Day 97: rotation an easy way: on our backs for learning's sake

photo from my daughter's trip to Turkey

Rotation, lying on our back, easy, good, smart

Lie on your back, or some comfortable and firm surface. Bring your left foot to standing (= foot on ground, knee up).

Press your left foot into the ground, and rotate your pelvis to the right while arching your back. Do this the usual “many times.” Each time as if new. Each time feel more of yourself.

Rest.

Put your arms across each other, with your hands resting on your opposite shoulder. As above, press your left foot, rotate and arch your back. Add on, three times rotate the shoulders “with” the twisting to the right, and the next three rotate your shoulders to the left as your hips rotate to the right, back and forth, “many times.”

Rest.

Bring your head into the fun. Do all the above, and have your head rotating, “easily” in the opposite way of your shoulders.

Rest.

If you want to add on the eyes opposite your head, be my guest.

Rest.

Go slow, and feel all the differences each time you add on more complexity.

In the end, go back to the simple arching and twisting. Just push through your left foot and feel the twist and arch in your back. Notice the difference. Then lie quietly and notice the difference side to side.

Then stand and feel differences side to side in your walking, and standing and maybe even breathing.


If you’d like to repeat the entire sequence on the other time a little later in the day, or right before going to bed, that would be interesting and useful, most likely.

For today, notice when you rotate, and have some fun playing with pelvis, ribs, head and eyes in this.

Day Fifteen: Take a Nap

FIFTEEN
Take a nap

Sometimes we feel great when we slow down and lie down.

Often this can be as little as five minutes of lying on a firm but slightly yielding surface, such as a lawn, or a wood floor or deck, or even better, a wood floor or deck with a rug or thin mate of some sort.


Sometimes if requires a twenty minute or so period of shut eye that turns into sleeping.

This is known as a nap.


We all know, or most of us do that have allowed ourselves to indulge in naps, that if we let the naps go “too long” we wake up quite groggy and it takes us a long time to get back to normal. Then we often feel great, with the minor problem that we keep going and going way into the night and thereby cut ourselves off from have the night’s sleep be as full as we would like it to be.

Oh, well.

This is the occupational hazard of taking naps, they can be “too long.”

However, the other end, the end of no nap, is many a times too short.

Now, we don’t need a nap every day, or maybe we do. Winston Churchill, under the stress of leading the British in World War II, was famous for getting two days out of one by taking a long nap.

So, what are we to do today?

Take little two breath pauses, mini naps, where all that matters is being present and our breathing and know we are alive. Closing our eyes if it’s safe. Letting our faces swing easily in the sun for those two breaths, if there is pleasant sun around.

And, if the day is that kind of day, play with a “real” nap.

Movement and Love, helping our knees, please

we've been dealing with Knees
around here

a sweet and amazing
joint
the knee is really amazingly
designed to do not very much,
but it's a huge responsibility:
to transfer the power of the center
down to the feet
to transfer the information and
grounding from the feet up to the pelvis
and from there
to the spine

and it's the feet
and the hip/ pelvis that are supposed
to have lots of mobility,
and the knees
just kind of do not very much
going this way or that
as they bend and straighten
and transfer the force

so:
how to improve your knees?

lie on the floor,
one foot standing on so that one knee is
up toward the sky
and one leg long

if one knee is "iffy"
start with the first best
knee as the one
pointed to the sky

and with the foot pretending to be walking,
or doing yoga,
or standing around,
push a little weight into the standing foot,
and experiment
play around with
discover
the different ways you can
push into the ground:
side of foot
other side
toes
heel

then do easy
feel good
and
interesting circles with your pressure thru
the foot into the ground

and reverse

and rest

and same, first best leg:
come to foot standing again, and press into the ground
a bit,
so the pelvis is rotated,
and circle the knee,
but think of this as coming from the hip,
and feel as part of the circle, a nice sweet
arching of your back during big parts of the
circle

and reverse

and rest

and then
maybe,
in imagination or "reality"
do the same thing,
gently
with your second best leg/ knee

there's lots more
and lessons are cool,
see links to right
on neurological upgrading

and what about the "relationship?"
well,
things are sweet,
and good to dig in the sweet times
so i'll do something today over at
108 days

and on what?
the first troubling thought that comes to mind is
"I don't know what's going to happen"

that's an old familiar source
of suffering,
isn't it

so jump on over
and join
the undoing fun, if you wish

ciao
Chris

Learning by Going "Slow"

Nice essay on going slow
today
at brain plasticity site
aka
Wake Up Feldenkrais
aka
learning
is
it

and
is
that true???