AY006 Turning the head around its circumference and in the center

Source

• Alexander Yanai Vol 1 #6
• Reel 1, Track 3, Lesson 2 (This reference is identical to the reference of AY021 in the IFF edition. correction (AS): AY021 is 2/3/2 in Hebrew)
• Duration 43 min.
• For German see AYnmal täglich: Den Kopf um seinen Umfang und um den Mittelpunkt drehen

Synopsis

Exploring two different ways of articulating movement of the head, one from the base of the skull, the other from the base of the neck. In a variety of basic configurations (sitting cross-legged, lying face up, face down, and on the side), and by circling the crown of the head, and also by using a finger on the temple held still in space, you refine taking your head in a circle (touching that finger around its circumference), with your face/nose forwards the whole time. The

Lesson Outline

1. Do a scan focused on neck and spine.
2. Sit cross legged, or on edge of chair, so you are comfortable. Imagine pencil at top of head.
   • Draw a small circle with the pencil on a board.
   • Listen so you know where the head and the pencil tip are.
   • Make sure you draw a circle, with an upright pencil using the vertebrae of the neck, not the atlas of your spine.
3. Change the direction of the circle.
   • Make sure that you are doing this with your spine, with the pencil as extension of your spine.
   • Check that that you know where this movement is easy and where it is sticky.
4. Place your right index finger on your left temple.
   • Move your head so that circumference touches the ideally stationary finger. If the hand moves be aware of that and start again.
5. The nose remains vertical, facing forward. It is the head that moves.
   • The movement is in the top two vertebrae of the neck.M/li>
   • REST in sitting
6. Place your left index finger on the right temple and do the same movement. It has possibly occurred to you that if you don’t have your elbow higher than your hand you get in your own way. Be kind and curious, not demanding about this. You are not an owl…
   • Lie on your back and REST
7. Keep you legs long and imagine the pencil at the top of your head.
   • Lift your head and and turn it to draw a circle on the wall above (not the ceiling!)
   • Pay attention to how the neck is now moving.
   • REST
8. Do the same movement in the opposite direction.
   • REST
9. Turn to your stomach and put your right index finger on left temple. Move the head around the finger. Your right elbow will be in the air. Again the face is still forward, not turning from left to right.
10. With finger in same place, change the direction of the circle.
    • You are drawing a circlet of ribbon around your head, with the head. The finger is stationary. It is hard to resist the desire to complete the circle and that’s when the elbow moves.
    • REST
11. Put left finger on right temple, and move the head. What’s different?
    • Change direction.
    • REST
12. What has changed? There are different ways to move your head. It depends on whether the lower vertebrae of the neck, or those under the atlas move. The two can be combined, and some people do it in the same movement. It is how asymmetry occurs.
    • As much as you exercise one side will be different than the other, but this lesson can help break some habits. That is why it is sometimes difficult.
13. Stay on your back, but sit up enough to lean on your elbows, forearms and palms . Think about where the top of your head has the pencil and draw a circle a few times.
    • Notice what your shoulders do, each will freeze in some place. Continue moving your head and find out if you can gradually move so that you do the movement with the shoulders together. This will help you differentiate your spine from your shoulders, which many of us don’t do. This encourages movement in C7 at the base of the neck and is much more effective than massage.
    • You might find the circle is much smaller, but clear.
    • REST
14. Return to leaning on forearms. Think about the finger on temple and move so that the head touches the finger as you turn the head.
    • Imagining this touch at all points can be difficult but can inform you.
15. Now lean on your left elbow and take your right hand to the left temple by reaching over your head, and move the head around the finger. Ensure the right elbow stays stationary…watch it!
    • The point is to find where the difficulty lies.
    • Work gently to find ways to make it easier.
    • REST
16. Come back to leaning on your forearms in, and lift your left hand. Again take your head around the finger, doing the opposite direction you did before. You are looking to move your head (NOT the finger or hand!)
    • 360 degrees, touching the finger. Your face is forward, looking neither left nor right.
    • This is not likely to be instinctual. It is learned, so your mind needs to be ope, and allow yourself to correct where habit takes over. Slowly will identify the areas that occurs. Each of us will have different areas where we lose connection, and we can identify the lack of connection in back and shoulders.
    • REST Notice sensations in head, face, mouth and eyes as well as in the back.
17. Comeback into sitting. Put hands on your hips, draw a circle with the pencil at the top of your head in one direction and then the other. How does it feel in comparison with the beginning of the lesson.
    • Change to thinking about moving the head around an object hanging from ceiling. Pay attention to when your face turns away from the center. It is interesting to find the way the vertebrae change with different places
    • In your thoughts still, change the direction of the circle, seeing where it changes against the imaginary pendulum
    • Use your finger and actually feel the circle twice and then again imagine the movement, and notice the difference between thought and action.
    • Change hands and do the movement for a couple of turns and then used imagination in each direction.
    • REST
18. Lie on your right side and lift your head a little from the floor. Again repeat the first movement with the pencil and see the challenges this poses.
    • Still lying on your side, not leaning on your elbow. Now do the same movement with help from your left hand, marking the circle.
    • REST
19. Turn to your left side and draw with a pencil above your head. Again repeat the first movement with the pencil and see the challenges this poses.
    • Still lying on your side, not leaning on your elbow. Now do the same movement with help from your right hand, marking the circle.
20. Sit again as at the beginning of the class.
    • Imagine the pencil and do the first movement of the class, just draw a circle on the ceiling.
    • Directly from the transcript “Continue making the movement thinking the movement is a continuation of the spine. At the same time begin thinking of of the movement at your circumference. Try to do these two things simultaneously.
    • Listen to the top of your head and to the object that goes around your the circumference of your head.
    • Discover those sections where you can only think about one movement. At certain points other parts you will only be able to think of the other. Which ones are the difficult area?
    • It is difficult. You can see when someone doesn’t realize he he is not making a circle and believes he is effective. That is why it is important to touch your hand to your head. That helps you feel what you are doing.
21. Change the direction and be aware of the circumference and touch your index to temple, As you do the movement, think less about the circumference and focus on what the top of your head is doing. As you do this drop your hand and feel the top of your head and the circumference at the same time.
    • Lower your hand, from your head.
    • Pay attention to each of the movements separately and then simultaneously.
    • How does your thinking change the movement? They are two different movements.
    • REST
22. Lie on your back and see if there are differences there
23. Roll to your side and come into standing. What feels different there?

