Source
- Feldy Eastern Workshop: Synergetics of Ribs and Spines
Synopsis
- This lesson was taught by George Kreutz at an Eastern Region workshop that grew out of a conversation on FeldyForum in 2008. George previously taught this ATM at the FGNA conference in Evanston, Ill. in 1999, so an audio version may exist in private libraries and collections, but it’s not otherwise widely distributed.
Lesson Outline
- George Krutz’s Arm Twist ATM 5/10/08 Ribs and Spine Workshop1. Lie on your back. Maybe just enjoy not doing anything for a moment or two.
Gently roll you head left and right just to feel how that goes. How much of you moves with it or is a part that partakes in that movement. - 2. Stand both of your feet on the floor, one at a time. Experiment for a moment: find where your feet come to a place where the knee can stand in the same plane as the foot and hip. If the knee can stand over the foot without a lot of work, you have found a good place but maybe there is a better place.
Extend both of your arms towards the ceiling. Put the backs of your hands together and reach around over the top of the left hand with the right hand–so you just cross at the wrist. Interlace your fingers.
Think that with the left arm you’re going to lift the right arm so you let the right arm go along for a ride as much as you can, while you extend the left arm towards the ceiling and a few times just lift it straight up. (The left arm is lifting the right straight up – your hands are going to go straight up towards the ceiling)
As you lift, think of turning the thumb to the right. So it’s going to be as if you wrap the right arm around the left arm. The elbows start to come closer together. You soften the wrist, the elbows and the shoulders. So it’s a twist and a lift. As you do that, start to feel where your shoulders go, and each time see if you can lift the weight of the shoulders from the floor and then let them sink all the way back to the floor. Pay attention to the directions of your shoulders and how that changes the shape of your chest.
And then let it go and bring your arms down. Rest.
3. Stand your feet. Can you improve upon the position of them over the last time and find a place that feels even more like the knee is on the plane of the hip and foot? (If someone did a hand stand on your knees, their weight would go down toward the floor in both directions, no problem!) Lift your hands towards the ceiling and put the back of the hands together and this time pass the left hand over the right. Interlace the fingers and now the right arm is going to lift the left arm and start to wrap the left arm around the right. The thumbs will begin to point to the left and you will feel one shoulder goes down towards the hip as the other comes up towards your head as they both move towards the ceiling. Find a way that you can really lift the shoulders from the floor, and as you do this, is there a response in your head? If you soften your neck, unclench your jaw, breath, you may begin to feel your head respond. Go slowly enough so that you can feel the change in shape in your chest. What happens to those ribs? (It’s very easy for us to loose track of those top couple of ribs. First rib is underneath the clavicle.) Let it go, bring your arms down, lengthen your legs, rest. And roll your head a little bit and see how that goes now.
4. Stand both of the feet again. See where your feet are and move your left leg to bring the knee a little bit towards the foot, as you lift the hip on the left side–the hip follows a trajectory where it comes up from the floor and a little bit towards your shoulder and a little bit towards your midline. Find a way to do it where you are not swinging your legs. It’s a movement of the knee as if it comes to stand better off the foot. Feel what happens in the ankle, in the knee and in the hipbone. Maybe you start to feel something happens in your spine, in your chest. So it’s not rolling your pelvis. The weight comes a little bit more on the side. You’re not swinging your knees but you’re bringing them over your foot. More specifically, the knee is coming towards the second toe (next to the big toe). Let it sink all the way to the floor again. Don’t lift the whole pelvis in the air. Leave this side down. And then pause. Leave your feet standing. Now raise your arms towards the ceiling, put the backs of your hands together and take the right hand cross it over to the left and interlace your fingers. Make that movement again to lift the right arm passively with the left as you turn to wrap the arm, right arm around the left arm. Can you go a little tighter now? Can you let you neck stay soft so that the head can follow the movement? And now see if there’s way that you can use that movement of the hip to let the arms come a little bit higher and let the twist in your spine and the change in shape of your chest become a little bit easier. It is as if the left shoulder and the left hip are coming away from the floor together. (NB: if you can do this movement to the point of permanently damaging your self you need to move the midline!)
And then let it go, lengthen your legs. Roll your head a little bit. Does it go a little bit easier and simpler to one side now?
5. Stand your feet again. Pay attention to where you put your foot in relationship to the knee and the hip. And make that same movement of Step 4, this time with the right hip so that you push the floor a little bit, your knee goes over the foot and the hip come up towards the right shoulder and starts to come a little bit towards the midline and a little bit towards the ceiling. See how precise you can be again. Could you think of the knee traveling on a plane between the hip and the second toe or the space between the second toe and the big toe? What happens in your ankle, your knee, and your hip? And now what happens in your back, your chest. How does your sternum move?
Pause for a little bit. Bring both of your arms to the ceiling, cross the left over the right and begin to wrap the left arm around the right as you lift the shoulders away from the floor and simply soften the neck. Don’t do anything special. See what the trajectory of your head will be and see if you can include that movement of the hip so that the right shoulder and the right hip are approaching each other. Pay attention, don’t swing the knees but let them move on that plane and that means you could find a better and better place for your feet. And each time make sure that the hip and everything comes back to the middle and the hip and shoulders rest on the floor. Elbows will come apart a little bit and then as you make the movement again.
