A Long, Healthy, Pain-Free Spine: A Feldenkrais Lesson

This gentle movement sequence from the Feldenkrais Method will support your spine, providing length and pain relief. You will feel lighter and more grounded as you stand up after the practice.
This is a particularly helpful session if you have scoliosis or suffer from neck pain. The movements are done on the floor (on a rug or blanket), lying on your side. Please wear comfortable, warm clothing to have the best experience. Enjoy!

Transcript

Please stand up and take a moment to sense the weight of your body on the floor,

The contact of your feet with the ground,

Your breathing.

And then just a couple of times look over the shoulder.

Look over your shoulder.

Observe the movement of your head and neck.

What else moves as you look over?

Go one direction and then the other direction.

See if you can tell that looking over one side is easier.

And overall just observe this movement.

What changes in the contact of your feet in the direction of your shoulders,

If anything?

You sense that one shoulder moves a little bit forward as you move your head.

And now please leave this movement and find a comfortable place on the floor to lie down.

And first of all lie on your back,

Spread out,

Remove glasses or jewelry,

Things in your pockets,

Belts,

Anything that could be in the way of your comfort.

Take a breath as you lie down and sense the quality of this contact that your body is making with the floor.

In other words,

Where do you sense pressure and weight and where do you sense a little space or lack of contact?

So you may sense the weight of your heels on the ground,

The right and the left.

And then a little space behind your ankles.

And then the contact of your legs,

Lower legs,

Your thighs,

Maybe a little space behind your knees.

So continue following the shape of your body as it rests on the floor in this particular way as a pattern of contact and space between you and the floor that is supporting you.

Let your breath be free and uninterrupted as you continue sensing yourself in this way,

Your pelvis,

The lower back,

The two sides of your chest,

Your shoulders.

You may sense that one side seems heavier,

Longer,

More in contact with the floor than the other side.

So you just make a note of these differences and continue sensing.

Don't need to change anything or wish it to be different.

Just observe your two arms,

The position of your palms,

And then sense that space behind your neck where your spine doesn't touch the floor and the position of your head,

The exact point where your head and the floor meet.

Take a breath or two and let your head move away from the middle,

A bit to the right,

A bit to the left,

And just see if the sensation you had standing of turning your head over the shoulder is similar to what you're experiencing now.

If it was easier for you to look over the right shoulder,

For example,

See if that's still the case now that you're lying down.

Even if it's equally easy in both directions,

Just sense the movement throughout yourself.

Now leave the head quiet and find a way to arrange yourself so you're lying on your left side.

You can place a little pillow or blanket or folded towel under your head so the head is at the same level of the rest of your spine.

Your knees will be bent more or less 90 degrees and your arms can be in front of you.

Now please place the right palm of your hand on your forehead.

Let your elbow be up in the direction of the ceiling and take your head around itself using your hand and your arm.

So you will be turning your head as if you were looking over your shoulder,

But not because you're moving the head as much as because your hand is moving it.

Do it a couple times.

Observe the quality,

The ease of this movement and how far can you move the head without any discomfort,

Any resistance,

Any pain.

Just move within the range of what's really easy for you right now.

Sense throughout yourself how is this movement.

Does it feel easy?

Does it feel a lot of effort,

Tightness?

Now,

Please leave it and let your arm rest.

Could be in front of you,

Could be along the side of your body.

And now bring your attention to your right hip joint.

Imagine that there's a friendly hand there that is helping you move your right hip joint back.

You can place your arm long along the side of your body if you want to and have your hand there as a witness to show you if you're able to do what you want right now,

Which is move your pelvis back.

Move your right hip joint back.

You can do a tiny movement.

You can do a small movement.

You don't have to do a large movement.

It doesn't matter how big it is,

But be precise with it.

Let the pelvis come back and return to the middle.

Notice how your right knee is moving and you may feel contact on the left hip joint as it changes its pressure on the floor.

You can breathe as you move.

Let your teeth be soft so they're not clenched together.

And you may repeat this movement of your pelvis,

Of your right hip going back five times,

Seven times and then rest again.

When you rest,

Place your right palm on your forehead again.

