Source
- Alexander Yanai Vol 10
- Reel 31, Track 3, Lesson 3
- Duration of the recording: 35 min.
Synopsis
- In standing, you lift the foot slightly and turn the heel outside to transfer weight, differentiating the head and smoothing the eyes, so you can look left as you turn out your right heel, or equally look right. You spend some time looking over your shoulder at the turned-out heel behind, with one eye closed, and protruding and retracting the chin while turned. This is developed to a free turning back and forth and then into a 360+ degree spin, arms swinging (and always going back in the other direction so as not to get dizzy).
Lesson Outline
Rests are walks except when noted.
- Stand, easy-spread legs. Turn R heel backwards & out; lift foot from floor before turning, and stand on it at the end.
- Other side. (Turn L heel out.) Develop: Look with eyes & head to R as you do this.
- First side (turn R heel out, look L).
- Turn R heel out, look L, and stay. Eyes and head L.
- Close L eye. Intention: Try to see the R heel, with R eye.
- Again, stay in this starting position, and protrude the chin then take the head backwards.
- Check: turn R heel out, look L. Easier? Leg turns more?
- Other side.
- Turn R heel out, larger & more comfortable.
- Differentiate: Take eyes/head R.
- Stay, close the R eye, and with the L eye look at the R heel.
- Differentiate: same, but as you look to R heel with L eye, take R shoulder forwards.
- Check: take R shoulder back. How is it now?
- Other side (slightly compressed).
- Take R heel out and back, and immediately follow with L foot, so you do a turn. Eyes look L.
- Develop: biggest possible without falling. 180 degrees with one movement.
- Other side.
- Develop: Do it twice. Then five, six, seven times in a row.
- Other side.
- Briefly do each side clearly, clarifying eyes/head, and then alternate:
- Same alternating, but with eyes/head in opposite direction.
- Undifferentiated, three movements in one direction, three in the other.
- Some turn the head and eyes opposite without realizing it. You can do either.
- If you can do it both ways, the body is freer and head is smoother in turning.
Focus of Moshe’s Teaching
- Indicate focus or key principles that are made explicit in the teaching
Related ATMs
Rotating the leg around itself:
- AY482 Introduction next to a chair (The foot)
- AY483 On the side of the chair -hopping
- AY489 Legs and lifting back
- SF2 – Week 07 – 27 July 1976: On the Side, Lifting and Rotating the Leg
Turning in standing:
- Amherst 2 – Week 9 – 08/03/81 PM1 Weight Shifting to Dancing
- AY233.5 Turns with arms/hands behind (on the back) (not in IFF edition)
Turning around a vertical axis:
- AY236 Rotation on an axis
- AY242 Turning on a side axis
- AY271 Extending the arms forward 1
- AY300 In standing, turning the heels outside
- SF1 – Week 5 – 15 July 1975: Lying on Back to Standing
- SF1 – Week 5 – 16 July 1975: Lying on Back to Standing, continued
Turning-Heel-Out:
- Amherst 2 – Week 9 – 08/03/81 PM1 Weight Shifting to Dancing
- AY236 Rotation on an axis
- AY242 Turning on a side axis
- AY245 Heels and feet in circles
- AY283 Continuation on one leg
- AY300 In standing, turning the heels outside
- AY498 Tilting the leg backward in sitting
Resources
- http://kinesophics.ca/standing_turning_eyes
- The conversation at the start of the recording about the learning/neurological coordination that it takes tot assemble a stable view of the world, and how this differs standing, lying face up, and one the side, is drawn from a discussion he has on the topic in the first day or two of Amherst.
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Share Your Insights (ideas, principles, strategies, experiences, …)
- In teaching this standing/turning lessons recently, I notice that the students sway all over the place. Like the momentum from the pelvis sends the head spinning here and there, like a long stalk with a flower on top waving in the wind. This particular version of the lesson focuses in on developing the differentiation and awareness so that the head stays stead and moves freely over the hip/foot.
- I think that of the various versions of “turning the heels out,” this one focuses most specifically on the combination of internal rotation of the hip and keeping the head coordinated with and standing over the foot/hip joint, to make the turn tight and smooth–also contributing to control of the dizzying effects of turning.
- Narrative summary:
- 1-3: Get the idea of turn the heel out and smoothly turning the head with it.
- 4-8: These variations–looking over the shoulder to the heel and chicken pecking–dramatically increase the internal rotation of the hip whose heel is turning out and the ability to have the whole body follow this in turning. At the same time, you’re introducing the idea of differentiating the head.
- 9-13: Develop this into spinning (continuing in each direction), with the head differentiated and not.
- A technique to avoid dizziness is to turn the head opposite the body, fixing on a given spot, and then whip the head around to find that spot again. Dancers and figure skaters learn this. In 13 he points out that some do this spontaneously. –
LynetteReid Jun 24, 2012 - Add your thoughts about the lesson here.
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- Differing viewpoints are welcome and desired!
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