And then slowly let it go, swing your arms down and lengthen you legs. Roll you head a little bit.
6. Stand your feet again in an ever more optimal place. Bring the arms up, cross the right arm over the left and just begin to make that movement again so that the left arm is going to lift the right, you are going to wrap the right arm around the left. The left hip is going to come up as if to meet the left shoulder. And you’re going to just let your head follow that left shoulder–not to force it, not to bend it or slide it but let it roll. When you let it roll you will find that it doesn’t look directly to the left but starts to look as if you are going to look under your shoulder, especially as you let the back of your neck soften and lengthen.
See if you can make the movement just a few times where everything is included and you can keep it in your attention and awareness what happens in the ankle, knee and hip, shoulder, chest, neck and back. So you just continue the movement broadening your attention, softening your focus so that you can start to feel the change in shape of your whole frame.
7. However large you are making the movement in Step 6, above, make it half that size. And see as you reduce the size of the movement if you can maintain the movement of the shoulders, the change in shape of your chest and back, the quality and the precision of the movement of your knee and hip. Once you can do that, cut the size of the movement again in half. Pause and rest your arms whenever you need to and continue to reduce the size of the movement until you get to that place where you are not quite certain whether it’s the movement or the idea of the movement that you are doing. And all the while, see if you can maintain that broad focus, including the change in shape of your whole frame, the precision of the movement, how you’re breathing, what your eyes are doing (do your eyes continue to think about looking down underneath your shoulder?)
And then leave that and bring your arms down, lengthen your legs and rest. [When you do things in your imagination and the teacher tells you to rest, is that an imaginary rest???] - 8. And stand your feet again. Raise your arms towards the ceiling, cross your left hand over the right and now begin to make that same movement again in a comfortable range where you can pay attention, broaden the focus, the movement of the arms up the intertwining of the arms. The direction of the shoulders, the shift in your sternum, the movement of the hip, the direction of the knee over the foot. What happens in the ankle, the knee and the hip joints? How does your spine change shape? How do your ribs change their shape? And then beginning that process of halving the amplitude of the movement, see if you can keep all of those elements in your awareness. Can you half it again? Remember your eyes, your breath. Notice if/when at any point as you reduce the size of the movement, the amplitude of the movement, something drops out. And then when you get to the place where its just or almost just in your imagination, slowly let it go, bring your arms down, lengthen your legs.
Roll your head a little bit. - 9. Stand your feet once more. Bring the arms towards the ceiling, backs of the hands towards each other and cross the right arm over the left. And now begin the movement small (maybe smaller then when you ended at the last rep). Think how if you begin to expand the movement, you can again keep track of all of those elements, the lifting of the arms and shoulders, the wrapping the right arm around the left, the left hip comes up to meet the left shoulder, the head begins to turn, the knees going towards the ankle. Start to think about where that left heel is and direct your eyes towards it. Don’t force it but begin to imagine how you would make that movement to look at the left heel. Underneath and along underneath the shoulder, underneath the hip and then slowly begin to expand the movement and see where it goes. Coming back down each time completely, let your spine straighten, your chest recover its unstressed shape, the shoulders and hips settle to the floor. Don’t swing the knees. (So this is truly an idiotic movement series!)
When this becomes work or tiresome, let it go, bring your arms down, legs long.
And when you are ready, try it on the other side.
10. Let your head start in the middle someplace, so you can roll easily. You don’t have to do any more with your neck, except let the sternum turn T1, which will turn C7, which will go etc, etc. It would be almost as if the head gets pushed rather than pulled on or tugged. - And then leave it. And just see what sort of contact your back makes with the floor now, maybe your lower ribs hug the floor, the way they don’t always. Roll your head a little bit now.
- When you are ready find an easy way to come up to stand. And then see what its like to walk again with soft knees, so maybe even start back with the movement we started with this morning (AY #s 241 and 242 – elements of walking). With feet parallel, stand on one leg, soften the knee and let the foot fall forward. And let yourself walk forward. Feel what happens in your chest and spine, how you stand over one leg and the other, how that shift happens. So take your time, let yourself gather your wits around you, and see you later.
Focus of Moshe’s Teaching
- Indicate focus or key principles that are made explicit in the teaching
Related ATMs
- AY 68 Rolling the Fists
AY 217 On the side, Sternum becoming Flexible
AY 242 Turning on a side axis
AY 243 Walking
AY 295 On the Side Straightening the Leg by Withdrawing the Pelvis
AY 25 On the Cheek“As to further resources: Almost any ATM will do, if you look at it in
terms of the coupling of side bending and rotation in the curved spine.The ATM book has the pelvic clock and coordinating flexors and extensors. A
good place to start is with the “Dead Bird” lesson – lesson 10 in the
Awareness Through Movement book. Moshe calls this “Movement of the Eyes
Organizes the Movement of the Body”. This is a good reminder that any lesson
can be looked at through different lenses, and all lessons aim for overall
improvement.
Other “side sitting” lessons like AY 386, and AY 64 can further illuminate this
lesson.
Of course there are all of the lessons that deal with the breath- See-Saw breathing,
AY179 (“To Weld by Breathing”).
Resources
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