Softening The Body | Awareness Through Movement

An awareness through movement guided lesson to release tension. Based on the classical "Bell Hand" lesson by Moshe Feldenkrais, this lesson can be a powerful tool to help improve your overall physical and mental well-being. Use this simple hand movement to release built-up stress.

Transcript

So,

You can lie on your back,

You can have a cushion behind your head,

A roller or rolled blanket behind your knees,

Whatever feels more comfortable.

You could even do this sitting down,

But lying is better.

And take a few moments just to arrive on the floor today and just feel your weight and your body print the way you touch the floor.

Just as you walk and leave footsteps in the beach.

You are leaving a print on the floor.

Can you sense that print and can you take a snapshot of that body print?

So then we can have an image to reference at the end of the lesson.

And turn your attention to your breath now.

Trying not to disrupt it,

Just listen to the inhale and to the exhale,

To the poses.

Breathing is a funny thing because we think that bringing our awareness to our breath won't affect it,

But how do we know really that we were breathing the same way a few minutes ago?

It's what in physics is called the observer effect.

Bringing in the observer changes what is being observed too.

It's a relation.

Now listen in and can you feel the expansion and contraction?

Where do you feel it most prominently in your belly or your ribs or your chest?

Each one is different.

There is really no right answer or just asking questions and whatever we find is perfectly fine.

Now as you inhale,

Could you slowly allow your fingers to open?

And as they close,

As you exhale,

Could you close them bringing the tips of your fingers together in a soft,

Quiet movement?

And your hand is following now the rhythm of your breath.

So all along the inhale,

You allow your fingers to open up like a flower gently.

Simply bring the tips of your fingers together softly and as easily as possible.

And as you open and close your hands now,

Can you feel the center of your palm softer?

As a Medusa floats weightless in the deep ocean,

Can you feel this pulsating rhythm of your hand?

Following the rhythm of your breath.

And now could you turn your attention only to your exhales?

So you're noticing the exhale and the closing movement of your hand.

Soft and easy.

And again,

You keep your attention to the center of your palm.

So as your fingers come together,

Could you imagine the palm softening,

Becoming pliable?

Does the mere fact of bringing your attention there changes the way you feel?

Changes the sensation.

Maybe the softening is clearer or more pronounced.

Maybe not.

It's not really important.

Now what is momentarily important is to see if you can find,

If you can detect which hand feels softer.

Which side feels smoother?

You can feel the movement being effortless in your fingers.

And a funny thing when you're paying attention,

Especially for first time for a new exercise is that sometimes you're not really sure and that's okay too.

Or sometimes you can feel shifting from one hand to the other.

So if you're not sure,

That's really doesn't matter.

Just pick a hand.

Pick a side you would like to work with today.

And as you exhale and your fingers come closer together,

Could you allow the back of your head to roll a bit now on the floor?

Turning your face towards the side,

You feel your hand is getting softer or the side you just chose.

And as you inhale,

Your head rolls back to center.

And as you exhale,

It rolls again to the side,

Finding the same soft movement you have in your fingers.

Can you allow your jaw to soften?

Can you allow your neck to soften?

Okay.

Can you,

The shape of the back of your head,

Effortlessly rolling on the floor?

Exhaling to the side and inhaling back to center.

And as you turn your head to the side now,

Can you pay attention to your jaw and your tongue?

Could you perhaps find a little bit more space between your upper and lower teeth to make more room for your tongue?

And every time your head turns and you exhale now,

Can you feel how gravity is gently pulling your jaw and your tongue towards the side you're rolling to?

And could you allow it to happen?

And if you don't feel it,

It's okay because you can use your imagination too.

A lot of time in movement,

Modalities,

We think imagination is cheating,

But that's not at all what it is.

It's a very interesting and useful tool.

So every time your head turns,

You pay attention to the pull of gravity.

And the more you feel gravity gently pulling you,

The more you can release the muscles of your face and jaw.

And the more you release the muscles of your face and your jaw,

The clearer you feel the sensation of gravity pulling you.

Now,

Let your attention wander a bit.

Can you feel it in the side of your lips?

As your head turns,

Can you feel the pull of gravity in your cheek?

Maybe even the corner of your eye or your temple?

How does it feel for you now?

Come back to the center and for a few moments rest.

Rest your attention.

And then could you notice if there is a difference in the left and the right side of your face?

Maybe in the left and the right shoulder,

In the left and the right hip.

And again,

Let your attention go and rest for a moment.

Feldenkrais was adamant that the brain can only absorb for 40 minutes.

