Essence for “Experts”: Whole Body Arms (Patrons)

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Prerequisite: You should be familiar with Whole Body Arms (Patrons) before doing this version. Learn more about Essence for “Experts” lessons in the lesson notes tabs below.

A review version of this lesson. Organize action from your head, spine, and tail, and refresh their functional relationships with your shoulders. Then it's time for the arms: twist, roll, reach, and circle them while sustaining whole body awareness.

Average Challenge   side-lying 

31m
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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 – Complete the Movement

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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.

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Tip 3 – Head Support

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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 – Pause the recording

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

If side-lying comfort is a concern, using a softer surface or experimenting with how you support your head throughout the lesson can help. You can also start on your right side instead of your left if needed.

You are an “expert” if Feldenkrais ATM study is a regular part of your life, and you’re familiar with the source lesson: you’ve explored and valued the full-length version (even if it challenged you) at least once, and you have some memory of it.

You don’t have to be a pro, or feel like you’ve mastered the lesson. Rather, this version is a chance to review and learn more, for people who are familiar with it. Learn more in the Curiosities tab.

The usual Curiosities

This is a great lesson for reversing lefts and rights on a second listening.

After this was recorded one student pointed out that she could explore the final action of “circling her arm” without actually moving it at all, instead exploring all the proximal moving and shaping. Brilliant, and fits the lesson’s purpose perfectly!

 

About Essence for “Experts”

As we add more lessons like this later this year I’ll expand this into a blog post:

  • Essence means these 30-minute versions review the essential learning of a particular lesson, and use it to illustrate the essence of Feldenkrais ATM study.
  • You are an “expert” if Feldenkrais is a regular part of your life, and you’re familiar with the source lesson: you’ve explored and valued the full-length version at least once (even if it challenged you), and you have some memory of it.
  • You don’t have to be a pro, or feel like you’ve mastered the lesson. Rather, this version is a chance to review and learn more, for people who are familiar with it.
  • Your familiarity with its movement cues and images allows us to get more directly to the essence of the lesson—and emphasize the essence of the Feldenkrais Method in it.
  • It’s also assumed you know how to be kind to yourself and explore thoughtfully, no matter what’s asked of you. You know how to respond to challenge and discomfort with wisdom, patience, and curiosity, instead of cultural conditioning to use force, speed, or self-judgment.
  • Finally, it’s assumed you know and love the space between stimulus and response in which action is composed. You can hear an instruction, then feel and shape your intention as it propagates from your imagination throughout your body…all the while inhibiting the urge to immediately “perform” what was asked.

 

Feldenkrais essentials emphasized in this lesson:

  • As Feldenkrais wrote, “Imagination is more important than willpower” in self improvement. When we study, we widen the gaps between intention and action, then fill them with a compassionate curiosity about what’s possible.
  • Global simultaneous distribution of movement intention. Gradually integrating into the whole image of action any parts or efforts that stand out in each movement.
  • The torso’s muscles and skeletal structures are largely responsible for efficient, effective, and pleasant action of the limbs.
  • Proportional muscle tone: big proximal muscles do big movement work, small distal muscles deliver it to the destination.

 

Lesson discussion

The Patrons and I had some reflections about what we’re getting at with Essence for Experts lessons in a discussion right after this one was recorded. This 10-minute chat is highly recommended. Please comment below to participate!

Patrons only. Login above for access to this Zoom replay.

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

It’s designed as a review version of Whole Body Arms (Patrons).

It was recorded in a Patrons Quarterly meeting on January 16, 2025. Don’t miss the recorded lesson discussion linked at the bottom of the Curiosities tab!

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?

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3 Comments

  1. Nick Strauss-Klein on February 12, 2025 at 4:08 pm

    Copying over some discussion from the original Patrons Quarterly video version of this recording.

    Richard Fancy on January 24, 2025 at 1:55 am
    This review lesson and the short head under the gap lesson felt very similar. In both I had the feeling (since I had done the longer version several times) I “knew” how to do it. I had what amounted to physical memory of the long version which made it easy to experience the moment as a whole as Nick was emphasizing.

    Nick Strauss-Klein on January 24, 2025 at 8:11 am
    Great, yes! The goal of sensing and acting from the spine and pelvis—really the whole self—and blending flexion, extension, rotation, and side-bending into multi-planar functional movement explorations…all this creates a close link between these lessons. I love that you called this out, especially since the two lessons start in different relationships to gravity: one is side-lying, one is back-lying. Students often isolate their physical imagination based on that, but in fact the starting configuration of the body in gravity is often just a convenience for teaching and understanding at the beginning of lessons. Awesome that you caught that these lessons are about the same things.

    Reply
  2. Lynne Burson on February 14, 2025 at 1:06 pm

    Thank you Nick. The area under my right scapula was in a spasm when I woke up this morning. after this 30 min lesson, no pain no spasm.

    Reply
  3. Nate Loker on February 15, 2025 at 7:47 pm

    Thank you Nick! It’s great to learn about the ribs, spine, and pelvis from using the arms.

    Reply

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