EUTONY-L'EUTONIE -EUTONIA

Victor Levant © 2002

INTRODUCTION:

The notion Body-Mind is a living fiction. Intelligence resides within every square millimetre of our body. Within the body lie records of lost feelings, hidden hurts, secret desires, the wonder of expansion and the universal rhythm of change. The body is the dream remembered. Life is a process of touch, contact and integration. Not since our mother's womb have we been in total contact with another. The wisdom of the body does not lie. The idioms of every culture underscore the primacy of the physical over the verbal, of the felt over the contrived, of the effortless over force. Take from 45 minutes to 1 hour to explore each of this exercises.

What is needed is not force but sensitivity, delicate attention to see and hear ourselves as we are. Although we may have concerns and wishes, there is really no pre-determined place to go. In this inner world, what is necessary is to trust our body, our own unique self-evolution, to abandon envy, right and wrong, competition, jealousy, our desire for grace, and even these instructions.

You are the teaching, the teacher and the taught.

 

EXERCISES:

1.) Creation.

With the plasticine in your hands, and your eyes closed, take 45 minutes and sculpt a human body.

 

2.) Touch, Contact and Environment

Lie down on your back, eyes closed, arms and legs extended. Adjust your position to maximize comfort. Now stay immobile. Take a few minutes to explore your lying. Here be attentive to what, if anything, you feel, to what feelings or thoughts your have, if any, to the contact you have with the floor, the impression the floor has on your body.

Sense how many points of contact do you feel with the floor? Take a minute or two.

Try to sense how large is the space under your neck? Take a minute or two.

Try to sense how large is the space in the small of your back? Take a minute or two.

Now take the hand of your choice and place it in the space under your neck and in that in the small of your back? How large does it seem now?

Take the chestnut bag and put it under your neck, not to support it, but just to fill up the space. Open and close your eyes. Be receptive. Can you sense a difference between looking for something and taking in what's around you? Do this for 3-4 minutes.

Nod your head, saying yes. Are you beginning the movement from your chin or the back of your head? Try both.

Now let the movement originate from the back of your head. Note the sensation.

Rest a moment.

Now take the bamboo rod in both hands. Use your hands to feel the bamboo's length, surface, texture, mass, weight, density, and temperature. Take good 10 minutes to explore. Use not only your fingers, but also the muscles and bones of your hands, the top and bottom of your hands, soak all the information your hands can provide about the bamboo rod. If you need to name those sensations, fine. If you have no need to name them, fine also.

Now use the bamboo rod to learn everything you can about your hands, it's structure, composition, shape, surface, skin textures, muscle and bone. Take all the time you need.

Now take the bamboo in one hand and move it all around, in the air, above your head, behind it and along the floor. Do this for a minute or so.

Now with the bamboo in one hand learn all you can about the floor, its texture, surface, thickness, density, and slope.

Now bend your knees and bring your feet on the ground under your knees. Repeat the last exercise in this position. Take the time you wish.

Put the bamboo down beside your, with your knees still bent, take the chestnuts out from under your neck and place them out of the way. Your arms should be extended on the floor. Move your eyes from Right to Right, back and forth 10-15 times.

Now move your knees, with the soles of your feet on the floor, from Right to Left, towards the floor on one side and back to the other, 10-15 times.

Now with your fingertips in contact with the floor, move your arms from Right to Left, back and forth, 10-15 times.

Extend your legs. With your heels in contact with the floor, move your legs Right to Left, back and forth (from the knee or the foot), and sense whether or how your torso and arms move.

In the same position, move your arms from Left to Right, back and forth, 10-15 times, and sense any movement in your torso or legs.

Stop. Open your eyes and see WHERE you are looking, how you are receiving the outside world and close your eyes again.

With your eyes still closed, get slowly up. When you have come to standing, open your eyes and see where you are looking. Bring your awareness to your head, chin, torso, and the weight on your legs and feet.

 

3.) From where does the movement begin?

Lie down on the floor, arms and legs extended.

Turn slowly on your Right side, bend your knees comfortably. Place your Right arm under your head. Extend your Left arm straight in front of you.

