Awareness Through Movement #325

Preparation for Rolling - with Marianne Rivington

Marianne recently attended an online workshop with Moti Nativ who worked directly with Moshe. He Zoomed the workshop from TelAviv where he shared his experience of having to run when air sirens wail for people to find shelter for safety. He said that the greatest number of injuries occurring was from people falling on the way to these shelters, because people don’t know HOW to fall… so he created a workshop to teach people based on some of what he learned over his many years studying with Moshe.

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The following is adapted from Moshi’s Workshop: Teaching Seniors - Rolling in all Directions, November 2024.

“Rolling motion is a combination of rotational motion with translational motion.

Our body should form kind of a hoop that will give us the support from the floor for organizing our body in the rolling motion.

Moshe Feldenkrais used the rolling motion in his activity as a martial artist
as a way for safer falling.
When Moshe developed the Feldenkrais Method,
the rolling concept became important in his ATM lessons
for the improvement of our awareness to the environment,
to gravity and balance,
affecting the general organization of our body.
Moshi Nativ.

Marianne continues:

I heard Moshe say many times that a good movement can be reversed or stopped at any moment, perhaps you many find it of interest to pause at times during the lesson and explore reversibility and stopping a rounded movement and a movement with flattened edges. After the lesson you might like to occasionally pay attention to whether your movement and thought patterns are rounded… or flattened, with sharp edges? And which way serves you better?”

Marianne made two very short video’s to illustrate the difference between falling and rolling. The first video shows the rounded curve of rolling

The second video shows (both videos approx 10 sec)

1. The rounded curve of rolling

2. Compared to the flattened curve of falling

Please take what you learn from these lessons in to your life, rather than leave them on the floor when you finish this Zoom!

Thankyou, and enjoy your learning,

Marianne… entering a very snowy Winter in Canada :)”

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And, some gold quotes by Moshe given during this lesson:

”If you fall when going down,
it is difficult to come up.
That means it is necessary to go down slowly
and pay attention how to organize the chest and shoulders without power,
without tension.
Then, to go down, rolling without falling,
means the going up is easy.”

Lesson below: