A few months back I was taking an ATM taught by a Feldenkrais® practitioner I'd never met before. During the lesson, we were walking at one point and she mentioned sensing the "strong connection" between the heel and C-7 (the seventh cervical vertebrae). That sounded familiar to me but at that moment, I couldn't sense much more than a vague connection between either of my heels and the base of my neck. A few years ago I took a couple of advanced trainings with a terrific Feldenkrais trainer who asked us to sense (we were walking again) how the force in walking could move "up and through" the skeleton. During the five or six days I spent in these workshops I learned a lot about myself but my ability to manifest and sense a movement upward and through my skeleton while I walked remained somewhat murky.
I pulled out a lesson last week that I'd not looked at for several years. It's called "Walking Backward" and to my surprise, both of those concepts are directly addressed by Dr. Feldenkrais in the lesson (there are two very similar versions that he recorded). Here are a couple of quotes:
There are two movements in the hip joint, two unusual movements. The foot goes to press the floor, but the body and the head do not go down. They go higher up...It is built in the hip joint such that there is a point that moves so the leg goes down, pushes down, and the rest of the body goes up, forward a bit and higher in relation to the hip joint.1
This is because the hip joint shifts so as to make a special line that joins the back of the neck, the base of the skull, with the heel.2
Preparing the lesson was the first time I put it all together--Dr. Feldenkrais is saying that the hip joint is actually structured so that it can transmit force in two directions, down through the leg while, at the same time (when properly organized), moving the pelvis such that force is directed upward through the spine. That concept, as I continued doing the lesson, brought the sensation of my spine--from its base to my neck--chest and head moving "up and through" during walking like never before and, at the same time, the connection between my heel, hip joint and the base of the skull was made crystal clear. Walking became lighter, freer, simpler, in a way I'd not experienced before.
I'd like to share that experience with you on Thursday night. The open class at 5:30 will be a lovely, simple lesson that is designed to systematically release muscular holding throughout the body to better enable lengthening along the entire spine. At 6:30, we'll do Walking Backward. I invite you to come join me and experience these fundamental but oftentimes elusive sensory experiences that will change, in remarkable ways, how you experience and think about walking.
This Advanced ATM class (like all of them) is for people who are relatively pain-free and physically able. While it's not physically challenging, it's a standing lesson and pain will get in the way of the delicate sensory work needed to experience the lesson fully. If you've been wondering about the advanced class, but are not sure if you're "up to it," this is one to try.
Please join me this Thursday, August 4th at 6:30pm at The Feldenkrais Institute of New York, 134 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor, New York NY 10001; for more information, call 212-727-1014 or register for class online here.
1Alexander Yanai lessons, Volume 9, Part B, pg. 3013
2Alexander Yanai lessons, Volume 8, Part A, pg. 2434