Take your head to the right using your hand and your arm and just see what is it like for you.

See if something is slowly changing or if there's a sensation that is new anywhere in your body.

And then leave it and rest again.

You can rest on your side or on your back.

As you rest,

Observe what's happening to the contact you have with the floor,

To the sensation of your right and left sides,

Your breath,

Your inner state,

The quality of your inner spaces.

And then slowly take your head a bit right and left if you're on your back and just see if that's the same or there's something changing on your neck and your thoracic spine,

Your shoulders.

Now return to lie on your left side,

Please.

Arrange yourself in the same position with your knees bent,

Something under your head if you need it.

And this time place your right foot standing on your left ankle.

You will have your right knee in the direction of the ceiling.

Now place your palm again on the forehead,

The right palm,

And see that the elbow and the knee are more or less on the same line.

So you can imagine them being aligned.

And now initiate a movement,

Very small at the beginning,

Of taking the elbow and the knee in opposite directions.

So as you take your elbow,

Say,

To the right,

Moving your head over the shoulder,

You let your knee come closer to the other knee.

And then let them return to neutral.

So a few times you're taking the elbow to the right and the knee to the left and the knee to the right and the elbow to the left.

And find a way to make this movement very simple,

Enjoyable if you can.

So it will mean that you have to reduce the effort more and more.

So for example,

If you're clenching your teeth or holding your breath,

Or if you're tightening your legs,

Spend some time exploring how to stop that from happening.

Find a way to stop the unnecessary effort,

Which may mean for you to take a deeper breath or separate your jaws,

Or maybe do less,

Less repetitions.

Sense the motion of the elbow to the right and the knee to the left as they take your spine in opposite directions,

Creating some sort of a twist.

And now fold your knees together,

Bring your arm down and take a little rest.

And for a moment,

Think about the side of your body that is in contact with the floor.

Sense the left thigh,

The left leg,

The left side of your chest,

The left shoulder.

And now as you take another breath and resume the movement,

As you stand your right foot on the right ankle again and place your right palm on the forehead and continue moving the elbow to the right and the knee to the left.

Do it using the parts of you that are in contact with the floor.

So yes,

You will be moving the elbow to the right and the bent knee to the left,

Just the same as you were just doing.

But change the attention,

Shift your attention to what is in contact with the floor and can you use that?

So you would press with the left side,

Finding more contact with the floor,

Almost as if you were using the left side to move the right.

Explore this concept.

Can you make the right elbow,

The right arm lighter by creating more contact on the left side?

Can you make the right leg move as if it was moving away from the left leg?

Does that change anything?

Your ability to think about the same movement in a different way is already learning.

So you're finding at least two ways to do the same thing.

You can do them one after the other and sense the difference.

So you move your elbow and you move your knee just thinking of this elbow and thinking of this knee that is in movement.

Attention very precise on the right side and see how that feels.

And then the next time you do it,

You can shift your attention to the left side,

The one that is on the floor and see if that changes in any way the quality of the movement.

And please leave it and take a rest.

Rest on your side.

Place the right palm of your hand on your forehead and take your head to the right once or twice just to see if anything is changing.

If anything is getting easier,

If the range is increasing,

And most importantly,

How is the quality,

How does it feel to you?

And now please rest again completely.

You can rest on your side,

You can rest on your back,

However you are more comfortable.

When you're resting,

You're sensing and feeling.

You're remaining connected to your experience,

To your breath.

Noticing where else can you let go of unnecessary effort or tension.

And just enjoying this space you are creating for yourself of being in a deep listening state,

Listening to your sensations,

To your thinking,

To your emotions.

When you're ready,

You can place your right palm on your forehead again.

Allow the head to move to the right using your hand and your arm.

And this time pay close attention to what are you doing with your eyes.

So initially just open your eyes and see what are you doing.

You most likely will have one way that is your favorite way,

Your learned way of using your eyes.

And see what is that like.

Do you follow the movement of the head?

Do you keep your eyes fixed?

What do you like to do?

And please breathe as you move and make sure your teeth are soft as you move.