Gently and slowly reach out with the fingers of your Left hand towards an imaginary point a few inches away, then pull them back. Do this 10-15 times.

Now do the same movement, but begin the movement from your shoulder. 10-15 times.

Repeat beginning the movement from your elbow.

Then beginning from your wrist.

Now imagine a string attached to your fingertips gently pulling your fingers towards that imaginary point. 10-15 times.

Now alternate between the four origins of movement, finding the one most comfortable for you.

Gently and with a minimum of strain, turn over to the opposite side and repeat the above.

 

4.) Adam's Rib

Lie down on your back and sense your contact with the floor. How many points of contact do you feel? Do you sense that all your weight is lying on the floor? Are you aware of your body? Your whole body? Or do you sense only parts of it? No, not do you know you have an arm, or a leg, or a pelvis, calf, hip, spine, shoulder blade...do you sense them?

Now lie on your stomach. Make yourself comfortable.

Hold a small object in your Right hand. Play with it, holding it, letting go of it, opening your hand. Do this for a few minutes.

Lie now on your Left side, explore your rib cage....it's side, back and front, that part just under your arm and then roll on your back again. Sense its shape, texture, hardness or softness, the quality of muscle, the surface of its protective skin.

Now we will repeat the above but with your Left hand and side:

Hold another or the same small object in your Left hand. Play with it, holding it, letting go of it, opening your hand. Do this for a few minutes.

Lie now on your Right side; explore your rib cage.... It's side, back and front, that part just under your arm and then roll on your back again. Sense its shape, texture, hardness or softness, the quality of muscle, the surface of its protective skin. Place a band of chestnuts under your Right shoulder, exploring the weight of your arm and hand while feeling what's happening with your shoulder.

Repeat this with your Left shoulder.

Place the band of chestnuts vertically on your sternum, your breastplate and move your arms so your feel the sternum move too. Move your arms along the floor, above your head, cross them over your body. Explore.

Now with your knees bent, your feet flat on the floor, press the soles of your feet into the floor, press and release, press and release. Do this 10, 15, 20 times. Sense the movement it initiates. Do you feel the energy pass through your body up to your head and out? Or does it stop somewhere? That is OK too.

Now come to kneeling on the floor. Be careful with the weight on your kneecaps. Use the fingers of your hands to stabilize your self. With your fingertips, press into the floor and feel the movement through your shoulders, clavicle and chest cavity.

 

5.) The Mother of All Movement

Lie on your back, legs outstretched and arms by your side. Sense the contact you have with the floor.

Now raise your arms to shoulders and stretch out your arms so that your body makes a cross. Sense the distance from the tips of your fingers to your shoulders. When you have done this to your satisfaction, bend your elbows to a 90-degree, so your fingers are pointing vertically towards the ceiling.

Now bend your knees and bring your feet flat and close to your buttocks. Contact the floor with your feet, press into the floor with the soles of your feet, the sides of your feet, your toes, heels, move the feet side to side.

Let your legs fall to the side, towards the floor, to the Left and then to the Right. Use your torso and your contact with the floor to bring your legs back up using floor for contact.

Lie on your side, knees bent, hands outstretched in front of your body. Take your upper arm and move it away from your body and then towards your body sensing what's happening in your shoulder and shoulder blades. Now make a semi-circle with your hand, going overhead and allow your body to follow i.e. hand starts in front of your body and goes in a semi-circle from in front and back over drawing your body and knees straight up and then flops over on the other side. Note the point where momentum and gravity take over.

Place chestnuts or bamboo under your spine, between your shoulder blades, your feet outstretched. Take away the chestnuts. Sense the distance from head to spine, move your sacrum so that the coccyx touches the floor and your feel your spine and head. From deep within your head, somewhere between your ears, move up and down and feel the movement in your spine and sacrum. .

 

6.) Reptilian Brain

Sit cross-legged against the wall and explore your shoulder blades: their shape, density, touch, and the imprint of the wall on them for a few moments.

Move away from the wall, but start the movement from your chest and allow the rest to follow. Do not push from your back. Do not push from your back. Notice your breathing.

