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

Login to track

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
Save
Favorite
What's this?
Share

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.

Tip – Comments

Project tip: Leave a lesson comment below! It’s a great way to give feedback or ask a question, and it helps google find us so we can achieve The Feldenkrais Project’s vision!

Browser/device size and audio player

Tech tip: On mobile or tablet? Once you start playing the audio, your device’s native playback controls should work well.

Tip – Got Questions?

Questions? Am I doing it right? How do I study if I don’t have an hour? How often should I study? I can’t get comfortable – what should I do? See our FAQ!

Tip – How to find lessons

How to find lessons and courses: Use the checkboxes and advanced options on our Lesson Search to apply powerful filters. Alternatively, try Searchable User Comments or our Birds Eye View.

Tip – Lesson names

Lesson access: Thanks to our donors, our lessons are freely offered unless the title ends with (Patrons) – those are how we thank our Patron-level donors. Lesson duration: If you don’t see a duration listed with a title, it’s a regular hour-long class.

Tip – Logo Homepage Content Guide

TIP: Our homepage is our content guide for newcomers. You can always get there by simply clicking our logo at the top left of any page on our site.

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.

Tip – Pause the recording

Study tip: If you’re really enjoying a movement and want to explore longer, or you just need a break for a while, pause the recording!

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 – 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.

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.

Tip – What’s New

What’s New? At the bottom of our homepage you can find all our news, newest lessons and courses, and current comments, questions, and discussions with listeners.

Tip 1 – Interrupted?

Study tip: Interrupted or don’t have enough time? You can return to the lesson later today or tomorrow. Read how best to continue your learning on our FAQ page.

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 – 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!

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.

Tip – Join!

Join the Project! Members and Patrons see streamlined lesson pages, enjoy My Journey (marking lessons played  saved  and “faved” ), and can access the Related Lessons tab below.

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 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 – Technical Difficulties

Tech tip: If you have any trouble with the audio player, reboot your browser. That solves most issues. If not, try another browser or contact us.

Tip 2 – Social Sharing

Project tip: Try the share button near the lesson title above, and help us on our mission to spread the life-changing benefits of Feldenkrais study as widely as possible!

We offer over 50 free lessons, but this one's just for Patrons. You can learn about it in the free lesson notes and comments below. To access the audio, join The FP at the Patron level. Learn more

Donor Tip: Skip this login next time! See Why & How to Stay Logged In (and why it's safe)

  • 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 Patron Treasures, 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.

 

Members and Patrons. Learn more or login:

Members and Patrons. Learn more or login:

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

Use the comments section below! Public comments build our community and help search engines find us.

horizontal-squiggle

4 Comments

  1. B R on December 19, 2024 at 9:31 pm

    I thought this was similar to other lessons. Until, and, (at least for me) Until: paying attention to the revelation,- when Nick ties everything together-through Nick’s guidance a lot of answers just flow through. The realization gave me the feisty happy content laugh, and enabled me to try and enjoy one of those poses that seems easy but it is not: the lord of the fishes. This lesson provides a key to so much treasure. The hip powers and balances by lightening the foot on slight eversion. Wow.

    Reply
  2. Lynne Burson on June 11, 2025 at 11:15 am

    I think this is my absolute favorite lesson. I am so much lighter. My right knee and right big toe were so painful yesterday and today they are not. I think because they have a different relationship to the rest of my body and they are sharing the load and not taking the entire load.

    Reply
  3. Sara on November 19, 2025 at 2:52 am

    This helped me to find another interesting difference in how I use my left and right hips; and that I could let the stronger right one help the more limited left one more. The action of pressing back with one hip (lightening the foot) while the other hip lifts is something to return to.

    Reply
    • Nick Strauss-Klein on November 19, 2025 at 11:51 am

      Yes – this is key! We can learn to use the ground more and more clearly as a source of action and strength. It is immensely satisfying and natural. Continue playing with it, and try our Grounding for Liftoff course if you haven’t yet.

      Reply

Leave a Comment