Full Body Gardening, Springtime - 5 - Soft Hand Weeding
Full Body Gardening, Springtime 5 - Soft Hand Weeding
Using the strength of your back to free up your hands
Variations on “Towards Human Hands” lesson from Anat Baniel
This is an odd, but interesting, way of connecting the shoulder blades (scapulae), the back and the hands. It comes from Anat Baniel, a student of Dr. Feldenkrais, who has pioneered her own approach, resulting in remarkable outcomes with thousands of children with special needs and adults with strokes, injuries, and other limiting conditions.
This lesson makes heavy use of constraints, a bit of muscle, and some uncommon hand positions. It’s mostly an on-the-back lesson with a few shifts to try the same moves in sitting. It works just as well as a seated lesson.
Let your shoulder blades do the heavy work, leaving the hands for the fine work.
Remember: The hands’ bigger movements are controlled via ligaments and tendons located in the arm. The hand itself has teeny tiny muscles for delicate movements. When strength, direction, force are required, the wise gardener uses the big muscles of the trunk.
Use the big shoulder and arm muscles for the heavy lifting.
Here, interlaced hands act as mirror images of the scapulae, resting on the front of the ribs with the heels of the hands magnetized/glued on the torso. Pushing the elbows forward connects the shoulder blades and hands, giving interesting feedback on how the shoulders move the hands while the hands stay soft.
The lesson builds to adding the pelvis to the arm/shoulder relationship. Some students might pull off the grand finale of hooking the elbows around bent knees with hands still magnetized to the front ribs. But that’s a big move and challenging. Fun for some, but hardly necessary to get the connections between hands, shoulders, torso and pelvis. All to keep the hands free to be as delicate - or strong - as desired.
Set Up:
A mat on the floor
OR A firm-bottomed chair, no arms, where knees and hips are level
The Voice-O-Meter sounds this week, chosen for their connection to corners:
Stomach - HAAWWWW - grounding, connecting to earth
If you are up for it, a little Science Nerd Candy on how the scapulae and upper arms move together:
Movements of the Scapula - 3D Lyons (start at 1:11) The outward and inward movements of the shoulder blade relevant to this lesson.
How you might feel after this lesson: Chest lifted and open; Breath deep; Shoulder blades resting quietly over the ribs, Neck released; Upper back flexible; Connected from pelvis to sternum, head to shoulders; Connected from hands to the support of the sternum and spine; Arms released and hands soft.
Thanks to colleague Anita Bueno for inspiring this series and sharing her lesson ideas.
New Student Registration for the series. Continuing students use ongoing login. $40/month or $15/individual class. PayPal or Venmo: jackisue@aol.com. Or Jacki Katzman, PO Box 116, Bethlehem, NH 03574