I cannot emphasize that enough.

How much easier it all becomes when you can take a deep breath and you stop clenching your teeth.

Now this time as you take your head to the right,

Keep your eyes connected to the movement so you look to the right and follow the direction of the head as if you could look at your right elbow a couple times.

And sense the movements throughout yourself,

Your spine,

Your ribs.

And please rest again,

Lengthen your arm.

Don't make it too exhausting for your arm to be up there.

So you can maybe take three movements,

Four movements,

Take a little rest and then do four or five more movements.

It's really not about the movement.

It's more about this quality of attention you're paying to the movement.

What's making the rewiring possible,

The new learning possible.

Is your attention,

Your awareness.

Now place the hand on the forehead again,

Right palm and continue moving the head but keep your eyes fixed in front of you.

So whichever the direction of your face is when you start,

Keep your eyes fixed there and continue moving the head and observe how it changes the quality of the movement,

How it changes the amount that you can turn without resistance.

You have to be very precise here.

Don't let the eyes drag to the right.

Just keep them fixed in the front a couple of times.

And see if there's any difference between having your eyes fixed or having the eyes free to move with the head.

And once you've explored this three,

Four times,

You can rest again,

Make your arm long again.

Take a little pause.

When you're ready,

Please place your palm again on the forehead.

Continue moving the head to the right,

But this time let the eyes move to the left.

So as your elbow goes to the right,

Your nose goes to the right,

Your eyes look to the left in the direction of the floor.

And if you notice that there's a restriction of the movement,

Once your eyes are going opposite,

Allow this to be.

Don't force it.

Don't push through it and try to make it as if you were looking to the right as it felt before.

Be with this sensation of limitation or difficulty once your eyes are not following the movement of the head.

And yet let your breath be free and your teeth be soft.

So even though it's a more challenging combination,

That one of the eyes and the head being opposite,

You can still breathe into it.

And of course rest after a few repetitions.

As you rest,

You may feel changes in the contact with the floor,

With yourself,

Changes in your thinking,

Sensing,

Feeling.

Notice in the quiet that begins to emerge within you.

And now one more time,

Stand your right foot on the right ankle and place your palm on the forehead and take the elbow and the knee in opposite directions and use the movement of your eyes that was most helpful or most enjoyable.

So you spend some time connecting the eyes to the head in different directions and you may have felt that it was easier to look in the same direction as the head was going.

So if that was the case,

Let the eyes do what is most useful.

For you,

If for you was to keep the eyes fixed,

Then do that.

If it was to keep the eyes going opposite,

Do that.

Just make an intentional use of your eyes as you move.

You don't have to go too far.

You can just move around the middle.

Again,

It's not so much about how far you get with the knee or the elbow.

It's about the quality and your attention to this twist that is happening on your spine as you mobilize your hip and your shoulder around the middle.

And now please keep the legs together and just take your head around to the right,

Just the very first movement and just see what is it like.

You can do it a couple times and then take a rest.

Completely quiet.

You can rest on your back if you want to.

And as you lay down,

Sense if anything feels or seems different.

Remember the contact you had with the floor when you started,

Your sensation of length and width on both sides of your body.

Take a breath or two and let your head move a little bit left and right and see how is that.

Can you tell there's a slight movement of your shoulders when you move your head and a little bit more contact on one side of your chest and the floor than the other.

And leave the head quiet,

Take a full rest,

Connect with your breath again.

Sometimes when is that time where you feel ready for more movement exploration and lie on your side again.

So you become curious about more and that's what prompts you to set yourself in the position of the lesson again.

We appreciate a sense of curiosity and interest,

Joy,

Pleasure in movement as a differentiating quality of learning.

In other words,

You're not learning through correction,

Pressure,

Trying too hard,

Taking it as a chore or an obligation or memorization,

But you're learning as a consequence of your interest and your curiosity and what makes you feel good about what you're learning.

So even if it's five or 10 minutes of your day that you devote to this type of movement,

If you're doing it with a curiosity and interest,

It will serve you better than half an hour at the gym pushing and pulling because somebody told you it's good for you.