Lie down comfortably, arms and legs outstretched. Bend one knee and place it on a pillow, allowing the weight of the knee to rest upon the pillow. Move your foot so as to feel its weight. Now feel the weight of your thigh by raising your nee off the pillow 1-2 inches. Remove the pillow. Rest a moment.

Place your Left arm as straight as you can back over your head; now bend your arms at the elbow bring your hand to touch your head. Bring the sole of your Right foot up along the side of your Left leg until your Right knee is bent. Now extend your arm and leg at the same time, synchronizing outstretched arm and leg and bent arm and leg. Explore this movement.

Now change sides and do the same with your Right arm and Left leg. Sense how you feel as you do this.

Now do both movements alternately at the same time. Left leg bent, Right leg straight: Right arm bent, Left arm straight; Left leg straight, Right leg bent; Right arm straight, Left arm. Like a frog swimming on it's back. Do this about twenty times.

Now stretch lying on your back be aware of the space in your mouth, throat, legs, in your neck, chest cavity, trunk, pelvic bone down to your toes and fingers.

 

7.) To where does the energy go?

Lie on your stomach, with your head to one side.

Feel your ear and face in contact with the ground, move your jaw in and out, up and down.

Sense the distance from your chin to the bone at the back of your head.

Place your hands flat on the floor at the sides of your head. Your elbows will most likely be bent. Press your hands into the floor and sense the energy, and how the body rises off the floor. Now press your fingers into the floor and sense the pathways and how the body rises off the floor.

Do this also with your fists, forearms and elbows. (For example, pressing the hands may carry the energy through the head and neck, while through the arms it may travel and go through the back.)

Lie on your Right side and sense the hipbone on the floor; explore its shape, surface, and density. Sense the distance between the two hipbones, the Left and the Right.

Now lie on your back. Gently sense your pelvis, the bone on each side of your spine. Bring your feet flat under your knees and rock your pelvis back and forth.

Sit on the floor, your hands on your ankles, sense the bones under your bum. Move subtly side to side, and forwards and then backwards on these bones.

Now place both hands on the floor, bend your Right leg across in front of you close to your buttocks; place the sole of your Right foot in front of your bent Left leg.

Press the Right hand and Left foot into the floor. Explore this rocking, dynamic movement. Now do the same with the opposite hand and foot.

To complete this exercise, gently walk across the room on your bum bones.

 

8.) Distance

Lie down on your back and note the points of contact you have with the floor.

Find your ear-hole and estimate the distance to your shoulder, and then to the floor. Place the fingers of your Right hand on your neck and allow your fingers to inform you about your neck and vice-versa.

Put your mind into the neck and let it tell you about your fingers. (NB calls upon our reptilian brain here). With your same hand under your neck, and your elbow bent lying on the floor, gently bring the scapula and shoulder blade together, subtly squeezing them.

Now bring your elbow up towards the vertical so the shoulder blades widen apart from each other. Repeat the above with the opposite hand and then relax.

Bring up your knees, feet flat on the floor; use your foot to learn about the floor. Shift weight gently from one foot to the other, on the inside and outside of the foot, pressing alternately the heel, sole and toes into the floor.

Now place you hands on your hips, keep your feet on the floor, and imagine your foot moving toward your body.

Bring your knee towards your body i.e. lift your foot, move hip joint/thigh to the inside and out so the movement is not in the knee or but in the hip. Repeat with the opposite foot, then relax and place hands back on your hip and imagine the distance between your hand and the floor.

Sense your ears, where they are in your head, the distance it is to your shoulder, to the floor, move your head turning from the bone at the back of your head until your ear touches on the Right and then on the Left. Nod "Yes" from the middle of your skull. Bring attention to the space in your head, where ear canal is, and estimate the space between your ears.

Slowly sit up, once more bringing attention to where your ears are in your head, the distance from your ears to your shoulders, the space between them, and nod your head and turn your attention to inner ear balance.

 

9.) Inner Space

Lie down on your stomach, with your head to one side.

Sense where the ear is, move your jaw, and notice the relationship between the two, the distance between your chin and the occipital bone at the back of your head.

