spine, head and eyes in the "now" at our computer

Recent blog postings at the other two locations:

Monday, Hints for special needs parents with a child that likes/ habituates with a hand in the mouth
at  http://specialneedschildren-chriselms.blogspot.com/

Wednesday: the "Swiss Army Knife" movement for all 4 of our backs movements
at   http://wakeup-feldenkrais.blogspot.com/

Friday: here, Hi.

I sit at the computer, realizing, as sometimes I don't,
that sitting at a computer
is
sitting
and
looking.

So, reminders to you reminders to me:
is the screen about at head height.
Mine isn't though I have 7 books under my laptop
(I have an external keyboard, otherwise you end
up typing like a dog swims),

The top of the monitor is just above eyelevel
so I get to "so what"
and "it's too much trouble"
this awareness,
or actually get off my rear
(the sitting part of this)
and fetch a few more books, so the computer will be such that
the middle of the screen will be at sitting upright
eye height.

Oh, well,
up I go

And, I'd forgotten the pitfalls of gathering books
especially from a house wherein most of the books
are not "mine," and hence
full of rare jewels that I haven't gotten around yet
to perusing,
so many books, so little time


AND
I found just the right 4 more,
and of course, 4 or 5 "have to look at/ read' books
that didn't get used as props.

Okay,
eye level screen

and now
the sitting part


well, you know, I imagine
that leaning back in the chair is
nice for napping
and even for low grade yapping (when our mouths work
and we forget we have a body)
but for thinking clearly
and writing,
hey; try it and see,
sit forward on the chair,
both feet on the floor

feel your spine easily holding up your head

how to find today's nice placement
for your spine

round down, middle back back, nose
descending to the desk,
chin coming toward your chest, feel your weight shift to the back of your pelvis,

then un slouch by coming forward on your pelvis
and bringing your head to upright

leave the shoulders out of this
your spine with the attached ribs hold
up the shoulders easily and all on its own
but do soften and maybe bring your belly
forward a bit
so you feel your back muscles
holding up your spine
with the head at the top
a pumpkin on
a broom handle

(Need a haircut, but waiting until Monday to trade
with worlds's best slackline female,
Faith Dickey,
see their website: http://somewhereelseland.blogspot.com)

now you are have a good 20 minutes or so
on the computer

and it is legal to shift side to side a bit
and rock to mini slouch
and mini arch
to keep your spine happily in motion,
since we tend to lock into positions
that might not be exactly where is
best and easiest for us
just now
just today

good

feeding, F...ing, Fighting and Feldenkrais... a movement lesson to accompany

I recently, in my Life Potency Blog, had an essay of the sort: Feeding, F...ing, Fighting and Feldenkrais. Someone asked me to come up with a movement lesson for this.

Here it is.

Sit comfortably in a chair, with both feet on the floor and your back away from the back of the chair.

Feel yourself more or less upright, and feel what that is like. Perhaps closing your eyes can help you get a more clear Sensing feel of yourself.

Now, slowly, begin to bring your right hand to your mouth, and then place it back down in your lap. You've done this a zillion times, so go slower than slow and see if you can notice anything new about this life necessary movement.

Rest.

Now bring the back of your right hand just to the left of your mouth, and bring your hand back down, and as you repeat this movement, move toward bringing the middle of your right forearm to your mouth. After it's there, go back and forth from lap to middle of right forearm at your mouth.

Rest.

Now please come to this last position of middle of your right forearm on your mouth and begin to round and arch your spine. What does that mean?

To round your spine: bring your belly in and back, rock back a bit on your pelvis, let your sternum sink and your nose lower as if you are going to look between your legs.

All the while your arm and mouth are united, and this gives your elbow a downward trajectory as you round your back.

Then when you arch your back, your elbow will lift, your eyes and nose will look up, your sternum will rise, your belly will come forward a bit and you will rock a bit forward on your pelvis.

Go slowly and with pleasure and awareness in the arching and rounding, paying attention to all your parts:
spine,
ribs,
sternum,
elbow,
nose
belly
and pelvis.

Take rests if you get fatigued, or lose concentration, but do come back to this until you can feel and unity of sorts between your pelvis rocking forward and back, and your elbow raising and lowering.

Have thoughts, if you wish, about how this motion in the pelvis region could have something to do with s-e-x.

Rest.

Now, play with this a bit. Put yourself in the same position of the middle of your right forearm touching your mouth as you sit forward on your chair, and arch up so your elbow is more toward the sky/ ceiling and your pelvis is rocked forward more, and from here bring your pelvis into a kind of hula hoop circle on your chair, and allow your elbow to make a corresponding circle that you discover.

Enjoy this a bit, and then reverse the circle. Go slow enough to get a nice realization of your pelvis and spine and head as a grand team.

Rest.

Now for a bit of the fighting part;
Sit with your left hand on your left knee, and bring your right hand down and outside of your left knee, going down and twisting slowly and easily. Then rise up from this with an arching of your back as earlier, but this time raising your right hand forward and up and to the right, as if slapping someone with the back of your right hand, or slashing a sword up and to the right, and any other image you'd like (hitting a backhand tennis shot way to high, flinging a frisbee to the right and upward), whatever the image, feel your whole self participating in this curling down and twisting (as if to load your strike, throw, fling, slap) and then unfurling and letting your back and pelvis participate in a powerful move of your right arm and hand.

Rest.

This is all one sided. Please feel free to read the instructions and then imagine this all on the left side, and then perhaps do it just once on twice to see how clear your imagining was and what you you would need to remember if you were to imagine it again.

113: Moving

Pelvis, head, spine, eyes

Sit in a chair, and do whatever you “naturally” do. Lean back, or not, sit forward in the chair or not. From that position, see if you can sense your head and pelvis and spine, and begin to do these two motions:

One: bring your nose toward your pubic bone (sex area) and tilt your pelvis (pubic bone/ any other name) toward your nose, and let your belly come in and your back round out behind you.

Two: unfurl from this, and bring your nose up, maybe toward the sky or the top of the wall or window in front of you, and push your belly out and arch your back and tilt the back of your pelvis, aka your rear end, toward the back of your head.

Go back and forth on with these two end points, looking for an easier and more interesting and pleasant way to do this movement each time you do it.

Rest after six or eight or ten or twelve times.

Then come to a sitting at the front edge of your chair, and do the round and arching, slowly and pleasantly a number of times, while moving your eyes, slowly and as continuously as you can, in the opposite way as your nose (up when nose down, down when nose up).

Rest and consider eyes and head and arching and rounding all day.

Day 38: Twisting and Circling to come to Straight

Berkeley Rose Garden last Sunday

Sitting and twisting in a probably new way

Sit in a chair. Let one elbow and forearm, your left, say, rest on your left knee, so you are bent forward and holding yourself up a bit with this left arm and elbow combination. Now take your right hand and place in behind your head, if you can comfortably do that. If not, put the back of your right hand on your check to the left of your mouth.

Either way, tilt your right elbow up toward the air, toward the sky, toward the ceiling and begin to make circles with this elbow. Imagine a long pencil or pen or feather dipped in ink with which you can paint on the ceiling or the sky. Make a nice circle from the elbow.

Go so slowly that your feel your ribs moving, so slowly you feel this in your pelvis, and so slowly most of all, so that you feel this in your back. Feel an arching when the elbow reaches a certain part of the circle and a folding in your back when the elbow comes to the other side of the circle.

Go slowly enough to notice where your circle gets away from a really round shape. Find the tension or hurry at those points and try to go even slower and with even less effort and see if that will help you draw the circle.

Bring your hands both to your lap and sit up and rest. Feel any changes.

Now, same left elbow down, and right elbow up and make your slow and interesting and pleasurable circles in the other direction

Rest again;

Now, switch arms and do the circle one way a number of times, and then rest, and then the other way a number of times, and rest then.

Feel on this side to a way to feel and connect and as if direct these circles from deep in your lower back and pelvis. Don’t strain. Don’t hurry.

Learn and enjoy.

day106: Up and down and twisting and awaring, 5 lines to boot

Moving all ways and sensing our five lines

Here’s one way to get the spine, your spine, going through all it’s possibilities.

Stand, easily and tap your heels for a warm up.

Smile and look outside yourself and find three or five things to like about what you see.

Then take your right hand down along your left leg toward your left shoe. Fold and twist a bit as you get smaller and smaller and lower and lower.

Now unfurl, bringing your hand up in front of your chest and then on up toward the sky or ceiling on your right side, look up and watch it, and twist to the right with your hand and body.

When you are as far as you can go here, stay and enjoy and then begin side bending to the right and the left in this position/

Don’t worry if this isn’t obvious reading it on the page. Go piece by piece and really enjoy this.

Find different ways to breathe as you do this.

After many times, rest.


Then go left hand down, and up and twist and arch and side bend.

You’ll get it.

Go about the rest of your day full of spine and possibility.


And be of good cheer.

Why not, it’s your life.

86: Playing in rotation

Rotation, not standing, but oh well

Playing in our spine

Stop somewhere and stand. Stand on your own two feet and feel what that is like. What one foot feels like, and the other, and both of them, and the toes and the ankles.

Breathe.

Begin to ever so slowly turn yourself to the left and then back to the middle. Notice whether you started at the feet, or hips, or shoulders, or head or eyes.

Turn again, starting ever so gently from the head and neck. turn to the left and then back to the center several times, as if a little dance. Now add on some shifting in your weight and bringing your pelvis into the turn. Left and back. Left and back.

Rest.

See if that woke up something in you.

Now put one hand on the center of your chest and one hand low on your belly and turn a bit to the left, Keep your head facing whatever direction this is, and begin figuring out how to gently and easily move your belly one way and your chest the other. Feel the twist, the gentle, enjoyable twist in your spine. Feel good.

Rest. Notice how you feel.

Hands as above, turn to the left, and back to the middle, feeling what it is like to start with the belly, start with the chest, start with the head. Play, turn, enjoy. Rest.

Hands as above. Turn to the left. Stop. Let your eyes go more left and back as your head goes the opposite way. Do this very slowly. Enjoy this.

Throughout the day play with head and eyes and chest and pelvis in turning. Make standing around a meditation in movement today.

As part of the game, experiment with hips one way, chest the other and head the same way as the hips. Make it easy, pleasurable and turn to the right later in the day.

Sense your spine all day and give it movement it likes.

82: Bend and arch in sitting, head connected to the back

Bending and arching in sitting, hands on face

Sit near the front edge of a chair, or bench or log or rock. Feel your spine and arms and legs. Feel breathing and gravity. Feel your feet on the ground and your head at the top of your spine.

Now take your hands and hold your head like this: with each hand place your thumb under your ears and your other fingers above the ear, and the fingers point toward the back of your head. And with this unity of head and arms and chest, fold forward: stomach in, sternum sinking and back, pelvis rocking to the back edge, head lowering.

How does breathing like to go in this mode?

Then come back to neutral and do this many times, and then rest and feel and sense and learn yourself.

Then, take the same hand head position and push your belly forward and arch your spine and rock forward on your pelvis and bring your head back a little and raise your sternum. How does breathing like to go this way? Enjoy and come back to neutral and do this many times and go slow and observe and enjoy.

Rest.

Now do, go, learn, discover enjoy both ways, rounding and arching as a back and forth game. Go slow, feel one part at a time, the spine, the ribs, the pelvis, the head, the sternum, and then all the parts together.

Really enjoy.

If any pain, go less.

A lot less.

Enjoy.

Learn. Do this a bunch of times today, and stay knowing and awaring of your spine all day.

Good

66: Pick up Sticks

Pick up sticks

Lean over and touch the ground.

Did you keep your legs straight?

I hope not. We don’t need to “try” so hard when we move in ways that are fun and interesting as we do them easily.

That sentence is worth reading a few times.

And again, bend your knees, and lean down and touch the ground and let your hands hang out on the ground and let your head flop freely. And here, straighten your legs just a little, just as much as is easy, not any more and go from more bent to back here to easy.

And as you do this, slowly, easily rotate your head right ad left. And enjoy this. And aware this.

And rest, standing up “straight-ish.”

Then bend toward the ground again, and in the leaning over position, rotate your hips right and left, in a slow and easy and gently way that makes sense to your spine, feeling the vertebrae twisting more down at the bottom of your spine (which is higher up in the air) and less at the top of your spine (which is closer to the ground.)

Do this awhile and rest just leaning/ hanging over like this and play with the possibility of turning / rotating your head in one direction, while your hips rotate in the other.

Then come to a standing rest.

Now, come near a wall, or a chair to balance, and lift one knee towards your chest and take it with one hand, and pull it towards your chest. Do this slowly and experiment with a way that just seems to move the leg and a way the seems to let your pelvis curl in as if it, too, wanted to come nearer your head.

Notice your breathing, and see what form of breathing would make this most easy.

Undo and rest. And then play with the other knee and leg like this. Rest. And then touch the floor again. Feel good. Notice spine all day. And if you see any sticks, pick up a few.

Day 45: Moving Head and knees in side lying

Lie on your side again, knees and legs on top of each other. Knees in front of you with the thighs more or less straight out from your body. This is not, NOT, not about “doing it right.” This is about going slow and being present and getting easy feelings in you as well as the excitement of learning.

So, pillow again under your head.

Bring both knees toward your chest, sliding them along the floor. And then bring them back to the “neutral you started in.

Do this slowly and feel the backs of you involved in this, feel your stomach, feel your spine, feel yourself curling in.

Rest.

Now, put your hands behind your head and elbow point roughly the same way your nose does. If this doesn’t work, put your bottom hand under your cheek. Here, bend and bring your head toward your knees, and back, many times, feeling chest, ribs, stomach, back.

Rest. And then combine the two: knees toward head and head toward knees and back to “neutral.” Rest again.

Now, bring your knees backward behind you, leaving your legs in the bended position. Feel the using of your back. And return back to “neutral.”

Rest.

Now using head in your hands, bring your head back many times and return back to “neutral.” Rest.

Combine these last two: head and knees both back and keep returning back to “neutral.” Rest.

Now, do the curling in with head and pelvis forward and unfurling with head and pelvis back. Feel the all of you involved in this.

Rest.

For the day, remember this in imagination and play with stomach in and using your back to round and arch yourself.