So when you're ready for more,

Just lay yourself on the side again in the same position.

And this time let your right arm be long in front of you.

Your knees are bent more or less 90 degrees and you're looking at your right palm and opening your eyes and maybe looking at your right thumb.

And for the next movement,

I'm going to ask you to take your right arm away from the floor,

Float it up in the air and take it behind you.

And just sense how do you do this movement?

What is your skill level of habit,

Your familiar way of doing it,

How good it feels and what stops you from having it feel better or reach further?

So bring the arm back up again and in front of you.

And if I told you that you could keep your eyes on this hand as the hand floats through space,

If that would be one possibility,

Do it again,

Observing the hand,

Keeping your eyes linked to it.

And don't ever let your eyes stop following the hand.

And when the eyes can't see the hand anymore,

You stop the movement and then return.

So make sure that your eyes are serving you.

Beautiful.

And now return with the arm,

Bring it in front of you,

Take a breath.

And if I were to tell you that the next time that you can float this arm around you,

There's going to be a moment if you're listening,

There's going to be a moment where you're going to find an impulse or a reaction or some sort of a,

You would like to open your knees to let one knee separate and lift just as you had it a moment ago.

And this is possible.

And it might change the whole quality of your turning and your twisting.

So go ahead and move the arm again,

Lift it,

Float it in space,

Let your eyes follow it and listen to that moment where the right knee wants to leave and let it lift and let it come up and let it support what you're doing with your arm and just see the difference.

Does it change in any way the quality of your turning,

The sensation,

The pleasure you can get through this movement,

The joy or wellbeing?

So a couple of times do it intentionally.

So once you may keep your legs together and once you may let your legs move at that precise moment when you feel the impulse,

When you sense that there's a need or a possibility and just see what feels the best.

Many times possibilities are just hiding there and available dormant.

I hear so many times from my clients,

But I didn't know I could do that.

I didn't know that moved or that was possible or I didn't know I had permission to move that.

So what is it like for you,

That internal quality with yourself when you keep your knees together and you might get as far as you do with your legs involved,

But there's something internally that tightens.

There's something internally that doesn't get the same expansive feeling as when you fully open your legs and let your whole spine turn.

So play with this difference as you once let the legs participate and the next time you don't.

See how does it change your quality with yourself once you give yourself permission to move with your whole self?

How does that change your inner quality?

What could stop you from turning completely to the right?

Could anything stop you from having this be the way you lie on your back?

Now please rest and just before you go onto your back again to rest,

Please place the right palm on your forehead one more time and just explore the initial movement,

That of turning your head and sense where are you limiting yourself with this?

Where is that moment where as you take your head to the right and your head moves and your shoulders move and your ribs move,

There's something else that could happen in your hip joint,

In your knees,

In your legs that would allow you to have a fuller,

Wider,

More pleasurable,

More enjoyable turn.

That's right.

In other words,

Nobody said that you had to keep your legs together.

Please leave it and rest.

Lie on your back.

Please leave it,

Rest,

Lie on your back again,

Sense what's different and see if you have even an easier time now spreading out on the floor without any restriction.

And one more time take the head a bit to the right and to the left and see what is the quality here now.

Can you imagine your whole spine turning just as when you're on your side,

Your ribs,

Your sternum.

Now leave the head quiet and arrange yourself so you're lying on your right side and we will work a little bit on the other side.

Now on this side we're going to do two things that are different than what you just experienced.

We're going to use a little bit of your imagination to explore this capacity that is very ingrained in the Feldenkrais work and we're also going to look for more nuance and more detail because you already know what's happening,

You already know what we're doing and still I'm going to ask you to keep a beginner's mind and to let yourself be surprised by your own discoveries.

So first of all I'm going to ask you to imagine the shape of your spine,

The length of your back as if it was some sort of an axis or a dowel or a stick and see where is your head lying in relation to your pelvis.

So if your spine was truly an axis is your head right now way in front of the lower end of the spine?

Is your head way behind it?

Can your head be in line with it?

So go back to your familiar way of lying,

Whatever you had a moment ago if the head was way in front of you and sense the tension on your belly and your ability to breathe and then arrange your head so it's in line with the pelvis as a long long spine,

Long back and take a breath and sense your ability to breathe.

And now place your left palm on your forehead and before you move it imagine that you're turning your head around yourself a couple times.

So in your mind's eye you're moving your head and you're thinking about what else is moving.

So a couple times you imagine it,

Doesn't matter if you're getting all the details or you're missing something and then a couple times you do it.

Even as you do it you may notice that this side has already an easier time and the range is bigger and it feels familiar.

So now leave your hand on your sternum,

Take it off your forehead and leave your hand on the on the breastbone and put the right hand and the left hand both of them on your sternum on your breastbone and use your fingertips to follow the shape of your sternum.

So you may sense the top of it around your collarbone and then you may feel a bony part underneath it,

The beginning of the sternum and the connection with the ribs.

So see if you can grab both sides of your collar of your breastbone,

See if you can grab both sides of your breastbone from the edges where it meets the ribs.

And for this sometimes I like to imagine my index and second finger,

The index and the middle finger as chopsticks and grabbing one rib on each hand as if you were holding on to food with chopsticks on your hands,

Right?

Chopsticks on your ribs.

If that's too complicated just gently place your fingertips on the sternum and move it a little bit to the right so it goes in the direction of the floor and a little bit to the left so it goes in the direction of your back.

So just explore the movement of your sternum a little bit with your fingertips,

Soft hands,

Soft breath,

Soft teeth and you can go a little bit lower to the next set of ribs and move the sternum that way and to the next set of ribs below.

And just see what is it like for you to explore the movement of this bone,

This big bone of your breast.

Have you ever played with it?

Did you know that you can move it?

So now place the left palm on your forehead again and take your head to the left as you move your sternum with your right hand.

So you support the movement of your head by moving your sternum with your other hand.

That's right.

Couple times simply,

You don't have to press too hard or grip too much,

It's just a reminder.

You can even put a flat hand on your sternum and just let it move to the left in similar fashion as you did with your eyes.

Remember,

You were moving your eyes with the head.

Now next time you go to the left with the head,

Keep your sternum from moving so use your right palm to hold it in place and you just move the head and the neck but let your sternum be still if you can,

Facing the front and see how that changes the movement of the head and you can have your teeth soft and your breath free but yet the sternum is still,

It's fixed,

The head won't move so much.

And then a couple times just move it opposite to the head so you take it to the right as you try to move your head to the left and don't do it too many times because it won't feel good.

It will feel like saying yes and no at the same time.

So make a choice and say for yourself if I could move my sternum,

Where would I take it to support what I'm doing with the head and neck today to create more freedom of my spine?

In which direction would I like my sternum to know that it can move?

And you allow that to happen and you move it with your right hand as you take your head to the left a couple times.

Just connect those two pieces of the puzzle for your nervous system,

For your self-image freely as you breathe and you can of course let your eyes follow two or three times and then you can rest.

Again,

It's not about how many repetitions or how big the movement is about you connecting awareness to this movement.

And of course when you're resting you're not just passively zoning out but you're linked to your experience observing the changes,

Seeing what is getting easier.

So even the rest is a moment of learning,

A possibility for you to discover,

To experience,

To listen to yourself.

Now stand the left foot on the right ankle and this time instead of twisting like we did on the other side I'm going to ask you to imagine first that you can move your knee straight down in the direction of your feet as if you were pushing or pressing the wall that is right below your feet with your knee.

Now your knees will have to be 90 degrees for this to be most efficient so if your knees are too high and you're flexing it won't work so well.

So more or less the same relationship as if you were sitting on a chair and now you're taking your leg,

Your left leg and moving it down towards the wall below your feet a couple times opening something on your hips creating more contact on the right side of your body with the floor and creating length throughout your whole spine as you do this.

If it's too hard to keep your foot on the ankle you can place it on the floor and you don't have to do it too many times just two or three times is enough.

And after that you can now again take a little rest on the side or on your back.

Sensing what's different,

Taking a breath,

Letting your head move.

Observing the difference in length and width.

Observing the differences in length and width compared to the last time you were lying on your back.