Bring your awareness to the inside of your mouth cavity and palate. Move your head from this place/space.

Now sense/find where the last/top vertebrae are in your head and move your head from that point.

Press the toes of one foot against the floor. Repeat the above with your mouth open.

Turn your head to the other side and repeat the above two sets of exercises.

Come to a kneeling position, the Hara. Breathing like a fish with your mouth open all the while breath into each vertebrae of your lower back allowing movement in your spine, then as you breath into the mid-section of your back, vertebrae by vertebrae, move from that spot, and finally moving from the inside of your mouth/nasal cavity, finally breathing from the hinge/bone at the back of your skull where your tongue is attached to the bone by ligaments. (If it is too difficult to move from the inside of your body, move from the outside. In time it will be possible to move from the inside).

Now move from the same place, in a bowed position, but with your arms outstretched, your hands palm down, and moving your head forward. Note how the back is gently stretched. Arise by merely pressing down with the base of your palms and knees. Kneel on your toes and simply press your toes down. Come up on your feet only using your fingers and toes. Stand and sense your stance, your ears, and your balance.

 

10). Readiness

Stand facing a wall, palms on the wall, feet a foot apart.

Press your feet into the floor and sense the effect in your hands. Explore pressing the front, then the back, then the two sides of your feet and trace the energy/power effect in your hands and into the wall.

Now press hands in to the wall, using your fingers and then your palms, and the base of your hands and sense the energy in your feet, the shift in the point of balance.

Now go down on all fours and repeat the above pressing your hands into the floor. Walk on your hands and knees: 1^st moving forward your Right hand and Right knee in tandem and then your Left hand and Left knee moving forward in tandem.

Walk with your Right hand and Left knee. Do the opposite too. Lie down in a foetal position, closed, hands and feet bent in different angles like a clock with four hands.

Lie down on your back, knees bent, feet on the floor and press/play with your feet into the floor. Bring your Left knee up towards your head. Press your Right foot into the floor and notice the effect on the raised foot. Now bring up your Right knee towards your head. Press your Left foot into the floor and notice the effect on the raised Right knee.

Now with both legs outstretched, move your Left arm in different positions ALONG the floor. Lie outstretched. Sense the length of distance from your fingertip to your shoulder, from your ear to your shoulder. From the ear to your heel. Move your heel along the floor.

Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor near your buttocks. Press your soles into the floor. Do the same with the toes, and sides of your feet and trace where the energy/power goes to/or where it stops.

The essence of availability is not the effect, but presence. It is only through presence that contact is made, not power, nor force, nor distance, but an allowing of the body to follow through. You need only be attentive. Any conclusions must be made AFTER the experience of contact.

 

11.) Pour Your Heart Out

Lie on your stomach, your forehead and chin on the ground, your arms at your sides or alongside your head with your elbows bent, toes extended or curled as you will.

Now extend your arms out sideways from your shoulders, toes extended, forehead on the floor.

With the fingers of your Right hand reach 2-3 inches beyond and then return. Do this 10-15 times. Now do the same with the fingers of your Left hand.

Sense the floor under your torso, the skin and muscle of your chest. Explore a few moments.

Sense the vertebrae and sternum (chest-plate) on contact with the floor. Note their size, shape, surface, and flexibility. Use your chest-plate to contact the floor, and learn about it; it's surface, texture, temperature, and flexibility.

Imagine the chest-plate entering the floor. Feel your heartbeat. Can you find it? Now Place your heart on the floor, feel it's beat, and follow it.

 

 

12.) Backbone

Lie on your back; sense your contact with the floor. Place 2-3 strips of bamboo under and across your lower ribs. Rock back and forth from your hips.

Put your Right knee over your Left leg so your body is in torsion, somewhat twisted, and your Left ribs touch the ground. Stay there a while.

Turn on your Left side. Place your Left hand under your head and ear; your Right hand straight in front of your body.

Move your Right hand and arm from your elbow and explore the floor and space around you. Repeat on the opposite side.

 

 

13.) Verticality

This is a lifetime's work to be upright, strong yet supple.

