Action Heroes:
Spine, Hips, Sternum, & Scapulas
Our Deep Dives gather standalone Feldenkrais Project lessons into themed courses of study. Newcomers, we recommend exploring our primary collections first for a more generalized intro to Feldenkrais.
Comments on Long Belly, Strong Back, the lesson at the heart of this Deep Dive:
Each time I do this lesson, I’m aware of spacious length and ease, and a way happier back!
I thought working with the abdominals and desiring a flat stomach meant pulling the muscles in. Now I realise that lengthening them will naturally bring that flatness about without effort and without judgement. I have also realised that you can lengthen the back muscles at the same time — I thought it was one or the other!
I’m left with a lovely feeling of being more whole, and all the gifts that this brings.
Activate your superpowers! This Deep Dive celebrates and elevates basic but culturally-subdued biomechanics of being human. Its Long Belly, Strong Back learning is essential study for everyone, from beginners to super-movers.
Looking deeply and precisely into functional relationships of the spine, hip joints, sternum, and scapulas, you’ll take hold of your birthright as a powerful, upright biped. Through carefully designed standalone sequences of 3-4 lessons you'll empower your legs and back, free your arms to act with grace and precision, and become more efficient, effective, and confident in all you do.
For me, overcoming my own cultural conditioning around shortening and tightening my abdomen, hips, and chest has taken years of study and experimenting. This course is designed to save you time – you can learn this much faster!
Navigating this Deep Dive:
To make it easier to dip in and out of this course, the boxes and numbered sequences below represent related learning that can be studied as standalone mini-courses. To maximize your learning, complete each numbered sequence within a week or so, then take a break if needed.
Experienced Felden-fans might start at the yellow or red boxes, but reviewing the basics in the white box can be helpful for everyone.
The Long Belly, Strong Back "theme and variations" lessons in the red box at the heart of this course provide ample opportunities to reinforce and integrate its most essential learning.
Freely offered study is in the white box, and sprinkled through the red one, too. Join the FP to access more learning.
Whether you're a free user, Member, or Patron, don't miss the video laying out the biomechanics we're learning to sense and harness with the Long Belly, Strong Back lessons, or the workshop discussions and lesson notes, where students and I discuss the psycho-social-sexual norms that inhibit these healthy patterns.
- Nick Strauss-Klein
The first three lessons are freely offered and very helpful on their own. Same with the three lessons for Members: they are a self-contained sequence. Patrons have full access to this course. Click to learn more about donation or our donor benefits.
Meet Your Action Heroes
Your Spine, Hips, Sternum, and Scapulas
Lessons from our free collections trace this Deep Dive's concepts and prepare you for the rest of the course.
Back to Basics
Reconnect with your central structures.
1a) Spinal Support and a Powerful Pelvis 35m
It’s lesson #1 at The Feldenkrais Project for a reason: ALL healthy action requires clear organization of the hips and spine.
1b) Dynamic Sitting and Chair Clock 24m
Grounded sitbones and upright relationships between the pelvis, spine, and head are essential awareness. Lesson #2 at The FP.
1c) Fundamentals of a Healthy Back 63m
More head-to-tail action, explored with length and breath. One of the first full-length lessons we recommend to newcomers.
1d) Arms Like a Skeleton, with a Bias 60m
Scapulas and sternum are called to action in a simple presentation of a classic Feldenkrais reaching lesson. Includes potent personalized spinal awareness.
Connect Your Power Sources
More free listener favorites dive deep into essential spine and hips learning.
2a) The Hip Joints: Moving Proximal Around Distal 60m
What happens when you articulate a hip joint from its socket instead of moving the thigh bone?
2b) Legs as Free as a Baby’s 67m
Head back to the crib to improve adult life, and rediscover some of the simplest pleasures of hips & spine.
2c) More Precise Hips and Spine 64m
Nick’s adaptation of a Moshe Feldenkrais original lesson closely related to the Long Belly, Strong Back explorations below.
2d) Your Navigational Pelvis 60m
Clarified hips joints guide your journey through Nick's unique version of the classic Feldenkrais pelvic clock.
Suiting Up
Explore more detailed awareness of your action heroes, and learn functional organizations leveraged in the boxes below.
3a) Anatomy in Action:
Scapulas 58m
(Members & Patrons video)
See, touch, and explore options for your shoulder blades, the often forgotten action heroes that help power our arms and hands.
NEW! 3b) Anatomy in Action: Where Are Your Hip Joints, Exactly? 61m
(Members & Patrons video)
This is the lesson that inspired this Deep Dive. An illustration of skeletal landmarks of the pelvis introduces precise explorations of hips-driven action.