So he tried to make his face fast and small.

And when he taught workshops,

He always took breaks at 40 minutes.

So now what's amazing about our bodies is whatever we do on one side,

We can replicate in the other much faster and much easier.

And that's one also one of the things that we use a lot in Feldenkrais.

We use the idea of working with what's easy with the easy side first and then bringing it over to the side we feel that is giving us trouble.

Or is different because we're not symmetrical.

So again,

Start paying attention to your breath.

Hold your bell hand,

Inhaling,

Allowing your fingers to open gently,

Softly to bloom,

Exhaling,

Bringing the tips of the fingers together.

Finding again this softening movement of the arm and the palm and allowing the body to follow now the natural breath.

So your body is following your rhythm.

You're not trying to get your breath to go into the hand movement.

You allow the hand movement to follow the breath.

And then keep bringing your attention to your second side.

And as the softness of your hands expand now,

Can you start rolling your head to the other side?

Paying attention to what comes up for you in your neck,

In your jaw,

In your tongue.

You already know what to do.

So you can pay attention to the differences in this second side.

Which again doesn't mean we're crooked.

The symmetry of the body is an imposed concept.

It does not exist neither in nature nor in.

.

.

It's only in our minds.

We are spirals and curves.

Definitely not a geometrical shape.

So now as you find your rhythm and turn your head,

Could you again pay attention to your face?

Where could you allow your face to soften?

Exploring the places where you feel the pull of gravity widening your face.

Just for a few moments,

Exploring the sensations,

Staying with the sensations.

As your head turns,

Can you feel the difference in weight in your shoulder blades?

What else is there for you to explore?

And of course a lot of other stuff come up for you.

A lot of other sensations that I cannot even begin to imagine.

It's a personal journey.

And the next time your head comes to the center,

Let it stay there.

For a few breaths,

Feel your face and the palms of your hands.

For a few breaths,

Rest your attention.

Take a break and with your next breath,

Come back to sensing.

Bring your attention to the way you touch the ground.

Can you feel your body print?

Can you take a snapshot?

Do you remember the first snapshot and with your mind's eye,

Could you bring them one next to each other and observe what is different?

Has something changed?

Now for the last time,

Begin to roll your head.

Just softly,

Easily roll your head from one side to the other.

And as your head rolls from side to side,

Can you feel the movement down your spine?

So for most people,

It's very easy to sense that there is a difference from one shoulder blade to the other as the head rolls.

You feel the weight of the head coming to the right and then to the left.

You can feel a change in the shoulder blades.

For some people,

It might even come down to the ribs.

And you know,

There's nothing magical to this.

It's really about training your attention.

If you do this movement lesson of just rolling your head from side to side every day for a week,

You'll see that it will start to come down and you will feel the whisper of the movement as a weight change,

Not only in your shoulders and your ribs,

But your hips and even in your heels.

And one interesting thing we use in Feldenkrais is a law of physics that's called the Weber Fechner law.

And basically what it is is that what we want to do when we're trying to hear a movement is make it bigger.

Unconsciously,

We try to make it bigger to see what's there,

But that is really not helpful at all.

So in order to be able to listen,

You have to be able to be quiet.

So make the movement of your head smaller.

So your head turns so that your nose only turns for a few millimeters to the left and to the right.

And as you make the movement smaller and smaller,

You will notice that you will begin to hear more.

So it's very counterintuitive.

But the truth is that in order to be able to listen to our body,

We have to make the movements smaller.

And you can let that go and again have a rest for your attention.

As a trained movement teachers,

First time I did Feldenkrais in my training,

I was really interested,

I found it interesting that they would tell us to stop and take a break when for me it was doing nothing practically.

And that takes really a bit of effort,

Those first time of doing Feldenkrais.

And then a lot of you will feel like stretching.

So you might want to try and stop that for a moment.

Because it's your nervous system that feels that something has come down and now it's trying to bring your attention back where it was before.

So what we do as wobbly Feldenkrais is usually for a while we try to keep these sensations of the lesson for a while and we take a few breaths on the ground and then as I will invite you now you can come up to sitting and then to standing.

And see how can you translate this movement from the floor to standing.

If there's something of the movement that stayed with you.

Reviews

Hello beautiful 🌼🌸🌼🌸🌼🌸Thank you so much for the wonderful movements 🌷my whole body enjoy everything and I’m smiling 🗺️have a blessed day 🙏Namaste

Wonderful. I am doing Feldenkrais for more than nine years now but this was all new especially the letting of the jaw feeling gravity. Thank you!!!