Go down on the floor on all fours; work the joints of your toes, each toe, the base of each toe, the soles of the toes and the tips of the toes (gently here). Stand and feel what you stand: back, middle, and sides. The ideal stand is on three points: the base of the big toe, the base of the little toe and the middle of the heel: an equal distribution with the axis of gravity just in front of the where the leg enters the foot.

An exercise from Qui Qigong: Stand and curl your toes so that the tips are on the floor. With hands at your sides, lift your arms to shoulder height in front of you and let them fall back down and ever so slightly behind your thighs. Do this 25 times.

Stand and sense vertically the path of standing for the body, how we continue to stay up through our shoulders and head. Repeat this standing on two tennis balls. Do the same on wood rollers (½ logs) near a wall so you can just touch the wall for stability? Rock back and forth on the rollers and your vertical suppleness. Play with each joint: toe, ankle, knee, hip and spine as the vertical movement continues.

Lie on your stomach, arms the side of your head, bent at the elbow, hands pointing towards your head, one foot bent at the knee. Just feel the angle of the leg, hipbone, knee, anklebone and side of the foot on the floor. Move your knee in the four cardinal directions, allowing your hip to open as you proceed.

Now do the same with the other foot. Place your arms in a similar fashion and feel your shoulders, elbow and hands, and their angles. Move the Right elbow in four direction and sense the shoulder opening. Repeat on the Left side.

Come to a vertical position (standing or Sitting) and sense how you are vertical, your individual way of being independent after being on the floor-from babyhood to adulthood..

14.) Pelvic Tilt

Lie on your back. Press your pelvis into the floor to sense its shape.

Turn on your sides and then your stomach and rock, roll and press all areas of your pelvis into the floor.

Take a piece of bamboo and place it under your hips and repeat the above exercise. Bend your knees, your feet flat on the floor, and press into the bamboo with the back of your pelvis. Now gently push your feet into the floor, feel the pelvic imprint on the bamboo and sense the transfer of energy.

Sense the distance from the hip to the floor, between the two hips joints. Remove the bamboo and extend your legs downward. Once more sense the distance from the hip to the floor, between the two hips. Sense the distance from each hip to the floor below.

Take a medium size ball and place under one knee. Using your knee and roll the ball back and forth, Left to Right at the same time as your roll your head from Left to Right. Repeat the movement in the opposite direction, Right to Left. Repeat with the other knee.

Remove the ball and extend your legs. Sense where your ears are, the distance between them in your head, from the ear-hole to the ground.

15) D'em Bones

Lie on your back, explore your jaw bone, the mobility of the jaw, the line from your ear to your chin, become aware of your mouth cavity, the hole in the back, the holes for the windpipe, your larynx, bronchial tubs and oesophagus, the space where air comes in and out of your nostrils.

Become aware of your gums, your palate (the parts that are hard and soft), of your tongue (it's size, breadth, thickness, length, and where it is attached). Sense how your body is lying on the ground.

Bend you knees; place your feet flat on the ground. Press your Right foot into the ground, play with this. Feel where the movement/energy/power goes from the foot. Does it go to the knee, the hip, the shoulders, and the head? Then do the same with your Left foot. Turn on your Left side and feel the roundness of the rib cage. Do the same on your Right.

Place two bamboo strips under each side of your lower back. Do not put them directly under your spinal column. They will extend beyond your body. Take one or both ends of the bamboo and raise and lower them as if you were rowing with oars.

Move the bamboo strips up along your back, repeating the exercise, until you cannot do this comfortably anymore. Pause for a moment. Now bend your knees and draw your feet flat near your buttocks. Repeat this last exercise. Take out the bamboo, extend your arms and legs and sense your contact with the floor.

Place the bamboo under your shoulder blades, below your armpits and across your back. Move your arms and shoulders. Place your arms across your chest and rock back and forth. Now with each hand on the opposite shoulder, in the manner of the Pharaohs, bring your elbows up into the air.

Place your feet flat on the floor; place your Right hand on your Right shoulder, and your Left hand on your Left shoulder. Play with your elbows, move them through the air, make circles. With your feet flat on the floor and a towel under your neck and knees, feel your hands on the floor and make a sound, play with sounds as they come.

