Fundamentals of a Healthy Back (workshop lesson)

Recorded live in a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement (ATM) class, the lesson below is copyright Nick Strauss-Klein, for personal use only. All our audio lessons are ad-free and 100% donor-supported.

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Back-lying, often knees bent, sometimes legs crossed, tilting. Clarifying our image of the "five curves" of the axial skeleton in action: the traditional three (lumbar, thoracic, and cervical spine), plus the sacrum/tailbone and the skull. Learning to sense functions and efforts through all five curves, including breathing.

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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.

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!

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.

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.

Study tip: Many instructions are repeated. If you get a little lost, rest and listen. You’ll often find your way. If you need it, use the 10 seconds back button.

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.

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

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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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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.

Comfort & Configuration
Clarifications
Curiosities
Context
Related Lessons
Source
Download

It’s helpful to have a very secure place for the foot to stand when lying on the back, knees bent, legs crossed with thigh resting on top of thigh. Consider options to create more friction on your mat.

If you struggle for comfort in that position and its knee-tilting movements you might instead do Legs as Free as a Baby’s or The Hip Joints: Moving Proximal Around Distal first. Or lessons #1, #3, #6, and #8 in our Getting Oriented collection of short lessons also develop related learning and movements.

Near the end of this lesson I had a verbal slip I didn’t notice while teaching: I mention the “five lines” instead of the “five curves” of the spine. I meant the curves, which are the dominant image of the lesson.

Info sent afterward to attendees of the workshop where this lesson was recorded:

Fundamentals of a Healthy Back Workshop

Workshop goals:

To use our intelligence, curiosity, and sensitivity to build awareness of how we use our backs and spines, and how we might use them better.
Specifically, to improve the function of the spine as a whole including proper use from the pelvis, support from the musculature, and positioning of the head, in many different kinds of natural actions such as twisting, bending, and extending.
To question aspects of our cultural learning and typical support surfaces (furniture, car seats, etc.) which make healthy function of the spine difficult, so we can make better choices.
To improve our ability to learn from our own somatic experience generally: “Learning how to learn.”

Principles:

Our spines are designed to support us in a mobile, dynamic way, centering around being long and approximately plumb with the force of gravity when we’re upright and at rest.

To be free, fully functional, and safer from injury, we are generally seeking for our spines an organization with:

a little pelvic anteversion (top of the pelvis tilted slightly forward)
a vertically-stacked (not hyperlordotic / sway-back) lumbar spine
an upright thoracic spine (not kyphotic / rounded at the chest)
and thus a lifted sternum, allowing the shoulders to fall freely behind us when at rest, and
a head positioned over the spine, not “pecked” forward.

All this results in a long, easy, dynamic-yet-stable, and very upright posture, ready for action. We want all “five curves” of the spine to get involved when we move (as an awareness tool I like to include the sacrum and skull in addition to the lumbar, thoracic, and cervical). We’re looking to distribute the effort and movement of any action performed throughout them, and to let them support each other in action.

I showed illustrations and spoke about one of my favorite books, 8 Steps to a Healthy Back, by Esther Gokhale, in support of “J-spine” thinking, as she calls it (as opposed to the classic “S-curve” spine). It’s not a Feldenkrais Method book, and I personally find the exercises a little ham-fisted (I’d like to see the whole thing rewritten with Feldenkrais lessons instead!), BUT the pictures, illustrations, anatomy explanations, and history are spectacular. She studied and photographed cultures around the world with little incidence of back pain and derived beautiful, efficient, and clear ideas about proper human spinal function. Really worth a look, if only to have lots of clear imagery in mind as you play with your own posture and function in and out of class.

Our chairs, couches, and car seats often by their very shape create terrible seated conditions for our spine. Among other problems, they force us to tilt our pelvis back and not actually have our sitbones under us.

What came next in the workshop?

See the Context tab.

