Rest For Your Eyes - As Always With A Twist

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Rest For Your Eyes - As Always With A Twist
 

Focus, Coordination, Ease:
Yoga twists, Kayak and Bike turns, Sticks and Balls Games
(especially Tennis and Golf)

Are your eyes feeling the strain of too many hours of screen time?  This lesson is for you:  relaxation for overstrained eyes and focusing for those of us in a daze.  

Depending on how you measure it, between 20-30% of the brain's power is dedicated to visual processing,including all the connections between the visual and movement systems. 

Moshe Feldenkrais brought eye movement into many of his lessons. This lesson is all about the how eye movement affects whole body movement. 

If you are a golfer or tennis player, this lesson is going to help you keep your eyes on the ball as your body moves through the swing.  Kayakers and bikers can imagine moving their bodies into alignment as they focus on their destination. And every lesson always applies to walking and hiking.

This lesson can be done side-sitting on the floor, or in a firm-seated chair. First we practice shifting weight while checking how far over the shoulder we can see. Focusing on a hand held right at nose-level, we move eyes, hands, hips and heads in different directions to feel how we use our eyes. The lesson's finale is a grand, surprising twist and better understanding of how coordinating eyes and intention can improve movement.  

Try this snippet from the lesson to release the neck and soften those bleary, over-stimulated eyes.

  • Sit comfortably on a firm chair, with your thighs level with the ground.  

  • Put your hands on top of your head.  Cross one leg over the other and lean to the leg-crossed-over side.  Did you know that the eye muscles are connected to the neck muscles?  

  • Tip the right ear to the right shoulder by extending the left elbow towards the ceiling.  Keep your eyes on the horizon. Eyes are built to look to the horizon - not down at a screen.   

  • Tip your head side to side. Let the draw of the elbow and weight of the head make this move totally relaxed. 

  • Go back and forth slowly.  Exhale on the side-bend.  Inhale on the return home.  Really let the shoulder seek ground.  How much of your torso and neck can you soften?

  • Change sides. Drape the legs and shift weight the other way. Hands on head.  Repeat tipping side to side.  How much support can you find from your pelvis? Do less to feel the support of the pelvis more - its grounding. Let the weight of your head allow the neck to extend sideways. 

  • Eyes a little softer?  Head a little more centered on and supported by the spine?  Then back to your meeting. Maybe invite your fellow Zoomers to try this together and give your collective eyes a moment's rest?

Jacki Katzman