Arms Like a Skeleton, Integrating the Neck, Jaw, and Eyes (Patrons)

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Find new options for ease in your neck, jaw, and eyes in relationship to reaching movements of your arms, shoulders, and chest. Great for reducing tension and improving posture, particularly carriage of the head, neck, and shoulders.

Average Challenge   back-lying 

60m
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Before you begin read this for practical tips and your responsibilities, and check out Comfort & Configuration below.

Recorded live in a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement (ATM) class, this lesson is copyright Nick Strauss-Klein, for personal use only.

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Tip 3 – Head Support

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  • Comfort & Configuration
  • Clarifications
  • Curiosities
  • Context
  • Related Lessons
  • Source

If you need head support in back-lying make sure it’s smooth and level, and only the minimum that you need to be comfortable. As the movements and lesson develop you may find you prefer less and less head support.

Near the end of the lesson, as you reach your arm forward you’re asked to keep your head “floor-supported,” not lifting into the air. Here, and throughout the lesson, it can be very helpful to the reaching action to let your head slide on the floor as needed, as it turns and nods.

This lesson points at subtleties of multi-planar movement of the head and neck that make it easier to reach the arm. From the beginning, feel free to explore nodding/sagittal movements of the head as you explore the head rolling relationships with reaching the arm.

There are some interesting differences between how the movements are taught on the two sides, making this lesson a great candidate for reversing the lefts and rights on a subsequent listening.

This lesson is found in Patron Treasures, our collection of lessons exclusively for Feldenkrais Project Patron-level donors.

It also appears in our Jaw, Neck, and Shoulders Deep Dive course.

It works well on its own but I’ve chosen not to edit out references to “last week’s class,” which is “Beard Pull” Pecking, with Chanukia (Patrons). Both are in that course.

It was recorded on December 7, 2021.

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Got a question for Nick, or a thought about this lesson?

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8 Comments

  1. c j on June 1, 2023 at 2:03 am

    That was a brilliant lesson. Thanks Nick

    Reply
  2. Claire Gunn on October 1, 2023 at 3:20 am

    Thanks Nick, great lesson. I like how you suggest to ask if my moving still brings a smile . Movement for pleasure 😊

    Reply
    • Nick Strauss-Klein on October 4, 2023 at 1:37 pm

      Wonderful! Fancy that, right? Moving for pleasure! It’s a gift of evolution that functioning well feels good. Now if we can just all convince ourselves to pay attention to those little pleasures more and more, and develop them. Skill comes when we are enjoying ourselves, leading to more ability and satisfaction in all our actions, and more skill…the loop of learning and improvement.

      Reply
  3. Jon Low on December 27, 2023 at 6:45 pm

    Thanks for the lesson!! Always learn surprising things— like how I can actually still move my eyes through space with the option to be focused or defocused… realize I overly focus (like a laser) which creates a certain unnecessary tension/effort … even just to move limbs! Ha ha

    Reply
  4. Juliet on November 1, 2025 at 11:50 am

    Very detailed lesson thank you. Somewhere in my lifelong learning I seem to have internalised a message not to let my chin go up when turning the head. Maybe originating from an overemphasis of the head position via lessons with the Alexander Technique. Anyway letting my chin up was so interesting for the connection to the upper back. Lovely work with the eyes too. Will try this lesson again tomorrow. It is a gem.

    Reply
  5. Martha on November 2, 2025 at 12:34 pm

    Well! That was bizarre: By the time we got to the pelvis rolling, my neck was feeling shorter and shorter. I paused the recording, and allowed my shoulders to climb up to hug my ears, as they seemed to want to do. How might this be interpreted? I didn’t finishbthe lesson, but just lay still observing, breathing gently, until I felt relaxed. Appropriately spooky?! Thanks, Nick.

    Reply
    • Nick Strauss-Klein on November 2, 2025 at 3:34 pm

      That’s an odd one – hard to say without observing. Love your wisdom of letting your shoulders go where they wanted to! You’re comfortable now? Aside from the neck feeling shorter as you explored, did anything else seem unusual about your response to this lesson?

      Reply
      • Martha on November 2, 2025 at 4:01 pm

        Nothing else unusual in the lesson. I should say (confess?) that this sensation of the shoulders rising is not new, maybe even decades old. It comes and goes, mostly appearing with meditative states, and disappearing after some kinds of bodywork. What you said about the jaw, etc., being connected may be a clue, that somehow moving the head, eyes, arms triggered it. It’s quite interesting. I will perhaps repeat the lesson in a few days! Thanks for responding, Nick.

        Reply

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