Bell Hand Revelations

Way back in Segment 3, we did a very long series of ATM lessons about the "bell hand". To make a bell hand, close your hand slowly, keeping your fingers straight, and open it back up. The idea is not to open and close it from the fingers, but from the spot in your palm that you're closing around. It's weird and hard and at the time, I really didn't get it. I didn't like that we had to do this movement millions of times, trying to keep the movement consistent and steady while doing other things. We did at least a week's worth of this series and I never really got the hang of it. It was completely frustrating.

Jump back to the present, and I'm doing a 6-week series with Richard (one of my trainers), separate from the training. He calls it Feldenkrais Synergy and it's a combination of ATM and FI. There are five students, and over the course of an hour and a half or so, he gives us an ATM while occasionally pausing the lesson to give us physical input on what we're doing. It's really fun and really informative.

Tonight's lesson involved bell hands and, see if you can figure this one out, bell feet. Maybe it was having Richard come around and physically put his finger on that spot on your palm to close around, or maybe it was my body remembering an old challenge and suddenly understanding it, but tonight, for the first time, the bell hand idea made sense. We used that movement to strengthen the connection of our arms and legs to our torso. I knew how to do it, and I knew what to do with it when I stood up from the lesson. I know that if I make a slight bell foot while I'm standing, the rotation it causes in my leg makes that hip stronger to stand through.

Driving home, my hands were so directly connected to my torso that I needed essentially no extra pressure in my hands to make the steering wheel move. The natural movement of my arms as connected to my torso was enough. When I got home, I realized that I really wanted to try playing piano with my super-sensitive fingers, and it went wonderfully. It occurred to me how weird it is that thinking about the spot where my hand closes while playing piano makes it easier to reach an octave! (I've got small hands and short fingers, and running octaves can usually prove very challenging.)

I know it makes me a nerd, but man, I love this stuff. Very glad Segment 5 is coming up soon with lots of FI practice.

PS. I'm getting a Feldenkrais table! It should be here any day! Look out, guinea pigs. You know who you are.