and your head stays in the middle.

8. Now, like this:
as you shift weight to your right foot, which is over to your left,
let your head flop to the right,
as in right ear toward right shoulder,
gentle,
not rotating neck,
tilting, easy does it
slow and follow breathing

9. As you shift weight to the left foot, which is on your right,
let your left ear tilt down easily and
sweetly
toward your left shoulder.
Notice breathing.
Weight mainly on heels.

10. Do this other feet around,
if you are so inclined.

11. Go back to beginning,
shift weight left and right,
now keeping head more or less in the middle
and weight more or less on your heels
and noticing
and being calm in
your breathing.

ciao
chris

Stress, Learning and the Feldenkrais Method®

Stress, Learning, and the Feldenkrais® Way

Life is a bowl of cherries, if you are a bowl filled with cherries. Otherwise there are elements of learning that at first might seem “stressful,” and yet, once learned, are a sweet and ongoing part of life. For example, we come out of the womb, and the air thing: new. Stress. Lungs don’t know how to breathe air. If we don’t breathe air we die. New situation. Luckily we don’t have cell phones to call up another baby and complain how stressed out we are. Instead, we handle it, learn to breathe, and another Life begins, the life in air.

So what is “stress” anyway? Well, we all know that it’s “bad,” because when people say, “I’m so stressed,” they imply that they are in a tense and worried and poorly functioning place. And yet, if the stress of breathing in air had not presented itself and been solved, we’d all need to keep the umbilical cord with us. Not a pleasant way to live.

Okay, let’s resort to the dictionary. Well, maybe not. The first couple of meanings are along the lines of emphasis, “I’d like the stress that….” Or where we put the oomph in a paragraph, sentence or musical line. Finally, though, in physics, stress is “An applied force or system that tends to strain of deform a body.” And then the last definition in my dictionary: “A mentally or emotionally disruptive or disquieting influence.”

As part of this life out of the womb, we swim in three oceans: gravity, air, and light. The gravity ocean takes us longest to figure out: how the heck can we move around on two little feet and this long tall cylindrical body, with a big heavy head thing at the top? This is a stressful situation, having a human body in an ocean of gravity. Most of us handle this, often stopping our learning when we’ve gotten the mere basics of walking from chair to bed to feeding trough to automobile, but we know how to move in gravity. Sort of.

And if we step off a curb and aren’t paying attention, or suffer a stroke, or are born with some neurological limitation, the gravity thing can be more than we can handle.

So we start life in stress, handle it, and have the stress of a long tall top-heavy body in gravity, and sort of handle it, and then life keeps throwing challenges our way. Is this stress or opportunity? Well, having to learn a second language in ten minutes might be stressful. Have three months in a new country in which to immerse ourselves and learn, an opportunity.
What to wear to the party you don’t want to go to: stress , opportunity? How to build up a new business? How to learn to ski when you are over sixty? How to live with the loss of a loved one, either through death or divorce?

When the Oakland fire of 1989 roared through the hills and destroyed thousands of home there were two reactions. One, was what you’d expect, “Lost everything. Devastating. All the family photos. Years of work and memories.” And so on. The other was rather more charming: “Wow, I was dreading cleaning that back room and the garage, and now I don’t have to do it. This is a great chance to start over.”


And so stress seems at least in part in the eye of the beholder.

And if seen right, small doses of stress are exactly what we need as human beings that want to expand and grow and thrive in our lives. Interestingly enough, and not surprising for a system developed by a physicist deeply interested in judo and the biology of living systems, the Feldenkrais Method® could be called the intelligent application of small and useful stress to break old habits, discover new ways of moving, being and thinking.

So, for example, we could turn our heads to the left and see how far we turned, and with what ease. This is a useful skill when driving a car, the ability to look behind ourselves to the left. If we then turned our head halfway to the left, picked something to look at there, and then began to move our nose to the right of that point and our eyes to the left, and then brought nose and eyes back to this reference point, and then took our eyes to the right and nose to the left of this point, and so on, back and forth, this movement, if we haven’t done it before might seem “stressful.”

