The ways of the reference movement

Somebody came up with the idea of doing a select movement as a first movement in a Feldenkrais-inspired movement class. And then do it again in between the class, or at least at the end of the class. See how it has changed, improved. Nowadays this is called a reference movement.

Now, in my latest Youtube video [link], titled: Looser, bigger, more relaxed – anatomy with mindful attention *New Neck Series Ep. 2*, I state that there are (at least) two ways to feel, to sense, the structures of the shoulders with the hands:

  1. Either move the fingers over the skin and palpate, sense, feel what you find.
  2. Or place the fingers on the skin, gently, listen, but don’t move the fingers, move the shoulder instead. The bones are moving under the skin and under the hand, and feel, sense, what you find.

This led me to notice something else: we can feel in movement, like for example in a reference movement, or we can feel in resting, for example in lying quietly, in supine position, on the back. How are we resting (as a whole, not just the hand)? What is moving inside? And maybe both are reference movements. Or to invent a new word combo, the latter being a reference rest. Something like that.