Awareness Exercises & How to Use Them

How to Cue Awareness Exercises:

In the spirit of the Feldenkrais Method we encourage you to NOT demonstrate these actions for your students ahead of time or while they are attempting them. It’s important that you see what they are aware of internally and spatially first. Once you’ve seen them do the movement, then it’s appropriate to begin to instruct and teach them how to better achieve it in their own body using demonstration. When you come back to assessing their level of awareness within each of the exercises do NOT demonstrate the first time, only after they’ve given it a shot first. Then educate and guide toward better results.

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The Exercises

• Hip Folding/Hip Location:
  • How: Have your student either locate their hip socket with their fingertips and/or execute a forward fold with their hands in their anterior hip creases.
  • Look for: Accurate location of the actual hip joint. Watch that the forward fold happens without rounding the back. As you evolve this action, sitz bones should also widen and if standing with legs straight the legs should want to roll medially.
• Ankle Alphabet/Heel Circles:
  • How: From sitting have your student draw the alphabet with either their heel or toes (both to assess variance in movement and motor control).
  • Look for: Smooth movement isolated to the ankle with very little reciprocation in the knee, hip or spine.
    

• Wrist & Finger Circles:
  • How: Have your student lift/lower, glide right/left, and circle just the wrist joint while keeping the elbows dropped and arms moving very little. Circle each finger individually in both directions.
  • Look for: In Wrist circles look for smooth, gliding movement of the wrist joint without initiating from the arms, shoulders, or fingers. In finger circles look for smooth movement isolated to each individual finger without extraneous movement in the wrists, arms, shoulders, or neck.
• Occipital Sloshing:
  • How: Have your student stand or sit on a physio-ball with arms resting at their sides. Cue them to allow the head to slosh right to left as if it were a globe sliding on top of a slippery socketed pedestal (like in a water fountain).
  • Look for: Ease of movement, relaxed jaw, soft eyes, range of motion, and smoothness.
• Jaw Slides:
  • How: Sitting or standing, have your student allow the jaw bone (leading from the chin is fine) slide forward and down (as if going down a slide) and release. Do this moving right and left as well. You can also add circles.
  • Look for: Ease of movement, relaxed jaw, soft eyes, range of motion, and smoothness. Lack of effort in the neck and shoulders. You may see (and it’s great if you do) some reciprocal movement in the spine as the spine will naturally follow the jaw. However, be aware of initiation and effort from the spine.
• Ribcage Isolations:
  • How: Standing, students work to maintain pelvic and shoulder girdle stability as they laterally glide ribcage right to left, then front to back, then in a circle, both directions.
  • Look for: Isolation of the ribcage, smooth movement, and range of motion without disrupting stability up or down the chain.
• Toe Rolling:
  • How: Sitting, have your student work to roll through the toes, dorsiflexing each one individually like a wave from the big toe to the fifth then plantar flex from the fifth to the first.
  • Look for: Equal movement through all toes, lack of compensation/tension in the ankle and hindfoot, smooth and articulated movement through all toes. (You can also use a Theraband to help insight and improve movement.)
• Quadruped Hip Glide Up:
  • How: From quadruped have your student float one hip up toward the ceiling while keeping the knee of the same hip directly underneath (knee pointing straight to the ground — foot can continue to rest on the mat). Repeat several times cueing no effort and small movement.
  • Look for: Ability to isolate movement to posterior hip glide with as little effort as possible, without abducting the leg. Watch for effort in neck and shoulders.
• Quadruped Shoulder Glide Up:
  • How: From quadruped have your student float one posterior shoulder (like making an imprint of the scapula on the ceiling) up toward the ceiling while keeping the hand of the same shoulder directly underneath (hand pointing straight to the ground). Repeat several times cueing no effort and small movement.
  • Look for: Ability to isolate movement to posterior shoulder glide with as little effort as possible, without abducting the arm. Watch for effort in neck and shoulders.
• Quadruped Oppositional Hip/Shoulder Glide Up:
  • How: From quadruped have your student float one posterior shoulder (like making an imprint of the scapula on the ceiling) up toward the ceiling while simultaneously lifting the opposite hip. Repeat several times then switch to the other oppositional pair.
  • Look for: Coordinated, easeful movement without tension in the neck.
• Standing Balance Test (Stable Surface):
  • How: Student stands hip width apart on a firm surface (not a mat), shifts weight to one leg and floats the other leg a few inches off the ground. Hold for 5-10 seconds if possible.
  • Look for: Ankle stability, hip glide and femur differentiation, lumbopelvic stability, other compensations up and down the chain.
• Standing Balance Test (Unstable Surface):
  • How: Student stands hip width apart on an unstable surface (balance disc, wobble board or rotating disc, shifts weight to one leg and floats the other leg a few inches off the ground. Hold for 5-10 seconds if possible.
  • Look for: Ankle stability, hip glide and femur differentiation, lumbopelvic stability, other compensations up and down the chain.
• Standing Hip Glides:
  • How: This can be done standing flat footed or with one foot slightly elevated (use a small stack of kneeling mats or a moon box). Ask your student to hike the non elevated leg/hip straight up and down several times.
  • Look for: Balance in the standing leg, ability to isolate lateral flexion in the waist without shearing the ribs, elevating the shoulder or compensating up or down the chain.