Running on All Fours Scan

Running On All Fours Scan

You can use this scan sheet if you would prefer instead of listening to the recording while running outdoors before and after the lesson. Initial Scan

Now let's begin the scan. Please start running at a comfortable pace for you right now. If you have warmup exercises you normally do, please skip them just now. This lesson will have the biggest effect if you take time now to observe the way you naturally and instinctively run. Please don't make judgements about your running based on these questions, make assumptions about what's correct, or try to adjust your form. Right now the only thing you're doing is observing your pre-lesson starting point.

1. First, just get a general sense of what your running feels like today. Heavy or light? Are there places you feel stiff? Are there places you feel like you're working too hard? Are there places that are uncomfortable in some way? 2. How symmetrically does your upper body move? Do you feel your chest or upper back moving, or only your shoulders? 3. Where in your body do you feel like you swing your arms from? Your shoulders? Your back? Your waist? Somewhere else? Does it feel the same for both arms or is one different from the other? 4. What does your pelvis do when you run? Does it hold still or does it move in some way? 5. What is the overall angle of your body to the ground? Do you feel like overall, if you drew a line from feet to head, it would be perpendicular to the ground or do you feel like it would angle forward? 6. How much time do you feel you spend on each foot? Do you feel like the two feet are the same, or do you feel you're heavier or spend longer on one foot than on the other? 7. Find a level area that's about 50 meters or so, the distance can be very approximate but find a landmark to mark a starting line and a finish line. Perhaps a seam in the sidewalk, a lamppost, a tree, something like that. Then run from the start to the finish counting your steps. Turn around and run back, counting them again, to make sure you get the same count. Remember that number.

Final Scan

Now go out again for a run and see what you observe about how running feels. You will probably find it feels quite different. Don’t try to return to how you normally feel, let’s see what these changes are good for.

1 Give yourself a little time with that, and then notice these things:

1. How symmetrically does your upper body move? Do you feel your chest or upper back moving now? 2. Where in your body do you feel like you swing your arms from? Is is possible you feel you do it from deeper in your body now? In fact, you may feel that instead of separate arm and leg movements you now have one coordinated turning and shifting through your torso that reflects itself in arms and legs that move opposite to each other. 3. What does your pelvis do when you run? Does it hold still or does it move in some way? Can you feel any connection across your back from each hip to the opposite shoulder? 4. What is the overall angle of your body to the ground? Check whether you feel like you bend at the hips, like you’re sticking your butt out, or not. Most people will find that they are leaning forward more than they did before and leaning forward from their feet, rather than bending forward at the hips. You may feel like your head is really quite far forward. This may feel like a very foreign running position, but odds are excellent that you are running faster than you did before. See if you feel like that’s so. 5. How much time do you feel you spend on each foot? Do you feel like your legs and your interaction with the ground have become more symmetrical? 6. Return to the area where you measured your steps at the beginning. Then run from the start to the finish counting your steps. Turn around and run back, counting them again, to make sure you get the same count. How does this compare to the number you got before? Different people will notice different changes. If your stride length was being artificially shortened due to immobility in your torso, you may find you cover the distance in fewer steps. If you were reaching out in front of you with your feet and taking overly large steps before you might actually be taking more steps now. If your stride length was already about right for your size and speed then your number of steps won't have changed. The great thing about Feldenkrais lessons is they let everyone regulate their own form, and the same lesson can result in different changes for different people, depending on where they started from.

Now if you're feeling good you can go ahead for an easy run. Enjoy!

The Balanced Runner™ US New York, NY +1 646-256-4414 www.balancedrunner.com [email protected]

The Balanced Runner™ UK Edinburgh and London +44 (0)7500 593 363 www.balancedrunner.co.uk [email protected]

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