A Companion to This Lesson
Welcome back from the floor. You have just completed a deep dive into the relationship between your center and your periphery, exploring how the massive power of your pelvis can liberate the movement of your limbs. This booklet is designed to help you unpack that experience, moving from the immediate felt sense of the lesson into a clearer understanding of the pedagogical arc your nervous system just navigated. Using the analytical framework of The Engine, we will look at how the lesson systematically reduced cortical noise to reveal a more efficient way of moving. You will see how the sequence—from simple pelvic tilting to the complex integration of the standing foot—was designed to help your brain stop trying to reach with the hand and instead allow the pelvis to carry the arm through space. By clarifying these relationships, we can see how the reach becomes weightless when the spine is fully engaged. Please treat this guide as a companion rather than a manual. The movements you performed were not exercises to be perfected, but somatic questions to be explored. This booklet helps you identify exactly what those questions were, allowing you to see the logic behind the hip differentiation and pelvic rolling that led to your final scan. It is an invitation to go deeper into the inquiry of how your body organizes itself for infinite reach.
Lying on the back, knees bent, feet standing.
This starting position isn't arbitrary. It's chosen to give your nervous system a baseline — a clear sense of how things are before the lesson begins. You'll return to it at the end, and the contrast is often striking.
Every Feldenkrais lesson poses a question to your nervous system. Not a question you answer with words — a question you answer with movement, sensation, and gradually shifting organization.
How can the massive power of the pelvis and spine be harnessed to make the limbs feel weightless and the reach feel infinite?
Cortical noise is reduced by slowing down the pelvic 'nodding' and 'rolling' until the parasitic contractions in the hip and shoulder are identified and released.
To make sense of the journey through this lesson, it helps to understand three ideas. They'll come up throughout the booklet.
When you first try a movement, there's a part of you that grips, pushes, and forces. This is your voluntary muscular effort — we'll call it the Shadow. It means well, but it's noisy. It uses ten muscles when two would do. It holds your breath. It treats every movement as a task to be conquered.
Underneath the Shadow, your skeleton and reflexes already know how to support you. This deeper system — the Foundation — is quiet, efficient, and reflexive. It responds to gravity, finds balance, and transmits force through bone rather than muscle. The lesson's job is to let the Foundation emerge.
The lesson doesn't fight the Shadow. It washes it away — through repetition, variation, and gentle complexity. Like water over stone, the unnecessary effort gradually dissolves. You don't try to relax. You simply repeat and vary until the Shadow runs out of strategies and the Foundation is all that remains.
Here's what happened in this lesson, section by section. For each part, you'll see what you did and what was happening underneath.
Establishing a baseline of sensation in sitting and lying, focusing on skeletal contact and orientation.
The teacher establishes a baseline by asking you to sense the contact of your sit bones and spine against the floor, posing questions about the relationship between your visual orientation and felt sensation as you peek at your toes. By switching the crossing of your legs and scanning your skeletal weight, they invite you to notice asymmetries and prepare for the functional changes to come.
The question being posed: Is my power reaching my edges, or am I an isolate?
The functional goal: Baseline of functional disconnection and peripheral effort.
I feel heavy and stuck in my pelvis, as if my legs are separate weights bolted onto a trunk that doesn't know how to move them. My breath is shallow, and I can't feel the connection between my sit bones and my head.
I am gripping the hip flexors and bracing the lower back to maintain an upright posture. I feel like a collection of separate parts rather than a unified engine.
Exploring sagittal and lateral mobility of the head and pelvis to prepare the spine.
The teacher invites you to sense the quality of lolling and nodding the head to clarify its functional relationship with the jaw and the transmission of movement down the spine. By tilting the pelvis to arch and flatten the lower back, you establish a clear connection between the head and pelvis, preparing the spine's mobility for the asymmetrical explorations ahead.
The question being posed: Can the engine's pulse reach the head through the spine?
The functional goal: Initial restoration of the proximal-distal bridge through the spine.
I am starting to feel a tiny ripple from my tail to my crown as I nod my pelvis. The small movements are beginning to whisper to my neck, suggesting a clear path for force to travel through my vertebrae.
I am trying to move the head and pelvis as isolated units, but the rhythm is starting to melt my resistance. I am beginning to loosen my hold on the cervical spine.
Introducing the side-lying leg prop and exploring pelvic rolling and tilting in this skewed configuration.
The teacher introduces an asymmetrical prop to question how the push from your standing foot travels through the pelvis when one hip is anchored. You are invited to sense the changing relationship between your spine and the floor as you tilt and roll your pelvis against this skewed base.
