Getting Free with a Bell Hand (Patrons)

If you’re not yet familiar with the bell hand genre of Feldenkrais lesson please explore one or both of these lessons first:

• One Bell Hand / Two Bell Hands…and Feet (Patrons)
• Calming the Nervous System, Integrating Hands and Eyes (37 min, Patrons)

In this lesson, the hand making the bell movements should always have fingers free of the ground, meaning its palm is oriented to the ceiling or to the side.

If the three-quarters prone position is difficult you may place a pillow under the bent knee that’s out in front of you.

While the bell hand pulsing is more or less continuous, the lifting movements aren’t. Be sure to complete each lifting movement by letting all the efforts dissipate fully and then resting briefly before beginning the next lift.

Eventually you’ll get to choose which side you’re lying on. You’ll hear me frequently refer to the “floor side” or to “pulse your floor side arm” to remind you which hand you’re pulsing, but I don’t mean to move your arm, except when you’re transitioning in and out of lying on your back.

When you’re asked to lift your hand from the floor it will soon be clarified that I mean to lead from the wrist, letting the hand dangle down, fingers brushing the floor for much of the movement. The “silk scarf” is an image for gently floating something into the air, as if someone slung a scarf under your wrist (or later, your ankle) and delicately lifted.

Moshe Feldenkrais called the movement “bell hand” because of the shape the hand makes. He also spoke French and many Feldenkrais teachers have suspected he was thinking of “belle” (beautiful), too. Having an esthetically pleasing sense of the movement, both in its felt-sense and appearance, hugely benefits the lesson.

I also enjoy an image of the metaphorical bell that’s rung in the nervous system when you sustain this movement. It announces “Pay attention, every other movement you make is connected to this ringing bell.”

For humans, learning to do two or more different things skillfully at the same time is common and enormously practical. When you think about it, it’s also miraculous. We must patiently practice, differentiating and integrating until there’s a sense that the movements are a single coordinated action. When either movement is handled in an isolated, abrupt, or forceful way they disrupt each other. But when both are done beautifully, each benefits.

Learning specific skillful combination of movements is really valuable in all of life’s activities, but note: if you practice your actual learning skills by developing your capacity for differentiation and integration, you can learn faster — and learn almost anything. Try our Illusion of Isolation Deep Dive.

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

It also appears in our Deep Dive course called The Illusion of Isolation.

It was recorded on January 26, 2021.

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