Advanced Connecting Arms and Legs: Equal and Opposite (Patrons)

Experienced Felden-fans needn’t review Connecting Arms and Legs first, but if you’re newer you might want to.

In this version, this classic side-lying lesson is framed by back-lying riddles designed to more explicitly connect your learning to gait and ground reaction forces. As you integrate various actions of your feet and legs with your pelvis, torso, and arms, you’ll rediscover the buoyancy and joy of walking with your whole self!

Average Challenge   back-lying  side-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 1 – Interrupted?

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Tip – LESSS is more

LESSS is more: Light, Easy, Small, Slow, & Smooth movements will ease pains and improve your underlying neuromuscular habits faster than any other kind of movement, no matter who you are or what your training is!

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Tip – Complete the Movement

Study tip: Complete one movement before beginning the next. You’ll improve faster if there’s enough time between movements that you feel fully at rest.

Tip 5 – Discomfort

Study tip: If a configuration or movement causes any increase in discomfort, or you feel you just don’t want to do it, don’t! Make it smaller and slower, adapt it, or rest and imagine.

Tip 4 – Padding

Study tip: Comfort first! Carpeted floors usually work well, but it’s great to have an extra mat or blanket nearby in case you need a softer surface in some configurations.

Tip – Technical Difficulties

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Tip – Directions are Relative

Study tip: Directions are always relative to your body. For example, if you’re lying on your back “up” is toward your head, and “forward” is toward the ceiling.

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Tip – Rewinding

Study tip: Many instructions are repeated. If you get a little lost, rest and listen. You’ll often find your way. Or use the rewind button on the page or your mobile device.

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Tip 3 – Head Support

Study tip: It helps to have a large bath towel nearby when you start a lesson. You can fold it differently for comfortable head support in any configuration.

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Tip – what to wear

Study tip: Wear loose, comfortable clothes that are warm enough for quiet movement. Remove or avoid anything restrictive like belts or glasses.

Tip – skip a lesson

Study tip: If you can’t find a comfortable way to do the initial movements or configuration of a lesson, it’s ok to skip it for now and go on to another lesson.

We offer over 50 free lessons, but this one's just for our Patron-level donors. You can learn about it in the free lesson notes and comments below, but to access the audio you’ll need to join The FP as a Patron. Learn more

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

You won’t be able to use your arm for head support while side-lying, so have a bath towel nearby to fold up appropriately. As the lesson develops you may discover that you want less and less head support, so your head is more free to move.

A unique challenge in this lesson is connecting the skills and awareness explored in side-lying to the back-lying variations at the beginning and end. We experience ourselves so very differently when we are in different relationships with gravity that it can be hard to be conscious of the link.

Fear not, the lesson is effective regardless of whether you track the connection conceptually. In the after-class discussion, students reported feeling power, lightness, and clarity once they were standing and walking again, despite experiencing some confusing moments throughout. One student said, “Sometimes I’d be very clear that I was getting it, and then a half second later I would lose it.” I replied that this is natural as we’re learning something truly new.

For “homework” I presented the class with a study question: how does the idea of “equal and opposite” help you in everyday actions?

We used it in two ways in this lesson. Can you play with both in regular life activities?

  • One was consciously interacting with the ground in order to move in relationship to it (harnessing ground reaction forces).
  • The other was noticing or creating simultaneous equal and opposite movements of parts of our bodies. Even if it seems like you’re doing two different things, we can learn to think of the larger pattern the generates both (twisting or lengthening, for example).

Both are great tools for training awareness and more efficient movement.

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

It also appears in our Walking from Your Spine Deep Dive.

This lesson was recorded in The FP Weekly Zoom class on Nov 14, 2023 then edited to improve flow, clarity, and sound quality in this permanent audio version.

 

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