Four points: Balance and orientation

Introduction

The four points lessons are about balance, locomotion, and orientation. I would say they are about confidence.

Personally, I never thought I could do a judo roll, a back flip, a head stand, or even swing my legs overhead. I could barely move, especially in my twenties. It wasn't that I was injured, I just hadn't mapped my sensory input. Parts of me were just missing. (Read the rest of this comment in my blog post, “I didn’t know I could do that!”)

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My teacher, Dennis Leri, comments in part on these lessons here:

Doing a Feldenkrais lesson, people start getting the idea of where it's going so they lose the attention needed. They go through the motions versus assuming authorship of their experience. Assume that everything you do will be known, and recognize that everything has consequences. Moshé felt that if you couldn’t deal with the consequences of an action, you shouldn’t do it. Originally he didn't want to do this work, he could have just done physics or judo. But, like the stories of many creative people, he was drawn to it and it took him to the deepest place in himself.

“Assuming your own authorship” is a good way to engage with these lessons. They are not about the mechanics of the arms and legs, they are about the process by which you fully commit to an action and its consequences.

In this first experiment, you bring your hands to the floor and practice lifting and lowering the hands and feet, like a quadruped. Your nervous system will adjust your balance to compensate for different weight shifts. Then, your torso senses the weight shifts faster and without so much wobble. Finally, when you walk, notice how you swing the limbs.

TIP: If you can’t reach the floor, put your hands on a chair, stool, some sort of box, anything that creates a halfway point. Keep doing the lesson(s) until you can reach the floor. Bend your knees a lot, this is not a straight-leg position. Finally, do a small amount each time, don’t stay in the position too long.

Four points personal, Amherst, week 2, 19 June 1980

Honestly, I think these lessons are just so cool. Here you start to slide the knee through the gap between the opposite hand and foot. As the bent knee goes through, your rear end lowers and voila! you are sitting 90 degrees to the side. The elegance of the weight shift is lovely. Yes, these lessons are a lot of movement and swinging around, but once you feel the actual swing of your pelvis, the “work” goes away.

I often give this sequence to folks who find it difficult to get up and down from the floor.

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Here we layer more pieces into the sitting sequence, including coming up to stand and back down again in one go. It’s worth getting the sense of the sequence and timing so you can feel it in your system. It is not a cognitive thing, it is a feeling thing.

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Here you practice some motor imagery while moving with greater ease. Moshe says:

While thinking, pay attention to where you make unnecessary efforts in your shoulders. Where do you hold your breath? Of course, stop doing those parasitic movements. Accurately monitor what you do while thinking. That way, the moment you do it you can feel what is better, simpler, and easier.

If you do this movement simply, you can do it quickly. You can do it without standing between one movement and the other. Do it even simpler. Can you see how you can move from side to side without stopping in the middle?

You don't have to return to standing on your legs. You don't have to lift your body very high. Lift your body only as high as necessary to transfer your legs from right to left. You make a light, tiny movement with your pelvis shifting up and down.

AY16 and SF yr 3 via Dennis Leri

The continuation of bringing the leg through the gap and turning side to side.

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This lesson brings all the learning together in one big movement of swinging, swiveling, switching, and standing. The trick is to be aware of your orientation in the room while monitoring your feet, head, eyes, and pelvis. Your tracking skill will be at the forefront of this experiment.

Don’t worry if it is messy at first, it will become more and more precise as you assume authorship of your experience.

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