This collection of Feldenkrais lessons and brief talks is designed to help you learn more comfortable and lively sitting skills for home and work, and even while driving or traveling.
All these lessons approach what the Feldenkrais community calls "dynamic sitting" in different ways, emphasizing different types of awareness and movement.
For optional introductory info, read Nick's About Dynamic Sitting post, or the expanded version he wrote for the Feldenkrais Guild of North America's website as Building Better Sitting Habits, Even in Your Car.
Descriptions of each lesson below give you a sense of its aim, though everyone's learning process is unique and you may find other benefits.
For a more detailed description of dynamic sitting's anatomy and physics, first try at least one of the lessons below, then check out these dynamic sitting principles.
Follow your comfort and ease! If a lesson isn't comfortable initially, it's fine to skip it and come back to it later.
“Most people who find sitting uncomfortable have the idea that if they could just find the 'right' chair and the 'right' way to sit in that chair they would be able to sit for hours without moving. I used to believe this too.”
SAFETY FIRST:
If after studying the lessons below you practice how you sit and move in your car seat, please practice only when the car is parked.
Easier Sitting Workshop
Driving and Dynamic Sitting
Floor Practice
Mostly back-lying. Begins and ends in floor-seated. With explorations and benefits for all sitting situations, this lesson uses imagery of being in the driver's seat to promote lively, dynamic sitting and turning while negotiating the challenge of a typical "bucket" car seat. Postural expressions of rounding and arching are clarified, then used to improve the range, comfort, and awareness of whole body turning movements.
Chair Practice
This chair-seated lesson focuses on clarifying the skeletal support provided by our sitbones and discovering their lively role (and roll!) in all seated movements, with some emphasis on side-bending. All three planes of movement are discussed, explored, and differentiated, first in "pure" forms, and then blended together into natural movements.
After you complete the collection, returning to favorite lessons or progressing through from the beginning again will yield new insights. It can be very surprising to new Feldenkrais students how lessons you "know" are a completely different, valuable experience on subsequent explorations.
You might also want to browse our Learning Guides for ideas to help bridge your Feldenkrais learning into everyday life, or continue your studies with our Freeing the Spine, Chest, Shoulders, and Neck collection.