3c) Global Breathing with Floating Ribs and Sternum (Patrons) 49m
Encounter, expand, and enjoy three-dimensional movements and awareness of your thoracic area, setting the stage for subtle coordinations of your action heroes explored below.
3d) Your Navigational Sternum and Pelvis (Patrons) 34m
Continue softening your rib “cage,” and discover new connections of sternum and spine, hips and head. Your Navigational Pelvis, above, is a prerequisite for this Essence for "Experts" lesson.
Action Heroes, Assemble!
"Theme and variations" learning on Long Belly, Strong Back.
Explore sequence 4 and/or 5, then dive deeper with sequence 6.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
When spine, hips, sternum, and scapulas join the image of action, we are whole.
4a) Long Belly, Strong Back: Short Version (FREE) 38m
Learn this secret of extension and take it into the following lessons – and life!
4b) Reaching Reorganized (Patrons) 53m
A direct sequel to Long Belly, Strong Back. It’s the “Arms Like a Skeleton” lesson, motivated from the spine and hips.
4c) Head Under the Gap, Supine (Patrons) 60m
Take your learning further and enjoy Nick’s unique accessible approach to this typically challenging (but oh-so-rewarding) Feldenkrais classic.
The Long Belly, Strong Back Workshop
Another take on this important learning, including discussions with students.
Long Belly, Strong Back Discussion 10m
Emotional overtones, the difference between lifting & pressing, and ground reaction forces.
Head Under the Gap Discussion 6m
A postural experiment, "psycho-social-sexual stuff," and wisdom from a female perspective.
NEW! 5c) Reaching Distinctions: Flexion or Extension? (Patrons) 58m
Recorded later, explore a quiet, chest-melting, flexion-dominated reach, then find your way back to more nuanced and skillful Long Belly, Strong Back extension gestures.
Daring Abdominal Details
Precise muscular awareness further refines your Long Belly image and actions.
NEW! 6a) Long Belly, Long Back, Psoas to Improve Walking (Patrons) 42m
Dive deep into the miraculous direct muscular connection between the legs and spine.
6b) Flexors and Extensors from the Hips and Waist (Patrons) 33m
The obliques are a buzzword in fitness and wellness, but how do they really work? If you did Fundamentals of a Healthy Back, above, you're ready for this Essence for "Experts" lesson.
NEW! 6c) Long Belly, Long Back, Psoas to Lengthen and Lighten a Leg (Patrons) 59m
Take your long belly and psoas skills into Nick's adaptation of a powerful Moshe Feldenkrais lesson known as "Hip Joints by Way of Lengthening"
Action Hero Diagonals
Dive deep into other essential hips & shoulders learning, and practice new walking awareness and skills.
7a) Refining the Shoulders and Hips (Patrons) 45m
“Stand while lying down,” and get to know your diagonals. Discover how precisely relating the four corners of the torso organizes the flexors and extensors for walking.
7b) Hip and Shoulder Diagonals for Better Walking (Patrons) 60m
Continue refining your shoulders and hips. Unusual three-dimensional images inspire more diagonal awareness and integrated action.
7c) “Generalize Your Skills” (Patrons) 65m
Imagine a ball rolling over the back of your body in this Moshe Feldenkrais classic that develops your self-imaging skills in prone diagonal extension and fine spinal details.
What’s Next for Our Heroes?
Fine tune vertebral rotation, free your sternum and ribs, and integrate your hips and scapulas even more skillfully.
8a) Sliding the Sternum, Twisting with the Miracle of “Just What’s Comfortable” (Patrons) 60m
Learn to lift up and away from your lengthening abdomen in completely different situations.
8b) Pelvis Lifting and Rotating on Its Axis, Part 1 (Patrons) 60m
A powerful and unusual route to greater freedom for your thoracic spine and ribs. Your skillful hips are key in this pair of lessons.
8c) Pelvis Lifting and Rotating on Its Axis, Part 2 (Patrons) 58m
Dive deeper and melt chest tension further in the conclusion of this Moshe Feldenkrais classic.
NEW! 8d) Spinal Rotation, with Scapulas, Sacrum, and Spatial Self-Imaging (Patrons) 63m
Examine your vertebrate essence with precise attention and imagination in this quiet final lesson, and reconnect to your uniquely human superpower source.
Where to?
Walking from Your Spine and Shoulder Cloak, Rib Basket, Sliding Sternum and The Illusion of Isolation are closely related Deep Dives. A few lessons overlap with this one.
Related themes of uprightness are explored in Grounding for Liftoff, along with the difference between lifting the hip and pressing the foot (in back-lying, one knee bent), which is touched on in this Deep Dive.