 

16.) Allowing

Stand on a series of horizontally placed bamboo sticks and just look/observe/receive the images of the external world around you. Notice any movement in your body. Move your eyes up and down, Right and left, closed and open and notice any changes in your posture: how your head is held, he curve of your neck and your spine...etc.

Take a small object in both hands and stand once more on the bamboo sticks receiving the images around you.

Now walk around with your eyes and head as it is, shifting your yes up and down, looking far and then close.

Lie down on the floor with the bamboo sticks under your shoulders, your arms along your sides. Take a shaft of bamboo in one hand and explore contact you can have with the floor through the bamboo. Now take the bamboo in the other hand.

Now with one foot flat on the floor, repeat the above. Change feet and repeat again. Now once more with both feet on the floor.

Now place the set of bamboo strips under your hips, knees bent, hands on each knee, pull your knees to your chest, move/rock back and forth and from side to side.

Place the bamboo under your rib cage, bring your knees to your chest, breathe so the bamboo contacts the space between your ribs and the spinal column. Remove the bamboo sticks.

Extend your arms and legs and rest a moment.

Now place your Right arms across your body, reach for the floor on the opposite side, letting your body and hips lift and turn. Follow where gravity takes you. Repeat with your Left arm. Repeat both with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor.

 

17.) Immobility:

Keeping Still, Mountain: I Ching #52

Judgement: "Keeping Still. Keeping his back still

So that he no longer feels his body (personality)

He goes into the courtyard

And does not see his own people

No Blame."

Image: Mountains standing close together:

The image of keeping still

Thus the superior man

Does not permit his thoughts

To go beyond his Situation"

 

Lie down on the floor your arms and legs extended. Adjust to make yourself comfortable. Sense the points of contact you have with the floor. When you have found a relatively comfortably position just remain immobile, do not move your body again for thirty minutes. This is an exercise in active passivity. Your body does not move, yet your are conscious. There is nothing to do. Let go of all will power. It is a remedy for fatigue. Irritated nerved in the back will come to calm. Be aware of the weight of your body that you place on the floor. At each moment observe whether you actually are abandoning/letting go of your weight.

Do you have a clear image of the imprint your body is leaving on the floor? Would you be leaving a full imprint of your body on the floor if this were the weight you placed on the sand? Do you feel the floor is carrying you? Sense your contact with the ground. Sense the support the ground provides for you. Can you just be there, without moving? Come to standing and stretch as you need.

 

18.) Contact

Sit on the floor, fingertips of each hand touching the other. Move your wrist, elbows and shoulders. Keeping contact between the two hands, open a space between the fingers. Once more, move your wrist, elbows and shoulders exploring the movement. Now widen the space so that the fingertips are barely touching.

Still sitting, place your hands on two parts of your body and generate a current through your body from one point to another. If necessary, you can visualize the current's path by closing your eyes and moving your eyes in your head along the chosen path. For example from your Right knee to your Left shoulder, you can set up a circular current.

Lie down on your back, legs outstretched. Move your leg so that the thigh joint moves, feel the socket, sense the space and also the movement and resonance of the movement as its makes a path through the shoulder.

Bend one knee; make circles with your knee in the air, first in one direction, then in another, large at first, then smaller and smaller. Sense the hip socket. The small the circle, the more delicate the movement must be.

Place your hands on the floor and push, find the resistance and allow your body to move when the impulse is there.

Come to Sitting on your bum bones. Sense the bones, the floor. "Send" the bum bones "into" the floor. Let them rest on the floor. Let the floor support your Sitting. Allow your head to rise. Sense the ceiling above, the distance from the top of your head to the ceiling. Let the energy from your head go "through" the ceiling, into the sky above.

Now get up, come to standing but do so with the least effort possible. Find the easiest path. Sense your body in relation to the space around it and sense whether it feels good. If not try again.

Finally, place yourself where you'd like to be with that good feeling. Take a position or posture that enhances the feeling.

 

19.) Control Position

Kneel on the floor, toes on the floor, bum on your heels, your hands hanging down or resting on your thighs. Repeat changing the position of the toes i.e. arched on the tips or outstretched on front joints. Choose which of the two is more comfortable for you.

