SF1 – Week 1 – 17 June 1975 – On back, lifting the head with the help of the hands

Source

• SF Training Year 1
• Tuesday morning, June 17, 1975

Synopsis

1-3 sentences.

Lesson Outline

1. Face up. Interlace hands behind head and lift head.
   • Arms alongside, lift head. This should be more difficult, but it’s easier. Why?
   • Bend knees, stand feet. Lift legs from floor. Then stretch them and do the same. See? It’s harder.
   • With arms alongside, sit up. Then try the same thing with arms stretched overhead. See? It’s harder. Breathe out as you lift your head. That doesn’t help (demonstrating something in relation to a student’s comments)
   • Arms alongside, lift head, and study what you have to do to make it easier.
   • Hands on sternum, and press down towards pubic bone.
   • Arms interlaced behind head, and use them to lift while thinking that someone continues to press to flatten chest/slide sternum down belly.
   • Keep arms in the same position, but lift head without using them (they just accompany the head). Do the same with the hands just touching either side of the head. It gets even lighter. It’s not the hands holding the weight of the head, but the position this brings the arms into in relation to the stomach, and how this enables the chest to flatten more easily.
   • Emphasizes now that this becomes easy insofar as the lumbar spine comes onto the floor.

• Face up, knees bent, feet standing. Now try to take the nose between the knees/knees to either side of the head.
  • R hand behind head, L hand below R kneecap. Take elbow and knee towards one another–just the most comfortable part of the movement. Which part of the chest/which side presses more into the floor?
  • [He comes at this three times, with breaks, because he has to clarify some things about instructions: lift your knee and not your foot (of course your foot goes, but you don’t add a lifting of your foot; don’t straighten your L leg); the position of feet standing (it isn’t comfortable to have legs joined, of course knees and feet should be spread); what’s “above” and “below” and “beneath” the knee/kneecap.]
  • Change hands only, and compare what presses into the floor. Try it breathing in, and breathing out, and continue with whichever works best.
  • Rest with feet standing and see which side of pelvis lies on floor better.
  • L hand below L knee, R hand behind head. Think/imagine, ten times. Then actually do it.
  • Same thing, but change hands. (If you had eyes open, do it eyes closed, and vice versa.)
  • Then compare the leg you worked on in imagination, and the one you actually moved.
• Now that the movement is well-organized, you can do it with the knees bent or the legs long, and it’s the same.
  • Now lift both head and knees, R knee to R elbow; L knee to L elbow; L knee to R elbow; R knee to L elbow.
• Sit up. Notice interlacing of hands. Change. Then lie again and take knee and opposite elbow towards one another, with the non-habitual interlacing, and feel how different it is.

Focus of Moshe’s Teaching

• Weight further from the centre of the body is heavier. But not in this case.
• Feeling the answer to the question yourself, rather than learning it “academically.”
• Uses the imagination work to bring attention to the mood of learning.

Related ATMs

Also see Theme Flexion Lesson:

• 25 Lessons from Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation – 2. Lesson: A kind of “flexion” lesson
• 25 Lessons from Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation – 3. Lesson
• 25 Lessons from Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation – 4. Lesson
• Amherst 1 – Week 1 – 06/09/80 PM1 – Lifting the head to activate flexors
• Amherst 1 – Week 1 – 06/09/80 PM2 – Lifting the head to activate flexors (continued)
• Amherst 1 – Week 1 – 06/10/80 AM2 – Flexing the upper body, Elbow to the knee (continued)
• Amherst 1 – Week 1 – 06/10/80 PM2 – Flexors and rolling/Flexing the Upper Body, Elbow to the Knee (Continued)
• Amherst 1 – Week 5 – 07/07/80 Rolling from sitting (part 2)
• Amherst 1 – Week 7 – 07/21/80 PM2 Head and knee under the gap
• Amherst 1 – Week 1 – 06/10/80 AM1 – Flexing the upper body, Elbow to the knee
• Amherst 1 – Week 1 – 06/10/80 PM1 – Rocking and rolling
• Amherst 2 – Week 1 – 06/10/81 PM2 – On back flexing torso
• Amherst 2 – Week 8 – 07/28/81 AM2 Sample ATM Class—Knee to Elbow
• Amherst 2 – Week 9 – 08/03/81 AM1 Folding Like a Cat
• ATMEC03 Children May Flex More
• AY011 Preparation for shoulder stand
• AY027 – Elbows and knees touching
• AY033 Hands interlaced
• AY039 Lifting your knee while sitting
• AY046 Lowering the head
• AY049 Sliding on one leg
• AY055 Folding forward
• AY056 Bending the abdomen with leg swings (Catching flies)
• AY059 – Lifting the head with the hands
• AY084.5 Getting up from a chair #3 (not in IFF edition)
• AY102 Oscillations with lifting the head towards sitting
• AY114 Four diagonals in folding
• AY155 Twists and advanced twists
• AY171 Lifting the head with the soles touching and lengthening the spine
• AY229 On the back, diagonals and parallels knee-elbow;
• AY246 General coordination
• AY248 Pulling the feet sideways
• AY301 Twisting the back, lifting the head, shoulders, and limbs
• AY320 Frog – continuation – (Toad)
• AY364 Elbows and knees
• AY368 Lifting the head by extending the arms
• AY404 Bending with the help of the feet in contact
• AY442 Ankle on the Knee to Sitting
• AY446 Ideal bending
• AY448 Diagonal bending
• AY548 On right side, head and knee under the frame of left arm
• Jack Heggie – Running with the Whole Body – Chapter 2: The Muscles of the Back
• LT05 Flexors
• LT20 Rocking to sides
• MG77 #01- Lifting the head on the back
• MG77 #02 – Lifting head on back and stomach – basic flexion and extension
• MG78 #11 – Improving flexion in back, bring knees and elbows together
• New York Quest – DAY2 – AM1+2 – Lifting the head on the back: simple flexion, one side in imagination
• Rotterdam 1976 – Tape 2 – #1 – Flexion (Flexor) Lesson
• SB3 Folding Into Sitting
• SF1 – Week 1 – 17 June 1975 – Flexors
• SF3 – Day 35 – 11 August 1977: Continuation of August 10 ATM. Variations of the soles facing position. Soft flexion movements. Hands stretche over head interlaced or palm down under lumbar spine.
• SFEC Notes – 09. Tilting legs on stomach
• SFEC Public Workshop – Vol. 1 – 1. Lower Back Ease
• SFEC Public Workshop – Vol. 1 – 2. Rolling
• SFEC Public Workshop – Vol. 3 – 03. A longer spine
• Vancouver – Edmonds Center – 2. Flexion with foot differentiation, rolling back
• Vancouver – Art Gallery – 3. Interlace fingers behind, lift and lower head
• Vancouver – Hotel Vancouver – 4. Flexion (Flexor), 11AUG73

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