Stepping Down, with a Bias (Patrons)

This mostly side-lying lesson explores the relationship of our natural spinal bias with our uprightness. It's designed to help us clarify and harness the fine movements and wonderful sensitivity and power available throughout our spine as we step down. "Stepping down" is how we organize ourselves to deliver force through our legs as we stand, balance, walk, and move in all upright activities.

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 – 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 – 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.

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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 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 – 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.

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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.

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 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 – 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!

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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Even if you don’t require head support for side-lying, it may be useful in this lesson: experiencing some slack in your spine may make some sensations more accessible than dangling your head over your shoulder down to the ground.

It’s mentioned in the recording, but good to repeat here: in side-lying, when you’re eventually asked to lift the ceiling-side knee away from the floor-side knee without rolling backward, don’t let strain build in your outer thigh. That isn’t the power we’re steering you toward. Go smaller, rest more, or adjust your starting position, all so you can learn to distribute effort away from the leg and into the spine and your weight on the floor.

On subsequent listenings, a good experiment might be to start by lying on your right side, and reverse rights and lefts throughout the first parts of the lesson. Once you get your best sense of your bias during the middle of the lesson (the back-lying steps), follow the final side-lying directions even if it’s the same as you did it last time (lie on the side that has your spinal bias facing the ceiling).

The “people with whom I saw related work being done” discussed at the beginning of the class are small children with developmental challenges who are students of Sheryl Field, the senior Feldenkrais practitioner whose work is the source for this lesson.

We’re directly exploring how our spine organizes our uprightness and movement. It’s easy to think that we interact with the world with our limbs, and it’s true, in the same way a car interacts with the world with its tires, “where the rubber meets the road.” But just like the tires are the end of a sophisticated system of power generation and transmission which starts at the engine, our feet and legs are designed to deliver force and movement generated initially at the spinal level. If you want to tune up a car, you wouldn’t spend all your time on the tires.

Learning to sense and use your primary spinal bias to your advantage in day-to-day movements is profoundly important work that can lead to significant quality of life improvements. This bias is also introduced and explored near the end of our collection called Lessons for Freeing the Spine, Chest, Shoulders, and Neck.

All vertebrates (including humans) have this natural spinal bias, which means the spine bends a little more pleasantly and fluently toward one side than the other. This isn’t something to be corrected or made symmetrical with the other side; rather we can benefit from learning to sense and harness it as integral to our identity and self-image.

This is so important that I’ve even structured this lesson asymmetrically. Once you’ve got your best guess about your own bias, you’ll do most of the rest of the lesson in the side-lying configuration that makes it easiest to harness your sense of your bias and relate it to powering your ceiling-side leg. It’s a powerful whole self organizer, and you may be surprised how you’re not left feeling totally asymmetrical afterwards, or at least not for long.

This lesson is found in Patrons Monthly, our always-growing collection of new lessons (one or more added every month) for Feldenkrais Project Patrons. It’s also in our Walking from Your Spine Deep Dive.

Audio edits are more minimal in this collection (I’ve left in a little before class discussion, for example). I may edit this lesson down further in the future based on your feedback.

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7 Comments

  1. Anne McDonald on November 20, 2019 at 1:51 pm

    Excellent ATM! It helped me uncover some beliefs I didn’t know I (still) had. I’ve used my “good” side to gather information in order to change my “bad” side. Instead of developing my strengths I’ve paradoxically focused on my weaknesses. The evolutionary need for developing a bias (quickly avoid a predator) also helped me accept and appreciate both sides of myself. I also loved the opposition of lengthening upward while stepping down. Going up and down at the same time has helped me do less. Thanks Nick for this great ATM.

    • Nick Strauss-Klein on November 20, 2019 at 2:41 pm

      Fantastic! Very exciting to get this feedback. These are powerful, subtle concepts, at odds with a lot of cultural assumptions about symmetries and self-improvement. I’m so happy you’re diving deep!

  2. Pam Merten on October 12, 2020 at 6:35 pm

    I need to do this one a few more times to get the hang of it: It was difficult for me to envision how to position my bended knees. What I found fascinating was that when I lied on my right side, it was extremely difficult to press my spine into the floor. I continued to imagine the whole thing; eventually I was able to do so. Thanks, Nick!!

  3. B R on November 19, 2024 at 8:20 am

    đź‘‹ I prefer keeping the arm under me up so I can rest my ear. I usually prefer that position because I can feel pain, if I extend the under arm that is in front of me. Sometimes when I do this anyway to see the difference between the two positions, I noticed that there are other benefits that I get.
    My questions, I felt that I could not do the lesson with my underarm in front of me. But I am concerned that I cannot make more relationships and derive more connections and understanding. My under arm usually feels cramped or some nerve really gets very sensitive in my shoulder and arm area, not in my head or neck.

    Also, would you suggest any lessons that can address exactly that issue that I’m having with my shoulder arm that is kept underneath and in front in these type of exercises when we lay on the side ? I keep bypassing this, but I think it’s important, and it is time for me to address exactly that and the most conducive moves and lessons towards some success. Would love it so much. If you can suggest a list of lessons that can help me lay my under arm comfortably in front of me. Just in case it helps, I am an experienced student, And this issue is a skeleton in the cupboard for me 🙂 Thank you very much absolutely love the lessons.

    • Nick Strauss-Klein on November 21, 2024 at 9:37 am

      Let me make sure I understand your question. Are you saying that in side-lying, it’s more comfortable for you to have the ground side arm lying as if reaching up your mat, like a continuation of your spine, for your head to rest on? And you’re asking how to be more comfortable having that ground side arm straight out in front of you on the ground instead? And if that’s right, is it that position that’s painful, or does it hurt more when you’re rolling or shifting forward on your shoulder?

      • B on November 21, 2024 at 9:47 am

        Yes!! Hi Nick🙏🤍.
        You got it exactly right: âś… as you say:

        “ in side-lying, it’s more comfortable for you to have the ground side arm lying as if reaching up your mat, like a continuation of your spine, for your head to rest on?
        -Yes-

        And you’re asking how to be more comfortable having that ground side arm straight out in front of you on the ground instead?
        -yes-

        And if that’s right, is it that position that’s painful, or does it hurt more when you’re rolling
        -Yes-
        It hurts when I lie on it, albeit my proper adjustment. And then hurts even more when rolling.

        • Nick Strauss-Klein on November 21, 2024 at 2:08 pm

          OK, first thought is, what happens on a softer surface? Can you do lessons like that comfortably on a firm bed, for example, at least in the short term? Yes firmer surfaces are best for sensing and feeling yourself clearly, but not if they’re causing pain. A related option is to put some soft padding (in my studio I use packing foam) under your ribs, near your shoulder. Could be up to a couple inches of thickness. And to use high enough head support. Then your shoulder is in a kind of valley, relatively speaking, taking pressure off of it. Does that make this configuration easier?

          As far as specific lessons go, it is hard to say what the issue is from a distance, but if lessons that mobilize the shoulders are generally comfortable (whether they’re lessons in this position or not) that’s a good place to start. Check out our two shoulder-related Deep Dives.

          Let’s now continue our conversation offline, since after this it’s likely to be too personalized to be as valuable to others in this public forum. Please try some of these ideas and then email me if you have more questions.

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