In this class, we revisit initiating movements from our feet and belly centres while anchoring the belly centre to the earth’s centre. We experience our movements as a shapeshifting of the whole of our inner volume and our belly centres as the centre of our kinespheres – the spherical space around us that we could actually touch
On the floor, we play with our inner volume through the image of alternately filling our chest and belly with air while lightly holding the breath. This is Feldenkrais what called seesaw breathing. We explore this on our backs, on our bellies, and lying on each side with the head lifted.
Returning to lying on our backs, we stretch the arms into the gesture of an embrace, let the knees drift up, and play with rolling from side to side – everything organising around the belly centre as we come to stand.
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00:00:00 – Arriving in walking
Noticing how we feel – both the emotional tone and how we sense ourselves to be here – in this place and in this body
Remembering we are walking on the earth and through the air
Reading our walking as a changing of shape of one whole continuous volume within our skins
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00:04:10 – Standing Explorations and Walking
Listening to our standing – sensing weight and support flowing through our structure
Finding our belly centres and extending our attention from their centre along the line of gravity connecting the centre of the earth with an imaginary star above
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Turning around our centre axis – initiating from the belly centre, from the feet, from the eyes, then everything together
Remembering that our body is not an object but a nesting of processes
Arms above the head spiralling around the axis – taking this into walking as a double helix
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Playing with the image of support like water flowing up from the centre of the earth, through us and out through the top of the head – becoming a human fountain
Exploring raising one hand/arm at a time, then both together – shaping the flow of support out through the fingertips – sensing the smallest reconfiguration that produces a weight shift under the feet
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Initiating rounding and arching from the feet – pushing backwards along the skin of the earth through the heels to arch, forwards through the toes to round – the belly centre always anchored to the centre of the earth
Initiating side-bending from the feet – circling the belly centre – letting the arms rise to counterbalance as the head moves further from the axis
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Stepping with one foot in front – initiating from the soles of the feet – the belly centre as the centre of our kinesphere
Folding and unfolding to bring the belly centre closer and further from the earth’s surface – not pushing down and levering ourselves up but rather changing the configuration of our entire inner volume – what I call shapeshifting
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00:38:10 – Floor work
Sensing our inner volume and how we balance on the earth behind us
Playing with the image of the breath like a wave through an internal sea
Sensing the skin stretching and relaxing with each breath throughout its surface – auxeticity – if one part of this fabric expands, the whole thing expands
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Breathing into a balloon in the chest – expanding forwards and back, sideways, upwards beneath the dome of the shoulder girdle
Breathing into a balloon in the belly – expanding forwards and back, sideways, down into the pelvic floor – taking care to expand both backwards and forwards
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Seesaw breathing on our backs – taking a slightly deeper breath in, holding it lightly, and alternately filling the chest and the belly – one hand on the breastbone, one on the belly – as one rises the other sinks – sensing how our connection with the earth changes as the air moves up and down
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Seesaw breathing on our bellies – sensing how the pattern of pressure changes through the knees, the elbows, the tops of the feet
Playing with the diagonals – the left side of the chest with the right side of the belly, then the other diagonal
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Seesaw breathing on one side – sensing how gravity flows through us differently in this orientation
Making the head lighter on the arm – lifting it a little – sensing which parts of us reach down into the earth for more support
Seesaw breathing with the head lifted
Rolling onto the back to compare the two sides – then repeating on the other side
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Stretching the arms into the gesture of an embrace – sensing the support flowing through us and out through the fingertips
Letting the knees drift above the chest – unfolding the legs towards the sky – sending support out through the knees, the toes, the heels
Letting the head and tail join in reaching skywards – everything organising around the belly centre
Rolling from side to side – initiating from the skyward side or from the interaction with the earth – everything organising around the belly centre as we come to stand.
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01:21:15 – Returning to standing and walking
Re-tuning our centre axis to the line of gravity
Shifting the belly centre from the soles of the feet – circling
Letting the arms float up – sensing how the seesaw breathing may have changed our sense of wholeness
These classes as moments of tuning – tuning into the flow of weight and support – the support coming from the centre of the earth and going up and out like the branches of a tree