This lesson is found in our Miscellaneous Lessons collection. It was taught at the beginning of a workshop and was followed by versions of these lessons:

My second workshop lesson was based on another classic: The Movement of the Eyes Organizes the Movement of the Body (Patrons). Alternatively there’s Secrets of the Seated Twist. We used the basic rotation in side-sitting from these lessons as a refrain while we explored different ways to tilt the pelvis and head with the assistance of the spine and whole back / chest in side-sitting.
We finished the workshop with a short chair-seated version of another classic lesson called the pelvic clock, with heavy references to awareness of the three dimensional movements of the spine and chest. Dynamic Sitting and Chair Clock (24 min) is pretty similar. See our Pelvic Clock “Primer” for more related study.

It also appears in our Deep Dive course called Breathing with Vitality.

Members and Patrons. Please login or join the Project to view related lesson titles and links.

Members and Patrons. Please login or join the Project to view Nick’s comments about sources he used while developing this lesson.

Members and Patrons. Please login or join the Project to download this lesson’s MP3 file.

Comfort & Configuration

Clarifications

Curiosities

Info sent afterward to attendees of the workshop where this lesson was recorded:

Fundamentals of a Healthy Back Workshop

Workshop goals:

To use our intelligence, curiosity, and sensitivity to build awareness of how we use our backs and spines, and how we might use them better.
Specifically, to improve the function of the spine as a whole including proper use from the pelvis, support from the musculature, and positioning of the head, in many different kinds of natural actions such as twisting, bending, and extending.
To question aspects of our cultural learning and typical support surfaces (furniture, car seats, etc.) which make healthy function of the spine difficult, so we can make better choices.
To improve our ability to learn from our own somatic experience generally: “Learning how to learn.”

Principles:

Our spines are designed to support us in a mobile, dynamic way, centering around being long and approximately plumb with the force of gravity when we’re upright and at rest.

To be free, fully functional, and safer from injury, we are generally seeking for our spines an organization with:

a little pelvic anteversion (top of the pelvis tilted slightly forward)
a vertically-stacked (not hyperlordotic / sway-back) lumbar spine
an upright thoracic spine (not kyphotic / rounded at the chest)
and thus a lifted sternum, allowing the shoulders to fall freely behind us when at rest, and
a head positioned over the spine, not “pecked” forward.

What came next in the workshop?

See the Context tab.

Context

This lesson is found in our Miscellaneous Lessons collection. It was taught at the beginning of a workshop and was followed by versions of these lessons:

My second workshop lesson was based on another classic: The Movement of the Eyes Organizes the Movement of the Body (Patrons). Alternatively there’s Secrets of the Seated Twist. We used the basic rotation in side-sitting from these lessons as a refrain while we explored different ways to tilt the pelvis and head with the assistance of the spine and whole back / chest in side-sitting.
We finished the workshop with a short chair-seated version of another classic lesson called the pelvic clock, with heavy references to awareness of the three dimensional movements of the spine and chest. Dynamic Sitting and Chair Clock (24 min) is pretty similar. See our Pelvic Clock “Primer” for more related study.

It also appears in our Deep Dive course called Breathing with Vitality.

Related Lessons

Members and Patrons. Please login or join the Project to view related lesson titles and links.

Source

Members and Patrons. Please login or join the Project to view Nick’s comments about sources he used while developing this lesson.

Download

Members and Patrons. Please login or join the Project to download this lesson’s MP3 file.

We all thrive when more people are doing more Feldenkrais. Please share this resource!

13 Comments. Leave new

Cathie Walstad
March 9, 2018 3:35 pm

After the ‘MN Hunch Season’ is over, the easy going, very clear directions in following N.S.K. in slowly helping us to coordinate the movements with an amazing stretch, awareness and opening of the vertebrae to feel more flexible but controlled more, and feeling better alignment on my aging body and now can stand up straighter. Appreciate this so much after taking classes from N.S.K. many years ago at the JCC in St. Paul. Thank you!

Reply
- Nick Strauss-Klein
  April 23, 2018 8:33 am
  
  Especially after this difficult winter we Minnesotans are so glad to throw off our parkas and shivering hunches! Happy to help!
  