Focus of Moshe’s Teaching

• Indicate focus or key principles that are made explicit in the teaching

Related ATMs

• Tag Base-of-neck

Resources

• • A lesson based on this by Lynette Reid at kinesophics.ca: http://kinesophics.ca/turning-the-head-around-its-circumference-and-in-the-center/
  • Ruth Knill’s video

• This is Charlie Murdach teaching the “reminder” movement for this ATM:

Share Your Insights (ideas, principles, strategies, experiences, …)

• Add your thoughts about the lesson here.
• Please sign your comments.
• Differing viewpoints are welcome and desired!
• BenP writes: In Point 1 he says, “Imagine a pencil o1 the top of your head… and move it so it draws a circle on the piece of cardboard held above your head. You must make a movement with all the vertebrae of your neck. … There isn’t any movement at your atlas.” Yet in point 1A, he says “Your back must move the pencil.” To me, it is not clear if there is expected to be movement of the whole spine; one could “wobble” the head at the top of the spine with little lower cervical activity, or one could use the whole body to make a sort of “sway” movement of the whole torso/spine. NB there is no further reference to  movement of the back. Nor does he mention that one should, or should not, shift the weight left/right on the sitting bones.
  • I have added the tags “circling head with hand” and “atlas and axis”. The tag “base of neck” is quite generalised, appearing in many different and varied lessons. (BenP sep 2025)
  • This is not an easy lesson to understand IMHO. Why so? The lesson is about distinguishing two manners of moving the head. Vis, (5A): “Until you start perceiving the difference between the movement of the pencil at the top of the head and the movements at the circumference in a clear, concrete way, you don’t feel that this lesson does anything.” and (7): “A clear discrimination or clear perception of the difference between the movement of your head done with your neck vertebrae. . . when your head sits on top of your atlas and doesn’t move, only the neck vertebrae underneath the atlas and axis move. In the other pattern your neck verebrae are without movement and only the basis of your neck (BP: Question: should this read “base of your head”?) moves. … The differentiation of these two different movements or the perception of them most people make only partially.”
  • I could imagine 3 types of cervical vertebral movement. (1) translation at the very top of the cervical spine, similar to how a pigeon’s head moves in walking. (2) a bending of the 7 cervical vertebrae, like a bow or a C shape. (3) holding the cervical neck stiff, but finding movement from the base of the neck (C7, T1, T2).  Of course, such movements can not happen in complete isolation, but which movement does MF desire? The lesson is not explicit.
  • See Point (1) “Imagine a pencil o1 the top of your head… and move it so it draws a circle on the piece of cardboard held above your head. You must make a movement with all the vertebrae of your neck. … There isn’t any movement at your atlas.” and Point (1A) “Your back must move the pencil.“
  • See Point (1B): the right index finger is placed on the left temple and held still in space, and the head is moved around the finger in the horizontal plane.
  • In Point 1B, when the right index finger is placed on the left temple and held still in space, and the head moved around it, and in point 5A, he says the finger stays in contact with the head, “following the line of a ribbon or a laurel crown”.
  • I have a question: Why is the finger not on the forehead, or some other place on the circumference of the head. By taking the right finger to the left side of the head and moving the head around the fixed point of the finger, the head has to make a massive movement leftwards.
  • A further question: should one (1) maintain the vertical axis of the head as much as is possible, keeping the eyes on the horizontal) or (2) tilt the head, the eyes not staying horizontal.
  • When I taught this lesson, I suggested students move their head like a pigeon when walking (some kind of translation of the head). Yet, knowing that the head has a big width of e.g 15cm, movement of just the atlas/axis can not possibly move the head around a stationary finger. There must be movement in other bones of the cervical (& dorsal) spine.
  •  I think it would be worth doing other “base of the neck”, “base of the head”, and movements of the head in space” lessons, to seek clarity from different source.
  • In the Paris Workshop (Peter Brook) lesson 1, Pendulum movement of the head, the whole spine is used to move the head

 

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