And now please one last time lie on your right side knees bent more or less 90 degrees and let your head rest at the top of your spine so your back is completely long.

It's not folded,

Flexed forward,

It's not arched back.

And now let the left arm come long in front of you and again float it over in space.

Let the eyes follow it.

Let it come back to the front.

Keep it long in front of you.

Close your eyes and imagine doing this again and in your imagination let the sternum be moved to the left.

Let your belly and your pelvis move to the left.

Your knees will open.

Your whole spine will turn.

So make your imagination as rich in detail and complete as you could,

Even more so than the actual movement.

Can use your imagination to access the same areas of the brain than if you are actually moving but with still more grace and elegance and flexibility that maybe you could.

So in your mind's eye as you're turning to the left and floating this arm in space you're completely flexible,

Graceful,

Weightless and the movement may feel really,

Really good.

And in your mind you're doing this three or four times,

Breathing as you imagine it without holding onto tension anywhere in your body.

And only after you've imagined it a few times,

Do it a couple times.

So you're actually doing it less times than you're imagining.

But let your body embrace or embody those qualities,

The qualities that you've imagined.

So there's weightlessness,

There's pleasure of moving,

There's no restriction of what can move or cannot move.

And see if you get this side to feel even easier than the first one on which we worked a lot more.

So there might be something to this idea that you can imagine first and move later and the quality of the movement improves because you've imagined it.

And now rest on your side.

Take a moment.

Make sure you have room behind you.

Because for this last variation I'm going to invite you to do this movement very fast and yet continue with the same quality.

So it will be graceful and it will be light and it will be easy but it will be fast.

So you will snap out of the movement and lift the arm and open your legs and go to the other side and then close yourself again.

So you will open,

Take yourself to the left and then snap back to the right.

That's it.

And when you find yourself on your other side you can bring your right arm up and close over the other and that's it.

Open and close.

And see if you can do it with a sensation that you're turning little by little still.

So it starts from your eyes and then your neck and then your shoulders and then your mid-back and then your legs.

So not because you're increasing the speed,

You are now moving as a rod.

You still have that quality of turning and the possibility of turning one vertebrae at a time.

In other words,

You're fast moving but you're not rushing through it.

And you're breathing as you move and you have a smile on your face or at least soft teeth.

And do this four or five times,

Find out if you can have any fun with it.

And when you're done with it just go back to the initial movement of placing the hand around on your forehead and moving,

Of placing your palm on your forehead and moving the head around itself.

And just see what have you learned.

How do you feel now moving?

And you can do it on one side and you can open and find yourself on the other side and do it on the other side.

Just measure your own improvement and harvest anything that you've learned through this process that you may use in your daily life or in another situation where you're presented to something new or a new way to learn something old.

And then please stop completely,

Take a long rest on your back and one last time see if anything is different.

See if anything has changed in your sensation with yourself,

With the floor,

Internally,

Your mind,

Your emotions,

Your breathing.

And before you engage in the world again as you slowly come out of this space of listening,

Take a moment to quietly spend a few minutes with yourself as you return to gravity.

So as you sit and stand after the lesson,

Before you go on to your phone or somebody else or the things you have to do,

Just spend a moment seeing how did this lesson change the way you stand,

The way you turn around yourself,

The way you sit,

The way you breathe.

So always take all the time you need to come out of the session and into your daily life again,

Spending a little bit of time in this space of listening because it's such an unusual space that you're in right now that is where you can harvest the most at the very end of the lesson and see that this quality of you with yourself in quiet and in movement is possible and available for you every single day.

Have fun with it.

Reviews

This meditation has loosened my back and I have been able to listen to my body. Thank you 😊

That was amazing thank you. My back was really sore and inflexible when I started now no pain and much more fluid.

Absolutely wonderful. I'm feeling so connected to my body and breath now🙏

Hello beautiful 🌺🌷🌺🌷🌺🌷Thank you so much for the wonderful movements and magical moments 🌈🦋with my mind and body🦋🌈it’s like eating a delicious chocolate cake🗺️have a blessed day 🙏Namaste