Touch your Feet.

Slowly.

Washed or unwashed – up to you!

Guide your fingers around the curves of each foot. Discover the hills and valleys are make up your main mode of transportation.

Notice how the skin under your most obvious arch feels different than the skin of your heel.

Which gives you more feedback? Your arch or your heel? Where are you most able to feel the touch of your finger?

Now go to your toes.

With your eyes closed, explore your little toe…

The texture of the skin on the top and on the surface that touches the floor when you stand. It’s length. The shape of your toenail. How clearly do you feel your touch?

Your fourth toe…

How far from your little toe is your fourth toe? How much longer is your fourth toe than your little toe? Discover the texture of the skin of this toe. How clearly do you feel your touch? Compared to your little toe?

Your third toe…

What is the texture of the skin on the back of this toe? How long is this toe? What is the shape of your toenail? What sort of curve do you notice? What is the texture on the very tip of this toe? How clearly can you feel your touch? Compared to your other toes?

Your big toe…

Gently press the neck of your toe and observe how it responds. Notice the space between this toe and your second toe.

Stand and observe the relationship your big toe has with the floor. Do this with each of your toes. Do they all meet the floor in the same way? Place your foot down very slowly and observe how each toe greets the floor and comes to stand.

Walk very slowly, feeling how your feet work.

The shift from one edge of your foot to the other.

Your arches flattening when you put weight on them and then springing back when you roll off of them.

Your toes as they meet the floor and push off again. Not as a group but as 5 or 10 (depending on how you want to think of it) separate body parts with 5 (or 10) separate jobs to do.

You may or may not be able to feel each toe individually, but the more you practice – the more you attend to your feet and toes – the more sensitive you will become.

Movement Meditation

Touch your Feet.

Slowly.

Washed or unwashed – up to you!

Guide your fingers around the curves of each foot. Discover the hills and valleys are make up your main mode of transportation.

Notice how the skin under your most obvious arch feels different than the skin of your heel.

Which gives you more feedback? Your arch or your heel? Where are you most able to feel the touch of your finger?

Now go to your toes.

With your eyes closed, explore your little toe…

The texture of the skin on the top and on the surface that touches the floor when you stand. It’s length. The shape of your toenail. How clearly do you feel your touch?

Your fourth toe…

How far from your little toe is your fourth toe? How much longer is your fourth toe than your little toe? Discover the texture of the skin of this toe. How clearly do you feel your touch? Compared to your little toe?

Your third toe…

What is the texture of the skin on the back of this toe? How long is this toe? What is the shape of your toenail? What sort of curve do you notice? What is the texture on the very tip of this toe? How clearly do you feel your touch? Compared to your other toes? (Go back and touch again if you’re not sure.)

Your second toe…

How close to your other toes is this toe? Stroke along the length of this toe and feel each joint. Gently press the very tip and observe how it bends. Go back down from the tip and find the “pillow” of the toe – the pudgier spot that contacts the floor when you stand. How clearly can you feel your touch? Compared to your other toes?

Your big toe…

Gently press the neck of your toe and observe how it responds. Notice the space between this toe and your second toe.

Stand and observe the relationship your big toe has with the floor. Do this with each of your toes. Do they all meet the floor in the same way? Place your foot down very slowly and observe how each toe greets the floor and comes to stand.

Walk very slowly, feeling how your feet work.

The shift from one edge of your foot to the other.

Your arches flattening when you put weight on them and then springing back when you roll off of them.

Your toes as they meet the floor and push off again. Not as a group but as 5 or 10 (depending on how you want to think of it) separate body parts with 5 (or 10) separate jobs to do.

You may or may not be able to feel each toe individually, but the more you practice – the more you attend to your feet and toes – the more sensitive you will become.

Movement Meditation

I made some interesting observations during my daily Awareness Through Movement® practice, so I thought I would share. This exploration bears no resemblance to the lesson from which it was inspired.

 NOTE: This can be very subtle work, so go slowly and be patient with yourself. Go through this exercise even if you think you don’t notice anything. Your nervous system is receiving more information than you may realize. I encourage you to repeat this exploration several times and you may find that you experience it a little differently each time you do it as your ability to notice becomes more refined.

 Your hip joints are the largest joints in your body and are surrounded and supported by a sturdy group of muscles, tendons and ligaments. Your hip joints participate in many more movements throughout the day then you may be aware of.  For example, to simply turn your head to the right or left – if you pay close attention – you’ll notice that your hip joints respond.

To begin, sit on a hard surface such as a  wooden chair (without a cushion) or hard wood floor.  Sit in any way that will allow you to relax your entire body and also allow you to turn your head left and right without interference.

Very slowly and gently (no need to stretch or try to look further to the right then is easy) turn your head to the right and back to center several times with your primary attention on your pelvis and hip joints. Rest for a few second without doing anything. Now very slowly and gently, turn your head to the left and return to center several times with your attention on your pelvis and hip joints. Rest.

 Begin again to turn your head very slowly* to the right and return to center. Do this several times, letting your eyes be drawn to something a little to the right of you. As you go through this exploration, avoid holding any part of your body still. Allow the rest of your body to respond to the movements of your head – without making movement happening or stopping movement from happening.