And if we slowed down our efforts, and took rests, and allowed ourselves to do this in little smaller bits, we might find ourselves learning something we didn’t know we could do. And then as this head and nose in opposition thing became easier, the stress feeling might completely dissolve and a feeling of ease and expansion might appear.

If we once again look to the left, and allow our eyes to go in synch with our nose, we might discover that turning to the left has become easier. Stress set us up to learn.

(There is more to this lesson, as many of you know: try turning to the left with your hands each hugging the opposite shoulder, and spend a little time with the stress of practicing moving your hugged shoulders to the left while you head goes to the right. Or: push out your belly and arch your back and roll a little forward on your pelvis and alternate that with slumping forward and pulling in your belly and looking down. Then look left again.)


So, we are designed to learn, and often avoid the opportunity, and if we are smart and/or lucky we will set up challenges to stress/ expand our lives. And strangely and wonderfully enough: each time we do this, we get less “stressed” out about almost everything.

Walking, a miracle we usually take for granted

WALKING AND WAKE UP FELDENKRAIS
Most of us can walk. If we can’t walk easily, or suddenly have trouble, we realize how precious is this skill that so many take for granted. To walk on two feet, circus tigers and trained bears aside, is a uniquely human ability.

This ability is amazing. Try, as I often say, to make a sculptural model of a human being, two little feet way down there holding up this long body. It will topple unless you give the statue a huge pedestal base, or put a staff in the model’s hands. Then, with the kind of huge feet we don’t have (the pedestal solution), or with three legs (the staff solution), the model can stay up.

But, two feet are unstable. That means: a huge increase in mobility. It also means walking is easier than standing (we don’t need to go into that now, but think of it this way: since we are inherently unstable, falling forward from one foot to the next and that being what our walking is, is more what we are designed to do that stand stable on these two small feet of ours). It means that even walking is much more complicated than we realize, again until we have trouble, or if we have a neurological condition that makes the enormous learning which walking requires even more difficult, cerebral palsy or stroke for example.

So, how can the Feldenkrais Method and the Anat Baniel Method and Wake Up Feldenkrais come to our aid in improving our walking.

The same way these all come to our aid in improving almost any movement, or pattern of thinking, or even emotional state.

One, slowing down, we can start to discover what we take for granted. Two, with awareness, we begin to find connections and possibilities. Three, by going on a search instead of just cranking out the usual, we train ourselves to appreciate what we have and what might be possible.

So, just to walk more slowly (or rapidly, actually, a change from the habitual always helps see the habitual) we can begin to focus on just what IS this walking thing?

Elusive obvious: one foot is holding us up, while the other one swings forward.

Slow that down. Pick a stable foot and let the other foot go forward as if you are stepping forward. Which part of the moving forward foot will come to the ground first. When does the knee bend in this m.f. (moving forward) foot? Where does the swing in our hips come from? Where are our hips? Does this side of the pelvis roll forward or backward as the m.f. leg moves forward?

Reverse the usual. Now practice taking the m.f. backward, so it is a m.b. leg and foot, moving backward leg and foot. What can we discover about our hip joint here? What part of our foot touches first when we walk backwards? Which part of our middle helps this, our back muscles or our stomach muscles?

And now, begin to walk a bit around a room, or outside in some pleasant and interesting place. Notice the tendency of your arms. When your left leg comes forward, which arm likes to come forward? Try both possibilities: left leg forward and left arm forward, and left leg forward and right arm forward.

Walk some more and pay attention, one at a time, to your right hip, your right shoulder, your left hip, your left shoulder. What can you learn about walking from this?

Sit in a chair and “walk” forward and backward on that chair by lifting one sit bone and then the other and moving forward to the front edge, and then back to the back of the chair. As if your butt had two feet at the sit bones, “walk” back and forth and see what this call forth in your spine.

---

Will all this improve your walking?

Yes.

Will it help you understand how much more there is to learn about this amazing activity? Hopefully.

---

And another way to improve walking? Come to the mat discovery lessons, whether called Awareness Through Movement, or Transformation Movement Lessons, these lessons, usually on the ground and OUT of gravity, allow our brain to discover aspects and relationships that we might never find under that gravity and balance demands of normal walking.

SEE Current Classes and Workshops


So you are a miracle, and walking is a miracle, and learning and awareness can make both miracles even better.