The question being posed: How does the engine move when one edge is anchored?
The functional goal: Differentiation of the hip socket; moving proximal around distal.
This is strange; my leg is still and supported, yet my pelvis is dancing around it. I can feel the power of my standing foot pouring into my center to wheel my whole torso over the anchored hip joint.
I want to lift the leg or use the knee to move, but the prop forces me to find power elsewhere. I am confused but starting to yield to the skeletal leverage.
Using arm reaching trajectories to drive pelvic movement and differentiate the hip joint (proximal around distal).
The teacher invites you to sense the relationship between your reaching arm and rolling head, using the push of your standing foot to drive the movement across your body. This functional exploration clarifies how the pelvis can roll independently around the hip socket of your side-lying leg, refining the transmission of force from your foot through your spine.
The question being posed: Can the engine carry the arm into space without leaking power?
The functional goal: Potency achieved through core-driven reaching and hip clarity.
My arm feels lighter than air as I let my pelvis and spine drive the reach toward the ceiling. The engine in my center is doing the heavy lifting, and my hand is just the passenger on this wave of force.
I have let go of the shoulder's frantic gripping. I am standing down as the pelvis takes over the work of moving the limb.
Resting to integrate changes and repeating the asymmetrical sequence on the opposite side.
The teacher introduces a pause to let you sense how the previous pelvic rolling has changed the ease of your head lolling, questioning if the neck has already begun to release. This transition then shifts your attention to the second side, where you repeat the arm reaching and hip explorations to compare and balance the organization of your whole spine.
The question being posed: Is the power flow becoming symmetrical and clear across the whole core?
The functional goal: Balanced potency and refined proximal-distal transmission.
I am exploring the other side of my powerhouse now, noticing where the pipes are clogged. Each reach and roll clears the path from my center to my fingertips, making the whole system feel more potent and integrated.
I am cautiously observing the second side's effort, but the memory of ease from the first side is helping me stand down faster.
Integrating the differentiated hip mobility into global pelvic circles and concluding with a final assessment.
The teacher facilitates the integration of differentiated hip mobility into a global pelvic circle, inviting you to sense the effortless relationship between the rolling pelvis and the responsive head. This final transition from lying to standing allows you to evaluate the functional improvements in your skeletal support and the newfound ease in your upright posture.
The question being posed: Is the engine now the effortless source of all movement?
The functional goal: Whole-body potency; limbs as weightless extensions of the core.
I am the engine, and the whole room seems to move around my center as I circle my pelvis. My limbs are weightless extensions of this powerful, rolling core, and every step I take feels like it comes from the earth through my pelvis.
I have completely stood down. The isolate has been replaced by the whole-body kinetic chain.
Every Feldenkrais lesson has a trajectory — from effort to ease, from noise to quiet. Here's how this lesson made that journey.
Cortical noise is reduced by slowing down the pelvic 'nodding' and 'rolling' until the parasitic contractions in the hip and shoulder are identified and released.
Transmission emerges when the student stops 'trying' to reach with the hand and instead allows the standing foot to drive the pelvis, which in turn carries the arm through space.
The mechanics of proximal-distal transmission. How does power flow from your center to your edges? This lens explores the kinetic chain that bridges the core to the limbs — the proximal 'carrying' the distal.
The being who lives in your powerhouse — the pelvis, the low back, and the deep core. They provide the thrust and initiation. Every movement is received as: Is my power reaching the hand, or is it leaking out at the shoulder? Am I asking my wrist to do a job that my pelvis should be doing?
The habit of functional disconnection. Lifting the arm from the shoulder alone, kicking the leg without engaging the pelvis — working each limb as a separate machine cut off from the engine of the trunk. The lesson restores the proximal-distal bridge until every reach is a whole-body event.
When you return to this practice, focus on the moment the engine of your pelvis takes over the labor of your limbs, transforming your core into a source of effortless propulsion. Pay close attention to the side-lying configuration and notice if your pelvis can roll over the head of the femur like a heavy gear turning on a fixed axle, allowing the leg to remain entirely passive. During the arm reaching trajectories, sense the exact millisecond the power from your spine travels through the shoulder blade to launch your hand into space, observing if the reach feels like it begins in your center rather than your fingers. As you integrate these movements into global pelvic circles, look for any "slack" or jumps in the transmission of force, seeking a continuous, hydraulic-like smoothness throughout the entire ring of the pelvis. Revisit this sequence whenever you want to rediscover that sense of weightless extension and find the true power hidden in your primary engine.