Take that position. Place your hands on the floor and press your fingers into the ground, then press the palms of your hands into the floor and allow your body to move sensing its direction and flow of force. Press one hand and then the other, find rhythms and play with them.

Take your basic control position again. This time move in such a way as to sense the joints in your ankles and wrists, move around in circles and rock, tilt, bounce and even turn on your side or belly but always keeping contact to the floor with your hands and feet.

Rest on your stomach, move your hands along the floor. Bend your knees and elbows and move to maximize the contact of your torso on the ground.

Lie on your back, with your arms and knees bent like a cat or dog scratching them or looking to be patted on their stomach. Now rock from side to side, let your knees and elbows flop around.

Lies on your back and just place your arms in a non-habitual position or angle, one knee bent, and then both knees bent brought to your stomach, arms and hands across your body.

Imagine a string attached to your elbow and move it back and forth in the direction of the hands as you placed it.

Go down on your hands and knees, moving, allow your body to go as it feels, forward and back, but from the bum bones as a headlight, until going forward (from the point of view of the bum bones), gravity lead your body to fall to a Sitting position. Let go of your hands and Sit.

 

20.) Kneeling

Sitting on the floor, kneeling, feet apart, your bum on the ground as much as possible. If it is painful or ever intolerable stop here and take the following easier position: Sit on the floor with your bum, your feet flat on the floor, shoulders apart.

Explore your Right side from the bum bone along the hipbone to the knee: it's length, texture, points of discomfort. Contact the floor with your hipbone and knee.

Sitting again on your bum-bones, knees apart, feet flat on the floor, bring your Right arm over your head and lean to the Left side allowing your body to follow and back to the ground.

Lies on your back, take your Right hand and draw it up along the floor near your ear.

Draw your arm along to your thigh; explore your wrist bone with the floor. Rock the wrist bone on the floor.

Repeat the above steps with your Left side, Left arm and Left wrist.

Lie on your back, knees bent, feet on the floor, arms outstretched above and behind your head and alongside your ears. Bring your arms down along the side of your body, bring your knees up, and rock your wrists back and forth.

Rock your hips and pelvis back and forth. Find a way to return to the initial kneeling position.

Sit again, feel the new position, your flexibility, your discomfort, how you compensate for stress.

 

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Buddha came to a Rabbi and asked: In the olden days, people saw the messiah everywhere. Nowadays, he is nowhere to be seen. Why is this? Replied the Rabbi: "People no longer linger over the first kiss before entering the Great Loving."

A Rabbi came to Buddha and asked: In your time, people achieved nirvana throughout the land. Why has this changed?" Replied Buddha: "Because no one bows low enough any more".

Mohammed came to Jesus and asked: "In your time resurrection was possible, nowadays, it's unheard of. How is this?" Replied Jesus: "Today, one only sees the mote in the other's eye, not the pole in our own".

A thief came to Buddha begging his help: "Buddha, I'm but a lowly thief, I steal from others, I am wretched, unworthy, how can I stop?" Replied Buddha: "The next time you steal, put your heart into it, pay attention to how you crouch in the grass, the stealth with which you set the ladder, the softness of your steps as you climb into the house, the feel of the money in your hands..." Three weeks later the thief comes running into Buddha's house, crashing through the door, trembling in sweat. "Why so distraught?" asks Buddha. Replies the thief: "I did as you said, I felt myself crouch in the grass, hide my head, slip up the ladder, feel the money in my hands, run through the bushes, and fall into my bed with abandon". "Then what is the matter?", asked Buddha. "I can't do it anymore," cried out the thief. In that very instant, he attained enlightenment.

Victor Levant is a Montreal Psychotherapist. He studied Eutony with Micheline Reynald from 1984-1987.

Gerda Alexander Eutony is a movement therapy approach that is based upon internal awareness. GAE promotes self-sensing and knowing, including sensitivity to the external environment.In 1987,after two years of observation in clinics throughout the world, GAE became the first mind-body discipline accepted by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an alternative health-care technique.