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Range of Motion
Letting the Body Figure it Out

I'm still building up to incorporating the Body-Mind-Centering approach!  Before we get there, here's a little layer of info from the Feldenkrais world.  

Overview 

Your muscles' range of motion, which might be considered the flexibility or looseness in your body, can be increased through allowing your body to experience a comfortable range and 'process' what that means.  Notice I mentioned the body processes the experience!  It's not our mental capacity that we're exercising.  There's no need for theories or explanations.  The talking mind becomes the observer.  It's the 'right' (as opposed to 'left') side of the brain you're accessing, which doesn't have speech.

The Technique Using the Head and Neck as an Example
  • Pick a side to turn your head towards 
  • Because the body likes to know it has learned,  it's needs a before.
    • look in the direction you've chosen, gently, stopping when you reach the end of your range of motion before you feel a stretch or any discomfort
    • Notice what your nose is pointed at.
    • Bring your face  back to the front, with your nose lined up over your midline or thereabouts.
  • As slow as glaciers creep, gently, always gently staying within comfort, begin the movement of turning your head to the same side, slower than a sloth or a koala, so slow you'd almost fall asleep, but you're staying awake because you're noticing the quality of the movement --
    • is it smooth?
    • is it glitchy?
    • are there any jumps? or bumps?
    • are there some dips?
    • does it get stuck?
  • now, moving just as excruciatingly slowly, go back. (!) 
  • After 4 transits, remain at neutral and rest.
  • Now move you head normally and notice how far you can freely and easily turn your head.  This is your after.  Even without words, your body will register it has changed.

Chances are, it's better.  Either you can move the same amount more freely and easily or you can even more more than before with freedom and ease.

Then balance it out by going in the other direction!

You can become more specific, isolated individual joints, use different sections of the torso, or use different limbs.  The technique is the same for different body parts.

 

How does this happen?

Again, we are asking the body to do something and trusting it can do it and the body is delivering on that request.

We don't have to know the mechanics of everything -- like we haven't talked about the shape of the vertebra or how many muscles there are or what they attach to or anything.  We simply ask, trust, allow, let ... observe, compare the end result so the learning is acknowledged.  
 
L

For 'extra credit': If you really want to put yourself to sleep, isolate each joint and see what happens.  IE hold everything below C7 still and only move C7, allowing everything on top of it to be moved as if C7 were a lazy Susan.  (recall that for a minute -- if you turn a lazy Susan, everything on it moves by virtue of the lazy Susan moving, not by virtue of the things moving.  You turn the lazy Susan and it moves the ketchup to the person who wants it.)   Then hold everything below C6 still and only move C6.  Continue working your way up.  The last joint is between C2 and C1.  You cannot 'twist' in the joint between C1 and your skull.

Also for 'extra credit': as you turn your head, notice what other parts of your body respond.  Notice what happens in both areas of interest as you turn your head. 

looking to the right, then returning to neutral, observing as you go.


  Copyright © 02/28/2019 Lynn S. Larson 

Are you looking for something more in your riding?  Something that really connects the inside and the outside? Sometimes a hands on experience can do a lot to clarify something written.
I've studied horse and human anatomy for twenty five years.  I started with Centered Riding and that is solidly based upon how bodies work and how brains process information.  I know Alexander, Feldenkrais, Trigger Point, myofascial, Ortho-bionomy, how to develop resistance training programs, and more recently I am incorporating concepts from Body-Mind-Centering.  I've done yoga for more than forty years, studied (and used) the chakra and meridian systems for over twenty.  Sometimes I don't go into theory because in the middle of a lesson it would detract from the practical learning of how to ride, but I do clinics where I share this information along with how to incorporate it into your training program.  And if you really don't mind listening to me yak forever, I can easily do that during a lesson, too.  It's just most folks want to ride!  

 

Copyright © 11/30/17 - present Lynn S. Larson
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