AY #97 / "Optimal lifting of the knees"

This lesson teaches you how to do Feldenkrais "Awareness Through
Movement" lessons. Dr. Feldenkrais takes a very discreet, simple
movement (lying on the back w/ knees bent, lifting the knee/foot a
little off the floor), and develops it into a comprehensive
experiment in how to reduce unnecessary muscular effort. Unlike
other lessons that combine several auxiliary movements into a single
larger pattern, here Moshe uses a single action as the background for
a tour of how you employ your attention. Using the earliest moments
of organizing the leg for lifting, AY #97 pays particular attention
to whether breathing is interrupted and to slowly releasing
unnecessary contractions in the back and chest. He emphasizes the
lengthening, rather than the typical shortening of the spine as the
knees are lifting.

Moshe says: "For this, it is necessary to do one of the most
important things in a person's life - which is to learn to act
without mobilizing the chest to work. The chest should continue
breathing, and the muscles that connect the chest to the head should
be free while you act. If not, whatever the movement is, it will be
more difficult to do than truly necessary."

Join us for this lesson: Wednesday, Feb 1, 6pm, at 338 East 49th
Street.

In Medias Res / AY #96 "Sinking the spine between the shoulder blades"

Our former forum got hacked and destroyed, so we're rising from the ashes with something better--the YanaiNY blog (please bookmark the site).

First, some history. Our former, deceased forum was attacked by several persistent robot spammers who posted weekly messages about unseemly, and unrelated topics. In the end we were hacked, and honest people hoping to read or post to our forum would only see a gleefull screed of profanity. Ahh, the open range of the internet.
We hope this will be a more secure, and (for us) easier-to-manage solution. Read on about this week's lesson, and join us at 338 East 49th Street for our weekly lessons. (Mondays & Wednesdays at 6pm, Tuesdays at 1pm).

So, we're starting at lesson # 96 in the Alexander Yanai series. Tonight's lesson, "Sinking the Spine Between the Shoulder Blades", was taught by Marek Wyszynski. Structurally, it's a very straightforward lesson, in that the variations are done left side, right side, etc. It's done mostly lying on the stomach, and explores one of the black holes of human awareness, the space between the shoulder blades.

There are many variations of this lesson that could be done. The orientation / position itself (lying on the stomach, propped up on your elbows and forearms, sphinx-like) lends itself to so many potent variations. Moshe alternates between sinking the spine while you are in the above-mentioned position, and going down on the the stomach with the forehead resting on the back of one hand and slowly lifting the other arm off the floor. (for a related lesson look at "Fundamental properties of movement" in his book Awareness Through Movement, availabe at Feldenkrais Resources/Amazon, et al).

The position also reminded me of a lesson David Zemach-Bersin taught at a 1-day workshop at the Feldenkrais Conference in 2004 (held at the Omega Center in Rhineback, NY). In that lesson, you were on the stomach, leaning on your elbows, the hands cupped like a stirrup with the chin resting in them. Then very slowly circling the head around the last few vertebrae at the top of the spine. Those who were there, do you remember?

In any case, the position of this AY #96 offers so much. Many people never get onto their stomachs after a certain age, and there is so much gold in those hills.

Happy posting, and a long life to our new forum.

Andrew Gibbons, MM, GCFP