Friday I discovered that I can make a little bounce after I land my dropback. It is amazing what you can discover when you are too tired to mentally resist what your body seems to want to do. Mostly, this works best if my teacher is right there to catch me and bring me the rest of the way up. Apparently, the hardest part of standing up again is supposed to be getting the hands off the floor. Wish I could say how it is done, but it is still a bit murky. Seems to depend on -strong legs going down to the floor making for a softer landing and keeping my pelvis as far forward as I can on the way down. The other thing that I think helped me get to this point of being able to shift my weight forward was a crazy -undulation- atm lesson that we did in the training. It was about flow and by focusing on the flow of the small movements (pressing different body parts into the ground in sequence) rather than perfectly making each movement, I was able to better synchronize movements with my arms and legs. This is what led to my first (scary!) experience last week, of shifting weight into my legs so that my hands could unweight themselves in a backbend.
The feldenkrais training was exhausting last week. I passed my teaching test, which was no great surprise, since they pretty much pass everyone. I ended up teaching a 45-50 min lesson to a class of 15-20, by myself, after my group imploded..i.e. the incredibly passive aggressive and angry woman I had inherited as a partner blew up at the head of the program. I am too old to work with people who don't contribute and that are just too difficult to work with. Teaching by myself was really valuable, but it made me soooo stressed out before. I still have not had a full night's sleep, and I taught on Sunday. Hoping to get it together to do some volunteer teaching for the parks department here this fall - they offer free fitness classes - and feldenkrais counts for that. Would like to find some other teaching opportunities as well.
Are you walking the hands in once you land? That shifts the. Weight more forward and makes it easier to try and bounce. I also realised that the longer I stay down the less chance I have of coming back up.
ReplyDeleteactually i land and "bounce" up on the next inhale..no walking in..that's why i feel like it is a bounce. walking in gives the weight shift, and i can try to lift up but it is more like playing pattycakes with the ground-more up than forward momentum.yes, the longer i am down..the less likely i can shift the weight forward. it is a really strange thing to be working on....
ReplyDeleteWe've all been there, or are there or will get there, so it's definitely not a strange thing to be working on if you are in the Cult, explaining it to Muggles is another matter.
ReplyDeleteYou have to be a little careful bouncing on landing, I've done that, I've landed from the bounce and my arms have shot backwards and I've winded myself landing on my back, though the nearer your feet you are on the initial drop the safer it is
lol. thanks. i expect at some point i will do the fall on my back thing..trying not to think about it.
ReplyDeletethe feeling is strange..not so much the dropback/bounce in itself. just interesting the process of learning this.
Do you get David Keils Yoga Anatomy emails, this months is on drop backs, here's a link to the article http://tinyurl.com/kcfxxpw
ReplyDeleteno, i don't..i think i read him a long time ago..hit overload on info a while back and pared back a lot (my only regular source lately is kino's videos-she's soooo good at explaining stuff)..this is a great article. thanks! oh, and tried again walking hands in first after dropping back and then tried to shift weight forward..much safer and more controlled that way :)
DeleteYe sometimes there is info overload. I met David a few years ago and got invited to do an anatomy weekend with him in Stockholm, he knows his stuff and he makes it accessible, if you ever get a chance to do his weekend workshop it's well worth it, I learned a lot.
DeleteWalking the hands in does make it safer and more controlled.
I'm going to Copenhagen to do a Mysore week with Kino at the end of the month :-)
enjoy the kino workshop! :) so glad you have gotten enough of your practice back to make it worthwhile.
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