 Very slowly begin to alternate allowing your eyes to be drawn first to the right, through center and to the left. Without stretching or striving to look further to either side than is easy, notice if turning your head to look right is different from turning your head to look left. Is it easier to look in one direction than to look in the other direction?

 Since we do not organize ourselves or use ourselves equally, right side and left side, our musculature as well as levels of flexibility, strength and coordination will also be different. It is not necessary to “even things up”. No matter how ambidextrous we are, we will always  have a right-left preference and our use will always be different. No need to learn to write with both hands – you might write with one and eat with the other. Use them both in ways to maintain mobility.

Notice how your pelvis and hip joints respond.

How does your right hip joint respond when you look to the right?

How does your right hip joint respond when you look to the left?

How does your left jip joint respond when you look to the right?

How does your left hip joint respond when you look to the left?

Notice which hip joint participates more when you look to the right; which hip joint participates when you look left.

You may or may not be able to put what you feel/notice/sense/observe into words – that’s fine.  We do not have language for the ocean of sensation that is possible.  You do not have to be able to put your sensations and observations into words for them to be real or valid. Keep feeling !

*******************

*On going slow, gently and easily:

Moving slowly and gently allows us to more clearly feel not only what we are doing, but how. If you don’t feel what you think you should, avoid trying harder by putting more effort into your movement. You won’t benefit by working harder – the sensations will be lost in the noise of your effort. Breathe normally and  let your movements be light and simple.

Attention.

Intention.

Awareness.

Focus.

Attending.

Present.

Quiet.

Open.

Receptive.

Relaxed.

Alert.

Waiting.

Peaceful.

Ready for what comes next.

1200 miles.

12 out of 17 hours.

5 foot, 6 inch woman.

Back seat of a Hyundai Sonata with passenger seat pushed all the way back.

No flat surfaces.

Curves in the wrong places.

3 bouts of extremely enthusiastic muscle cramps – adductors (inner thighs) and psoas (hip flexors). In case you’ve never had the experience – h i g h l y  painful.

Discovery of enhanced flexibility when, in desperation I had to lengthen my cramping leg and take it as far from my other leg as humanly possible. Yes, I can stand one foot on the ceiling of the car while sitting!

2 Awareness Through Movement® classes in part executed in my imagination (visualization is truly a powerful tool).

Softening tight places and gradually releasing tension allowed me not only survive the drive, but stand and walk once it was time to unfold myself from the car!

Dancing in my mind’s eye.

Fluid. Smooth. Easy. Graceful.

Grateful.

I like to run. I don’t run far and I’m not terribly fast.

I don’t run to go far and I don’t run to go fast. I run because my body asks me to.

I don’t think of myself as a dedicated runner. Sometimes 6 months will go by before I run again – though regularity does help to make it fun and pleasurable.

I started running to lose weight when I was a teenager. It was awful. I hated it but I did it anyway – it worked and it was cheap.

I ran on and off like this for years. Until 2010 when my daughter joined her high school cross country team and didn’t want to run alone over the summer. She had never run distance before so she began slowly. So I ran slowly too. My years of teaching Nia reminded me to run in my body’s way; to choose the speed and distance that allowed me to breathe without gasping and not want to burn my running shoes!

In running with her, I discovered my own pace and that I didn’t have to hate running. All those years I had been running too fast.

Over the past 18 months I have allowed hip pain and distraction to keep me from running.

A few weeks ago, with happy hips, I put the distractions where they belonged and I went for a run. It wasn’t bad for a “first”. I changed my gait and how my feet hit the treadmill belt. It was as fun as running on a treadmill could be. I wasn’t stiff after, however, my left hip did have some choice words for me 12 or so hours later. For 2 days my back hurt.

Yesterday, my body was asking to run again, so onto the treadmill I hopped. Before I started I thought about what I’d felt the last time I ran and I thought about what I had learned about my movement and my body since my last Feldenkrais Method training session.

I started to run paying attention to my low back (usually the biggest complainer if my hips are quiet). I know how much tension I hold in my low back just being awake. I also know that I expect it to compensate for movement that doesn’t come freely from my thoracic spine (the part of my spine the rib cage is associated with).

I couldn’t re-create the gait I’d used before or the foot fall.

What I could do, though was open a conversation with my spine that allowed change to occur.

I could let go of the excessive habitual swivel I demand from my lower spine. I could imagine the muscles softening enough to allow my leg bones to move more freely in my hip joints. Then, an interesting thing happened:

my arms began to swing more easily – not just because I told them they should

my rib cage became light and I felt my shoulders and arms doing their “part”, rather than leaving it all up to my lumbar spine.

As though the middle of me had been liberated.

It felt lovely – almost as lovely as dancing.

When I was done, my back moved easily and 24 hours later, I’m only a little bit sore.

Awareness gives us wings.

Hip joints roll to open

ribs spread and rise

collarbones glide apart

cheekbones become weightless

within, arching cathedral halls

poised

waiting to Bend again.

My pelvis rolls

my chest softens

each vertebrae folding as

my breath fills the back of my rib cage

the crown of my head floats down

seeking the floor

and

my spine bends

crytanthus blooms arching back to the earth