  Reply
cj
March 26, 2018 2:28 am

That was a wonderful lesson Nick. It was really interesting to observe the relationship between the breath and the 5 curves.
Thanks again

Reply
Muriel Soriano
May 11, 2020 3:19 pm

Thank you so much Nick! Foppy breath and tummy was an interesting exploration and loved the giraffe image (-:
Feeling much taller and straighter.

Reply
Sarah Merriam Pierce
November 17, 2020 3:51 pm

Thank you Nick! This is a wonderful exploration of the spine and relationship with head and pelvis! So much food for thought. So warm wishes from Wales, GB 🙂

Reply
- Nick Strauss-Klein
  November 17, 2020 3:53 pm
  
  A little secret: I love this one too! I haven’t figured out a more prominent place for it in our collections, so I’m glad you ventured into our mysterious Miscellaneous Lessons and found it. Thanks for letting us know where you’re listening from – always fun to hear!
  
  Reply
Ileana Vogelaar
July 23, 2021 11:06 pm

Wonderfull and thank you so much. Liked the 2 noses part….and rolling the head in opposite direction..
Was it a ” Feldenkrais boot camp ” ?? You were getting ready for a second leson. LOL

Reply
- Nick Strauss-Klein
  July 27, 2021 7:30 am
  
  That’s right, it was the first lesson in a workshop pair. Click the Context tab for the next lesson!
  
  Reply
Essie
October 12, 2021 8:54 am

I find this lesson very relaxing and soothing, but have two points of confusion:
– knees tilting to one side – I’m doing a slight tilt, as tilting further causes confusion and discomfort. But when you suggest to *keep* the knees slightly tilted, and raise the head – how does one keep the knees tilted without having to strain the whole lower body? So far I can only tilt a bit and bring it right back, the idea of having to keep them tilted, even at a small angle, gives immediate strain and makes me think I’m doing something wrong! Maintaining the tilt recruits a lot of my muscles, even with friction under my foot.

Second confusion – when bringing the head up (using arms, not neck muscles) – should I be squeezing my abdomen, like in a sit up? Or do I maintain perfectly calm abdomen / keep abs relaxed? The answer changes where the weight goes in my back.

Thank you as always!

Reply
- Nick Strauss-Klein
  October 12, 2021 11:50 am
  
  For the second question, the abdominal muscles will be included and indeed do much of the work, but there’s no particular focus needed to squeeze them. As your head lightens and lifts do allow the weight and pressure to migrate down your chest and back. Allowing your abdomen to be included in the contractions will help you learn to press your back more fully into the ground to support lifting your head.
  
  First question: what happens if you lighten/lift your head with the legs crossed but not tilted? First see if you can find a way to do that comfortably (again, allowing the middle back, and maybe even lower back, to press the ground should help). Then see, if you tilt your knees an inch to the side, leave them there, and then lift your head, is there a comfortable way? There’s no need to tilt them any particular distance and we’re definitely not looking for strain. You’ll be learning even if you don’t tilt them at all, since the configuration of the hips and pelvis and lumbar is so different with the legs crossed.
  
  Reply
Jody Dixon
December 8, 2021 7:15 am

I find every lesson I do so helpful for something in my body- so thank you for that! I’m trying to introduce a friend to Feldenkrais who is struggling with sciatic pain. Could you direct me to the best lesson among the non-donor resources to start for her?

Reply
- Nick Strauss-Klein
  December 8, 2021 10:01 am
  
  Thanks, and thanks for the referral. Please send her to Getting Oriented – that’s the best place for most folks to get familiar with the method, and many of those lessons can be very nice for sciatica. She can simply start from the beginning, but should skip any lesson she can’t make comfortable for herself.
  
  Reply
addi
January 7, 2023 11:02 pm

I managed to do the whole enchilada(!!)(with some spontaneous movements ‘of my own’ here+there..
felt like there were no curves at the end(!)
was fun
ThankYou!

Reply